Chimps Held in Captivity on College Campus Compared to Slaves in US Court

An attorney called for two chimpanzees in the custody of the State University of New York (SUNY) to be released from their "unlawful detention," and compared their captivity to slavery today in a Manhattan court.

"We had a history of that for hundreds of years, saying black people are not part of society, and you can enslave them. That wasn't right. It didn't work," Steven Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), told New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe in a packed courtroom.

In April, attorneys with the NhRP briefly made history when Jaffe issued a writ of habeas corpus — a type of court order typically used in cases where a human being has challenged the legality of their imprisonment — for two 8-year-old chimps, Hercules and Leo, living in captivity at SUNY's Stony Brook campus on Long Island. Jaffe reversed the order after about 48 hours.

Related: A Lawyer Makes the Case for Chimpanzee Personhood

Wise said on Wednesday that the chimps are "autonomous beings… they are self-conscious… they can understand what others are thinking," according to the New York Post.

"Arbitrarily condemning an autonomous being to a life of slavery could eat away at the rights that we humans thought we had," Wise said.

Hercules and Leo did not attend the hearing in the flesh. Christopher Coulsto, a representative for SUNY, appeared to argue why it's legal for the school to hold the primates in captivity.

"The reality is these are fundamentally different species. They have no ability to partake in human society," Coulston said in response to Wise's slavery claim, according to the Post.

While the case will not grant the chimps legal status as persons, it will address major concerns regarding the rights of animals. Jaffe will rule on the case in the coming weeks.

The NhRP, which includes famed chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall on its board of directors, seeks to change the common law status of cognitively complex animals such as elephants, chimpanzees, whales, and dolphins. The organization's lawyers are advocating for SUNY to release the chimps so that they can be transferred to Save the Chimps, a sanctuary in Florida where they would be able to roam more freely.

"Currently, nonhuman animals have no rights at all; they are considered legal things," NhRP executive director Natalie Prosin said in an email to VICE News, adding that the SUNY case and two others filed in New York are the first time anybody has asked a common law court "to grant a nonhuman animal legal personhood with the fundamental right to bodily liberty to which we believe they are entitled."

Studies have long shown that the cognitive performance levels of chimps prove that they are intelligent, self-aware, and imaginative creatures. Chimps can live up to 50 years, and have been shown to mourn the deaths of their peers. In early April, a chimp at a Netherlands zoo used a stick to knock down a drone-mounted camera, and footage from the device showed the animal peering into the lens as if taking a selfie.

"They really do show the full range of emotions that you would see with humans," Molly Polidoroff, executive director of Save the Chimps told VICE News. "Whether it be sorrow, sadness, or joy. When we do enrichment activities for chimps, the reaction is just sheer joy."

Related: Chimpanzees Enjoy Solving Puzzles Just as Much as Humans

But because chimps raised in confinement lack the instincts necessary to survive in the wild, Polidoroff said freed animals must be housed in sanctuaries.

The Save the Chimps sanctuary is home to chimps formerly utilized in biomedical laboratories, kept as pets, or used in the entertainment industry. The organization currently holds 255 chimps on 12 separate three-acre islands. The chimps receive three meals a day comprised of fresh fruit and vegetables. They are also introduced to other families of chimps and live in groups.

"The main thing is being able to enjoy the freedom of the habitat," Polidoroff said. "They are in an environment where they are really living in a habitat that approximates what they would have in the wild habitat in terms of the community of chimpanzees."

The NhRP has also filed a lawsuit on behalf of a chimp named Tommy, seeking to have the animal released from a "small, dank cement cage in a cavernous dark shed" in Gloversville, New York. Another case involves Kiko, a chimp being kept in a house in Niagara Falls.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary US government agency responsible for biomedical and health-related research, promised in 2013 that the majority of their 310 research chimps would be released and retired to sanctuaries, very few— only six, as of February — have actually been allowed to leave.

According to Polidoroff, the NhRP cases could open the door for more confined chimps to be released, potentially straining the resources of existing sanctuaries. "It would challenge us to make sure we have the capacity to rescue more chimps," she said.

Related: How a Ragged Band of Chimpanzees Survives on the Edge of Human Civilization

Follow Arijeta Lajka on Twitter: @arijetalajka