Alrighty, alrighty, let's bust this thing out.

Hey, this is Nate from Outside In, we're a podcast all about the environment.

And I'm Hannah McCarthy, co-host of Civics 101. We talk all about the government.

And a few weeks ago, we made a special crossover episode about an elephant named Happy.

We're now about to see our Asian Elephant Happy.

That's a good day, I'm close to looking happy, so let's go.

Now you may remember a group of lawyers had petitioned courts New York State for a writ of habeas corpus.

It was a legal maneuver that if granted, would mean happy as entitled to rights previously reserved for human beings.

And she'd be freed from the bronx sue and then placed into an animal sanctuary in Tennessee.

If you haven't listened to the episode, you should go check it out now.

But we promised you an update on her legal fight after the New York State Court of Appeals issued their final decision.

So here it is. The judges have handed down the ruling and drum roll please,

or maybe I should do like elephant stomping drum roll.

Happy lost.

That's right.

But this case was always a long shot, so I was actually a little surprised to see that it was a five to decision,

which means the court was actually split.

So let's dive first into the majority opinion.

The judges essentially said that even though happy is a highly intelligent animal,

I mean we're talking smarter than a two year old toddler, bottom line only human beings are eligible for a writ of habeas corpus.

And they also took issue with how happy lawyers compared the plight of an elephant with that of enslaved people.

Right, and like just as a refresher, this did not work out well for animal rights activists when they use this same strategy in the past.

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