Sandra (orangutan)

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Sandra , formerly Marisa (born on February 14, 1986 in Rostock , then GDR) is a female orangutan who became known worldwide through a court judgment. Sandra's release from an Argentine zoo has been ordered by the court. On November 5, 2019, they arrived in their new habitat, a reservation for apes in Wauchula in the State of Florida .

Life

Sandra was born as a hybrid in the Rostock Zoo - half Sumatran orangutan , half Borneo orangutan . It weighs 53 kilograms. She lived for a few years in the former Ruhr Zoo in Gelsenkirchen and was moved to Buenos Aires on September 17, 1994. She has a daughter named Shembira, who was born on March 2, 1999 and was transferred to a wildlife park in China. Attempts to mate her with a male named Max failed. Sandra hid in the outdoor enclosure, even in rain and snow.

liberation

In 2010 an attempt by Austrian animal rights activists to obtain the release of the chimpanzee Hiasl at the European Court of Human Rights failed due to a formal error. In 2013, representatives of the Nonhuman Rights Project tried in a US court in New York State to have chimpanzees partially treated as equal to humans. Since these great apes are very similar to humans in many areas, they should be recognized and released as legal entities. But the court ruled that great apes are not a person under the Habeas Corpus Act , the law protecting personal freedom, it said.

From 2014 the Argentine animal welfare organization AFADA fought in court for the release of Sandra. The arguments were based on the feelings of the monkey. On October 21, 2015, judge Elena Liberatori ruled that the animal was a "non-human person". For the first time in the world, a zoo animal was partially legally equated with humans. Since the ape is unable to adapt to life in the wild due to her genetic disposition, the judge made the decision in 2017 about her future whereabouts, a supervised outdoor enclosure in Florida , where, according to the judge, she will end her old age in a more dignified environment can spend.

The process of Sandra's fundamental rights contributed significantly to the fact that the Buenos Aires Zoo was closed in mid-2016. It was decided to convert it into an ecopark, and a research and educational facility to preserve biodiversity will be built there by 2023 .

On the night of September 26-27, 2019, Sandra was flown to Dallas in the US state of Texas. Attorney Andres Gil Dominguez explained that she was not placed in the passenger compartment but in the cargo hold. The unusual transportation took eleven hours and posed challenges for American Airlines , but they were overcome. The monkey arrived in good condition at Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita , Kansas, where she was quarantined for around forty days . She then moved to the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula . 21 orangutans and 31 chimpanzees already live there, including two prominent great apes , Bubbles , Michael Jackson's former pet , and Sammy, leading actor in the film Dunston - Alone in the Hotel . Patti Ragan, director of the facility, told CNN that Sandra had shown herself to be "curious, calm, committed and interested in her new surroundings" after arriving at the reservation. When she arrived, she was quite shy, "but when she saw the swings, toys and grassy areas in her new home, she went to explore the area." Ragan believes that Sandra's celebrities will make a significant contribution to understanding the sensitivity of great apes, and also to the threats to the orangutans still living in the wild in Borneo and Sumatra: "The destruction of habitats through deforestation , mining and palm oil cultivation causes the loss of Hundreds of orangutans who are just as smart and lovable as Sandra. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ confilegal.com: Una orangután en el Palacio de Justicia , accessed on January 9, 2020 /
  2. ↑ dw.com: Orangutan leaves Argentina zoo for new life as 'nonhuman person' , accessed January 9, 2020
  3. ↑ The Intimate Ape: Read the judge's decision that the orangutan Sandra is a "non-human person" , October 25, 2015, here the verdict in full length in Spanish
  4. ↑ Deutsche Welle : Orangutan leaves Argentina zoo for new life as 'nonhuman person' , September 27, 2019 (Engl.)
  5. ^ ORF (Vienna): Freedom after 25 years of imprisonment , September 27, 2019
  6. ↑ ORF: Female orangutan Sandra is a "non-human person" , September 27, 2019
  7. ↑ Business Insider: The 140-year-old Buenos Aires Zoo is shutting down after a string of preventable animal deaths , accessed January 9, 2020
  8. ↑ Simple Flying: Here's How American Airlines Transported An Orangutan From Buenos Aires To Dallas , October 16, 2019
  9. ↑ Kleine Zeitung: Orangutan Sandra Freiheit after 33 years in captivity , accessed on December 11, 2019
  10. ↑ Center for Great Apes: Sandra , accessed January 9, 2020
  11. ↑ a b CNN : Sandra the orangutan, freed from a zoo after being granted 'personhood,' settles into her new home , November 9, 2019 (with two photos of Sandra), accessed on January 9, 2020

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