Happy the elephant reappears in Bronx Zoo exhibit yard

Happy needs your help more than ever. The toll that a half century of captivity has had on Happy is again on full display in the Bronx Zoo exhibit yard.

After ten weeks of confinement in the elephant barn, Happy was finally seen in the exhibit yard this week. The photo above–one of several taken Sunday by an NhRP supporter–shows Happy lying on a dirt patch with her eyes open. We don’t know how long she was lying down (outside of the period in which our source saw her via the monorail) but she did get back up only to almost immediately lie down again. This is one of several times Happy has been observed lying down this week. As far as is known, this pattern of lying down in the exhibit yard isn’t normal for Happy. From the time we began monitoring this exhibit in 2018 until her disappearance from view this summer, we and our sources only ever observed Happy in a standing position in this yard.

The photos also show significant damage to Happy’s feet which itself raises serious questions about Happy’s health. For example, why is she choosing to lie down during the few hours she has available outside? Is she trying to find relief from joint and foot pain caused by decades of standing in the exhibit? Does she spend most of her time in the barn lying down as well? Because of the Bronx Zoo’s refusal to be transparent, we can’t definitively answer these questions, among countless others. But we and the elephant experts we’ve consulted with continue to suspect something is seriously wrong with Happy and the zoo won’t acknowledge it publicly.

You can help by 1) sharing this Instagram post or this Facebook post 2) contacting the Bronx Zoo via social media or their customer service line to politely urge them to #FreeHappy and #FreePatty to a sanctuary. 

Whatever is wrong specifically, it’s appalling that the Bronx Zoo has put the suffering of elephants on display for decades–favoring its own interests at the expense of Happy and Patty’s. In the end, though, the dire, unjust situation these elephants are in is about something much bigger than the Bronx Zoo. It’s about the fact that elephants don’t have the legal right to be free from unjust captivity–captivity that slowly but surely destroys them in body and mind.