The Other Elephant

There was always an irony to Happy's name.

The elephant's misfortune stamped her a celebrity.

In their home in the wild, female Asian elephants roam for hundreds of miles and form lifelong attachments to a group of around seven relatives.

In her home in the Bronx Zoo, Happy lived alone in a small exhibit.

She had been separated for decades from the zoo's other two Asian elephants, Maxine and Patty, for her own protection.

So Happy became famous for her https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/nyregion/the-bronx-zoos-loneliest-elephant.html">loneliness, deprived of companionship, of family, of physical touch.

But Happy was smart, too.

She stored treats in her ear.

She was the first elephant to https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0608062103">pass the mirror self-recognition test, proving her self-awareness when she saw her reflection and poked with her trunk at a white X painted on her forehead.

In 2018, the Nonhuman Rights Project, an animal rights nonprofit, sued the Bronx Zoo to move Happy to a sanctuary, arguing that the elephant, in part because of her intelligence, should legally be considered a person.

The suit was unsuccessful, and so Happy stayed put in her enclosure until her health deteriorated earlier this year.

She was euthanized on May 26 at the age of 55.

Patty, now the last elephant at the Bronx Zoo, lived much of her life in Happy's shadow.

While clever Happy passed the mirror test, slow Patty did not.

Patty has never been the subject of a lawsuit arguing for her personhood.

Patty posed a different kind of problem for the zoo.

In the summer of 2002, Patty and Maxine fatally attacked Happy's companion of 25 years, Grumpy, forcing the zoo to separate the elephants and making it harder for the public to root for Patty.

When Happy died in May, the Wildlife Conservation Society, or WCS, which runs the Bronx Zoo, issued a https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/26236/Happy-a-Much-Loved-Asian-Elephant-at-the-WCS-Bronx-Zoo-Has-Died.aspx">press release referring to her as "Happy, a Much-Loved Asian Elephant." On July 7, the WCS issued https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/26395/The-Future-of-Patty-an-Asian-Elephant-at-WCSs-Bronx-Zoo-Will-Be-Decided-by-One-Standard-Whats-Best-for-Patty.aspx">another press release about "Patty, an Asian Elephant." Patty, it seems, is not so loved.

Now Patty, 57, has once again become a problem for the Bronx Zoo.

Captive and wild elephants have been known to live into their 70s, and Patty has no known physical health issues.

With Happy's death, Patty has become the loneliest elephant.

As such, the WCS is evaluating what should happen to her next—if she will be sent to a sanctuary to join other elephants in a better simulacrum of wilderness, or if she will live out her years at the only home she has known for half a century, alone.