Steven Wise: The Nonhuman Rights Project
People who go to see films in which there are apes, whether they are chimpanzees or gorillas or orangutans, don’t for a second thing that those animals are doing what they’re doing because they want to. They’ve been terrorized into it. They’ve been forced into it.
The same thing with almost every kind of wild animal who’s being forced to do something, say in a film or in a circus, those animals have been terrorized and beaten into submission. So, as you might imagine, neither Kiko nor Tommy have had any kind of a life that is fit, for a chimpanzee. And for elephants, certainly, who’s an autonomous being, who are forced into that sort of a situation, you can imagine what was done to those beings to make them do that sort of thing.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Now, tell me about Beulah, Karen, Minnie, a little bit about their stories.
Steven Wise: Yes, two of them were actually captured from the wild in the 1980s. So, they’ve actually known a life of living free. And since then, for decades now, they have lived at the Commerford Zoo in Connecticut, in a small town in Connecticut, and they basically are part of a traveling circus. The elephants are put into trucks, and they’re trucked all over northeastern parts of the United States. And they go to fairs.
I actually went to see them as part of an investigation as to whether we were gonna file a lawsuit on their behalf. In fact, if you see the film Unlocking the Cage, the very last scene is a film of me watching them and photographing them.
And what I saw was them having to stay the entire day indoors, and people just sit on their back, and they pay to have the elephants just walk around in circles hour after hour after hour. And that’s their lives. They walk around in circles, for weeks, for months, for years, for decades. They’ve trucked around. It’s a horrible, horrible life for an elephant.
To enslave them in that way and, doom them to just being trucked around and walking around in circles with people sitting on their back is terrible. And we are going to do the best we can to free them, from their enslavement. They’re slaves, and we’re going to we’re doing the best we can to win habeas corpus, to have them freed.
And there’s a wonderful elephant sanctuary called PAWS, or the Performing Animal Welfare Society, near Sacramento, California.
They have agreed to take those three elephants and allow them to live the rest of their lives, with other elephants on many, many acres of land in California where the most important thing is these autonomous beings will be able to live an autonomous life, a life in which they can choose who their friends are going to be, what they’re going to do, where they’re going to be just like you, and I would want to do.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Unlocking the Cage was first premiered in 2016 at the Sundance Film Festival, and it’s been shown on HBO, and it’s on Netflix, BBC4, etc. What has the reaction been to that movie?
Steven Wise: It’s been extraordinary. First of all, the filmmakers, Chris Hedgedus and D.A. Pennebaker, are, perhaps the two greatest living documentary filmmakers. D.A. Pennebaker’s now 93 years old. He’s one of the only documentary filmmakers to win an Academy Award for lifetime achievement. So, he’s an extraordinary filmmaker and his wife, and fellow filmmaker Chris Hedgedus has been with him for probably 30, 40 years. She’s also an extraordinary filmmaker. They’re both Academy Award nominees for documentary films they’ve done.
I had no idea, what the reaction would be. And actually, the first time I ever saw the film was at Sundance at a showing with 800 people. And when the film ended, to my astonishment, 800 people stood up and gave us a standing ovation. I was amazed. And then they did it again and again. I think they showed it five or six times at Sundance, and people kept giving us standing ovations. And now, we’re all around the world. And so, across the world, I was just at a showing of it in Katmandu, Nepal just four weeks ago, and before that, I was in Helsinki a month before that. All over the world, people really are moved by it and are determined to join our work and do what they can to gain legal personhood and legal rights in nonhuman animals, as well.
UNLOCKING THE CAGE is a documentary that follows animal rights lawyer Steven Wise in his battle against an ineffective animal welfare system in an attempt to transform animal rights into legal protections. Legendary filmmakers D.A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus discuss Steven Wise, the rights of Chimpanzees and the three main subjects of their films.
Steven Wise: We are a 501C3, charitable organization. So, we are funded entirely by donations either through foundations or through individuals.
Sandie Sedgbeer: And I would imagine that Unlocking the Cage has helped, really educate the public and that, people are donating more to this?
Steven Wise: Yes, we have found that Unlocking the Cage is a wonderful calling card for us so that people can see who we are. Sometimes, people think that animal rights folks must be inherently crazy in some way, and they can see that we are, very serious, well-prepared lawyers, which whatever the opposite of crazy is, that’s us. And they can see how effective we are. So, that has been really helpful.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You must have felt appalled by the latest actions of the Trump Administration to lift the ban on importing elephant trophies from Africa. Tell us what that means in real terms.
Steven Wise: I can’t really tell where we are on that. I think, first, they lifted the ban, and then I think there’s been a, at least a temporary reinstatement of the ban while the Trump Administration reevaluates it. But, the Trump Administration at the federal level has done all sorts of things that simply reverse protections for nonhuman animals that the Obama Administration had given.
For example, you’re allowed to shoot hibernating bears where you weren’t allowed to do it during the Obama Administration. And it’s actually something that we point out to people when we’re trying to explain why we are unique and why what we’re doing is so important.
I think the Trump Administration has really demonstrated that for us, that when there are just simply protections or regulations that protect nonhuman animals, well, someone else can come in later on and just reverse them as the Trump Administration’s doing.
However, when there are rights, it’s a lot harder to reverse those. As the Trump Administration’s finding that out, as well, that they don’t have too many problems making it easier to exploit and kill nonhuman animals, but they’re having a real problem when they try to infringe upon legal rights, and the courts are stepping in and saying, no way, we’re not letting you do that. And that’s what we point out. For human beings, rights are extraordinarily important. Protections are not enough all by themselves. And the exact same thing is true for nonhuman beings, that it’s rights that protect your fundamental interest and just for nonhuman beings the way they are for human beings.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Now, the Nonhuman Rights Project is helping organizations, student clubs, and communities host public screenings of Unlocking the Cage. You’re helping them with free one-time licenses for public screenings, helping draw in supporters in local areas to attend the screening. And you’ve provided a citizen action toolkit on your website, as well. What other ways can the public help you?
Steven Wise: The public can help us by doing things like showing the film at film parties. Although we are the stars and the subjects of Unlocking the Cage, we don’t own it, and when we show it, we have to pay for licenses, as well. So, we have purchased probably 100 to 200 licenses, and we do then allow people to show them for free after we’ve paid those.
In the United States, and I’m not exactly sure this works now outside the United States, but if someone texts the word unlock, U-N-L-O-C-K, unlock to 52886, then assuming it works outside the United States, then something will pop up, and we will then start asking the questions, and we’ll get you in our database, and we’ll be talking to you about how you might support us depending on where you are. We love when people donate, and if you go to our website, which is nonhumanrights.org, we have a donate button.
Continue to Page 4 of the Interview with Steven Wise
