Flux has been scouting out the latest and greatest in legal news for us, and now we can all read about the quest to grant legal person-hood to a chimpanzee in Austria. The campaign is trying to get some degree of legal protection for Hiasl, a 26 year old chimpanzee, who would then be able to receive personal donations and gain protection from, say, someone buying him and moving him to a country with fewer animal protection laws. The push for rights stops before Hiasl gets the ability to vote, which I hear is really pissing off the Bananas Party, but the case, if successful, would lead to some interesting future developments in animal rights. We already grant tons of rights to things called corporations, and I’m not saying good or bad things about that, just saying, is all, but if a virtual entity has been able to collect money and protect itself from danger for a bazillion years before they invented Second Life, maybe it’s time to look at the rights for living creatures from the same perspective.
