Protect The Harvest | Ojai, California’s Elephant Rights Ordinance: “What Were They Thinking?”

On September 26, 2023, Ojai, California, passed an ordinance that defines and protects “rights to liberty” for elephants, thereby creating the nation’s first sanctuary city for elephants! Formally titled “Adding the Right to Bodily Liberty for Elephants,” this document was introduced by city council member Leslie Rule. It was created in cooperation with the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), an animal rights extremist group.

The ordinance stems from the findings of animal researchers who claim elephants possess some human attributes, including long-term memories, learning abilities, empathy, and self-awareness. Unlike humans, elephants do not have opposable thumbs or the ability to build structures, fly airplanes, produce food, or engage in other activities routinely undertaken by humans. Those realities did not deter Leslie Rule and the NhRP.

This is a disturbing development that’s become a trend gaining momentum in the animal rights extremist space, especially when it relates to wild animals in captivity.

What are Nonhuman Animal Rights?

NhRP prides itself on being the only civil rights organization exclusively focused on granting animals legal rights “based on fundamental values and principles of justice, liberty, autonomy, equality and fairness.” No doubt they applaud the Biden administration’s moronic decision to reintroduce apex predator grizzly bears back into the wilds of Washington State,