Obama-appointed judge declares animals can sue in court as “persons”

Posted October 24, 2021

Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos are declared ‘legal persons’ in landmark ruling by federal court in US which could prevent all of them from being sterilized and culled

About the Obama-appointed judge, Magistrate Judge Karen L. Litkovitz, who decided hippos are people https://www.ohsd.uscourts.gov/magistrate-judge-karen-l-litkovitz

Consequences of this decision could be far-reaching.  Here, we have a non-native species that was introduced illegally by a violent drug lord. The hippos present a danger to local people and to the environment where the hippos have settled, half a world away from where they belong.  They are breeding without control in the absence of natural predators.

If this judge’s “bizarro world” decision cannot be overturned on appeal to higher courts, then feral horses and even feral pigs could be likewise allowed to breed out of control, destroy natural ecosystems, and potentially spread foreign animal diseases such as FMD. with no legal remedy.  Could this eventually result in native endangered species such as jaguars suing the hippos for trespass and the hippos counter-suing the jaguars for squatters’ rights?