Reuters
NEW YORK
The chimpanzees at the centre of a New York State Supreme Court case over the legal rights of animals will no longer be used for research, officials at the State University of New York at Stony Brook said on Friday. The retirement of the chimps, named Hercules and Leo, follows a failed bid by an animal rights group in state court to get the primates released on legal grounds. The Nonhuman Rights Project, which advocates for the legal rights of animals, in March sued Stony Brook, where the chimps were used for physiological research. On Thursday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe dismissed the suit, which aimed to get the chimpanzees relocated to a sanctuary in Florida by arguing they had a right not to be living in cages. They said the animals were intelligent enough to be allowed protections that apply to humans, like relief from unlawful imprisonment.