Thanks to 100 hippos, animals are recognized as legal persons for the first time in U.S. history.
Corporations have enjoyed legal personhood since the 19th century. Now, it seems, they have company. A dispute over the fate of hippos in Colombia has given rise to a federal court ruling in Ohio that, for the first time in American law, recognises animals as people.
This should come as welcome news to the 100-plus hippos of Colombia’s Magdalena river. They are the offspring of four hippos smuggled into the country by Pablo Escobar, a drug lord. After …
