Unlocking the cage.

This documentary follows the work of Steven Wise, an American animal rights lawyer. In the Supreme Court in New York, Wise brings the case that animals are not purely property and should have the same rights as humans; habeas corpus. Three years prior to the trial, we learn how Wise chose this path (there are distressing scenes of animals in experiments and in slaughterhouses). In a lecture environment he explains the concept of personhood. He argues that great apes, elephants, cetaceans (dolphins, whales, orcas) should also be persons with inherent rights. He discusses this with David Favre, a fellow lawyer and advisor. In framing his argument, he visits a chimpanzee sanctuary in Canada and speaks to primatologist, Mary Lee Jensvold. She cares for a chimpanzee adopted by Allen and Beatrix Gardner for their pogramme of teaching American Sign Language to primates. In Japan and Des Moines, US, the latter with Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, primatologist, there are different research programmes which measure the cognitive abilities of primates. The team consider the cases of four primates looking for a suitable candidate for their test case. Merlin is a captive chimpanzee who has just lost his cage mate. This contrasts with the fate of the primates in the Save the Chimpanzee Sanctuary, where the chimps are allowed to have some autonomy. Some of the chimps in the sanctuary are from NASA's space programmes (there is archive of a chimp being launched into space). Many of the chimps were transferred to the Coulston Labs, a biomedical testing facility with a record of animal welfare violations. The sanctuary rescued 266 chimps from Coulston. Unexpectedly, their petitioner for the legal case, Merlin dies. In Niagara, Wise goes on a recce to look for other potential cases. Another one of the chimps dies suddenly (the animals have spent many decades in captivity) which means the team has to widen their search. At a trailer park living in an unsuitable environment, Wise finds another older chimp also lacking a companion. The chimp was another former trained television actor. Another pair of primates are being held at Stony Brook School of Medicine in their primate locomotion laboratory. Hercules and Leo are the chimp test subjects. A workshop to prepare for the legal hearing doesn't go well, but once the case is in process, the media gets behind Wise. The court rejects Wise's bid to confer personhood to chimpanzees in Tommy's case. Kiko's case also failed due to another legal argument (and in Wise's eyes, a form of legal prejudice). Suddenly, regarding the Stony Brook chimps Hercules and Leo, the judge appears to agree to the writ for habeas corpus (she later crosses these words out). She appears to have misunderstood the nature of the case and the opposing legal teams throw up significant legal obstacles in court. In Argentina, an orangutan is given legal status and despite sympathy from the judge regarding Wise's legal argument, she denies Hercules and Leo habeas corpus 'for now'.