It’s a Legal Jungle Out There

Animals aren’t usually known as sticklers for privacy. They don’t wear clothes, they lick themselves in public and, if an amorous dog decides to have an intimate moment with your aunt’s leg, it rarely bothers to rent out a honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

But things are changing. Thanks to a mysterious death in Washington, animals could soon be entitled to the same privacy rights as humans.

The trouble started when a gassy, arthritic giraffe named Ryma keeled over at the National Zoo earlier this year. The official cause of death was listed as tympany, a digestive ailment in which cud-chewing animals cannot belch excessive gas from their stomachs.

There was just one hitch. Tympany is common among dairy cows but rarely kills giraffes. A suspicious Washington Post reporter asked for medical records on the giraffe.

But zoo director Lucy Spelman refused, saying disclosure of the records would violate the giraffe’s privacy rights. In a letter to the Post, she said the same privacy principles that protect physician-patient relationships also apply to veterinarian-giraffe relationships.

Never mind that zoo officials see no ethical problems with letting Internet surfers spy on their beasts via a “Naked Mole-rat Cam,” a “Panda Cam” and a “Giraffe Cam.”

And never mind that most legal experts scoff at the notion of animal privacy. Eric Glitzenstein, an animal-protection attorney whose clients have included circus elephants and polar bears, called the concept of critter privacy rights “mind-boggling.”

So why would the National Zoo make such a claim? Is it trying to hide an unsavory chapter from Ryma the giraffe’s past?

To find out, we interviewed the only other giraffe we know, Geoffrey, the Toys R Us mascot. “Ryma was murdered,” Geoffrey said flatly, puffing on a cigarette. “Think about it. He lived in Washington, just a few blocks from the White House. And he had a long neck. Get it? Ryma was ‘Deep Throat,’ the anonymous source who helped Woodward and Bernstein unravel the Watergate scandal during Richard Nixon’s presidency.”

We had to admit the theory made sense. Why else would a zoo owned by the prestigious Smithsonian Institution cover up an animal’s personnel file, except to protect national security? And why else would the Washington Post suddenly drop its investigation of a mysterious animal death, unless it would mean revealing that the paper’s star reporters based their entire Watergate series on information from a 17-foot-tall mammal with a 21-inch tongue and a brain the size of several pingpong balls?

Even if Ryma wasn’t Deep Throat, withholding his records for privacy reasons could set a dangerous precedent. What if other animals start claiming privacy rights?

For example, in New York City, dogs could file lawsuits forcing the city to build sidewalk animal restrooms so pooches no longer have to relieve themselves in public. These Porta-Poodle restrooms would have doggy-door entrances and fire hydrants in each stall.

Likewise, celebrity animals like Mr. Ed, Flipper and Scooby-Doo could file invasion-of-privacy lawsuits to stop supermarket tabloids from publishing embarrassing tales about their drug abuse (“Party Animal Morris the Cat Enters Betty Ford Clinic for Catnip Addiction”), illnesses (“84 of 101 Dalmatians Afflicted with Worms!”) and affairs (“Tony the Tiger in Secret Tryst With the Exxon Tiger!”).

And Beverly Hills pets might decide that nudity is a violation of their privacy rights and obtain court orders requiring their owners to buy them Armani wardrobes.

It might sound far-fetched, but judges are already showing undue sympathy to animal-rights causes. This week, the World Wrestling Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. after a London court said the initials WWF could only be used by the World Wildlife Fund.