# Steven Wise: Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights

Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals' status from "things" to "persons." It's not a matter of legal semantics; as he describes in this fascinating talk, recognizing that animals like chimps have extraordinary cognitive capabilities and rethinking the way we treat them — legally — is no less than a moral duty.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2015
- Runtime: 14 min
- By: TED.com
- Genres: Education, Nature
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/StevenWise_2015)
- Licence or status: [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/StevenWise_2015?play=1)