Jul 23, 2017 4 min read

It’s probably no accident that PETA rhymes with PITA.

For more than 50 years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has staged a series of questionable stunts designed to raise awareness of mistreatment of animals. I’m all for animal rights. But sometimes the stunts beg the question of whether the monkeys are running the zoo.

Take, for example, the case of Naruto, an Indonesian macaque monkey who is currently the center of a PETA-filed lawsuit against British nature photographer David Slater. In 2011, Slater traveled to Sulawesi, Indonesia, to take a series of photographs in a macaque colony. Slater worked with a group of macaques, making them comfortable enough to approach his camera, set up on a tripod, and press the shutter while looking into the camera lens. When Slater left the camera unattended, a macaque – named Naruto by workers in the colony – took a few snapshots. Slater then published several “monkey selfies” in a book called “Wildlife Personalities.” When the photos were appropriated by Wikipedia and other outlets without compensation in 2014, Slater asked them to stop using the photos. They refused, saying that Naruto, not Slater, owned the rights to the picture.

If you’re thinking this scenario sounds like something drawn from an unaired episode of “Green Acres,” in which Arnold Ziffel the writing pig sues Oliver and Lisa Douglas for stealing his diaries, I agree. But this case is a lot more far-fetched.

In 2014, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that animals cannot own copyrights. In 2015, however, PETA sued on behalf of Naruto, seeking to establish that the macaque owns the “monkey selfies” because he had pressed the shutter. In 2016, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled against PETA, stating Naruto lacked standing to sue, but stopped short of establishing whether an animal can own a copyright. PETA appealed Orrick’s decision. Slater – who claims to have made only enough money from the book to cover his trip to Indonesia – countered that PETA can’t even be sure that Naruto is the macaque pictured. Nevertheless, PETA asked the court to grant it permission to administer Naruto’s copyright, with all proceeds from sales of the selfies going to benefit “Naruto and his community.” Arguments in the case were held July 13, but a final ruling has not yet been made.

“Naruto and community?” He has heirs? Will the money go into Naruto’s IBA (Individual Banana Account)?

Life imitates art: When I was a minion in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center public relations gristmill, the late Dr. Thomas E. Starzl headed the team of surgeons that performed the first baboon-to-human liver transplant. PETA didn’t like it, and protests took the form not only of picketing, but also of sending a loaf of banana bread, with instructions to deliver it to the transplant recipient, to our offices. I and many of my fellow writers found this hilarious, and we soon began the surreptitious publication of a newspaper called “The Simian: Written by Baboons for Baboons.” In its pages we wove the story of the liver transplant from the point of view of the baboon, which we named “Scratch.” Over time, we ran stories of the plight of his grieving widow, “Honey,” and their now fatherless children. Eventually, Honey remarried – to the son of the Pittsburgh malpractice attorney who had handled her malpractice suit against UPMC. We thought “The Simian” implausibly funny. Now I think we might have been visionaries.

Because of Naruto vs. Slater, we may soon be seeing “The Animals’ Court” on cable TV.

In this week’s show: “Three Bears vs. Goldilocks: A Tale of Home Invasion.”

Representing the plaintiffs: F. Lee Bearly.