His enemies are divided only in the sense that some...

The animal rights group that’s fighting to transfer Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo to a sanctuary is now applauding a judge’s decision to make sure the pachyderm stays put.

The Nonhuman Rights Project on Monday obtained a temporary restraining order in Bronx Supreme Court preventing the zoo from moving Happy, age 48, out of New York State before an Oct. 21 hearing.

The group asked for the restraining order after lawyers for the zoo refused to promise not to send the tusker away, it said.

“This refusal represents a marked departure from the Bronx Zoo’s previous assurance that it had no intention of moving Happy,” the group said.

Though the move to ask for a restraining order seems counterintuitive, “the fear we have is that they will move Happy out of New York. Once she leaves the state, the court has no authority,” Kevin R. Schneider, NhRP’s Executive Director, told The Post.

“We couldn’t allow the risk of the Bronx Zoo just up and move her.”

The group didn’t have any indication that the zoo was going to ship out the elephant — but wanted to be sure, Schneider said.

Happy has lived at the zoo since 1977. The animal activists argue that her “liberty is being violated” by her cramped lonely, quarters.

They want her moved to the Performing Animal Welfare Society Wildlife Sanctuary in California or to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, Schneider said.

The zoo argues that Happy is receiving loving care from workers and that to move her would cause her harm.

A Bronx Zoo rep reiterated that they want Happy to stay put and blasted the implication they would just ‘up and move’ the mammal before Oct. 21 as “naive, if not absurd.”

“We have no intention of moving her,” the rep said. “This is just another effort on their part to stay in the media by using our name and using our elephant in their quest to have animals declared persons.”