DENVER — Five elephants at a Colorado zoo may be “majestic” but because they are not humans, they have no legal right to seek their release, Colorado’s highest court said Tuesday.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruling follows a similar court defeat in New York in 2022 for an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo in a case brought by an animal rights group. The rulings in favor of the animals would have allowed lawyers for Happy and the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs (Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo) to begin a lengthy legal process for the prisoners to challenge their detention and possibly sent to live in an elephant sanctuary.
The Colorado court said its decision “does not depend on our respect for these majestic animals.”
“Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person,” the court said. “And since an elephant is not a person, elephants here have no standing to file a habeas corpus claim,” the ruling said.
The same animal rights group that tried to secure Happy’s release, the Nonhuman Rights Project, also brought the case in Colorado.
The group argued that Colorado’s elephants, born in the wild in Africa, have shown signs of brain damage because the zoo is essentially a prison for such intelligent and social creatures, which are known to wander miles a day. He wanted the animals to be released into one of two accredited elephant sanctuaries in the United States because the group believes they can no longer live in the wild.
The zoo argued that moving the elephants and potentially placing them with new animals would be cruel at their age and possibly cause unnecessary stress. He said they are not used to being in larger herds and, based on the zoo’s observations, the elephants do not have the skills or desire to join one.
While welcoming the Colorado court ruling, the zoo said it was disappointed that there had to be a legal fight over the issue and accused the Nonhuman Rights Project of “abusing the court systems” to raise funds.
“It appears that his true goal is to manipulate people into donating to his cause by incessantly publicizing sensational court cases with incessant appeals to his followers to donate,” the zoo said in a statement.
The Nonhuman Rights Project said the latest ruling “perpetuates a clear injustice” and predicted that future courts would reject the idea that only humans have the right to liberty.
“As with other social justice movements, early losses are expected as we challenge an entrenched status quo that has allowed Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo to be relegated to a life of physical and mental suffering,” he said in a statement. .
