An attempt to free five elephants from a Colorado zoo has been rejected after a court ruled that elephants are not human.
An animal rights group claimed that Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo were actually imprisoned at the zoo and filed a petition to have them moved to an elephant sanctuary.
He tried to launch a habeas corpus petition on behalf of the animals – a legal process that allows a person to challenge their detention in court.
The Colorado Supreme Court said the matter came down to “whether an elephant is a person” and therefore whether it has the same rights to liberty as a human – ultimately ruling that it did not.
He ruled 6-0 in favor of a previous district court decision that state habeas corpus proceedings “apply only to persons, not to nonhuman animals.”
That’s true “regardless of how cognitively, psychologically or socially sophisticated they are,” added Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter in her ruling.
Although she said the five older African elephants were “magnificent”, the court ruled the lawsuit could not be brought “because an elephant is not a person”.
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP) has petitioned to have the elephants moved from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to an “appropriate elephant sanctuary” in 2023.
The group argued that animals have a right to freedom because they are emotionally complex and intelligent animals.
It claimed the elephants were showing signs of “trauma, brain damage and chronic stress” and were effectively “confined” in the zoo.
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo denied the claim, arguing that the elephants received exceptional care, and the district court upheld it.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo called NRP’s lawsuit “frivolous” and said it had “wasted” time and money on the case.
It accused the group of “abusing the court systems to raise funds” and claimed its aim was to “manipulate people into donating to their cause by constantly publicizing sensational court cases alongside relentless appeals to supporters to donate”.
The NRP said the decision was “perpetuated[d] clear injustice, saying that an individual does not have the right to freedom if he is not human”.
“As with other social justice movements, early losses are expected as we challenge the entrenched status quo that has allowed Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo to be relegated to a lifetime of mental and physical suffering,” the group said in statement.
An earlier bid by NRP to free an elephant named Happy from the Bronx Zoo in New York was rejected after a court ruled that she was not a legal person.
