On Tuesday, the highest court in Colorado declared that five elephants at a zoo in Colorado do not have the legal right to seek their own freedom from the zoo.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s verdict comes after a similar loss in New York in 2022. In that case, the Bronx Zoo’s elephant, Happy, was represented by the same animal rights group.
If the court had ruled in favor of the animals, the lawyers representing Happy and the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs—Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo—would have been able to use the same legal process that human prisoners use to challenge their detention.
This would have allowed the animals to possibly be sent to live in an elephant sanctuary instead.
“It bears noting that the narrow legal question before this court does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally, or these five elephants specifically,” the ruling noted.
Instead, it continued, the “legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person as that term is used in the … statute. The court determined that the elephants here do not have the standing to make a habeas corpus action since an elephant is not a person.
The Nonhuman Rights Project, the group that pushed for the animals, stated that the Colorado elephants, which were born in the wild in Africa, have showed evidence of brain impairment because the zoo is practically a prison for such clever and gregarious beasts, which are known to roam for miles a day.
The group believes that the creatures would not be able to live in the wild, therefore they wanted them to be released to one of the two authorized elephant sanctuaries in the United States.
On the other hand, the zoo contended that relocating the elephants and maybe introducing them to other species would be unkind at their age, as it could lead to undue stress.
According to the zoo’s observations, the elephants are not accustomed to being in larger herds, and they do not have the abilities or the desire to join one.
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According to a statement from the Nonhuman Rights Project, the most recent verdict “perpetuates a clear injustice,” and the organization believes that future courts will reject the notion that only humans have the right to liberty.
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“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 lifetime of mental and physical suffering,” it stated.
