DENVER — On Tuesday, Colorado’s top court said that the five elephants at a zoo can be considered “majestic,” but since they are not humans, they cannot legally fight for their freedom.
The Colorado Supreme Court made a decision after a similar loss in New York in 2022, where an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo was involved in a case brought by an animal rights group. Rulings that supported the animals would have let lawyers for Happy and the elephants at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs—Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo—continue a legal process that helps prisoners challenge their imprisonment. This could have potentially allowed the elephants to move to an elephant sanctuary.
The Colorado court stated that its ruling is not based on how they feel about these impressive animals.
The court said that the main law question is whether an elephant counts as a person. “The ruling stated that elephants cannot file a habeas corpus claim because they are not people.”
The Nonhuman Rights Project, the animal rights group that worked to get Happy released, also took a case in Colorado.
The group claimed that the Colorado elephants, who were born in the wild in Africa, have shown signs of brain damage because the zoo acts like a jail for these smart and social animals, which usually travel many miles every day. They wanted the animals to be sent to one of the two approved elephant preserves in the United States because the group believes the animals can no longer survive in the wild.
The zoo said that moving the elephants and putting them with new animals might be harsh since they are older and could get stressed out. It said the elephants are not used to being in big groups, and the zoo noticed that they don’t have the skills or interest in joining one.
The zoo was happy with the Colorado court’s decision but felt sad that they had to go through a legal battle. They also accused the Nonhuman Rights Project of misusing the legal system to raise money.
The zoo said, “It looks like their main aim is to get people to donate by constantly sharing dramatic court cases and repeatedly asking for support.”
The Nonhuman Rights Project said the recent decision continues an obvious unfairness and expects that future courts will not agree that only humans have the right to freedom.
“Like other social justice movements, we know we might face setbacks at first as we fight against a long-standing system that has caused Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo to suffer both mentally and physically,” the statement said.
Leave a Comment