Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo have lived in Colorado Springs for decades in the elephant exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Now an animal rights group is trying to release the elephants from what they say is essentially a prison for such highly intelligent and social animals known to roam for miles a day in the wild.
Colorado’s highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether the older African female elephants should be legally able to challenge their captivity under a long-held process used by prisoners to dispute their detention. The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project says the animals are languishing while “unlawfully confined” at the zoo, and wants them released to an unspecified elephant sanctuary.
In a brief submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court, attorney Jake Davis, representing the animal rights group, stated, “They are enduring immense and unnecessary suffering. Without legal action, they are destined to experience this pain every day, year after year, for the remainder of their lives.”
The central legal question is whether the elephants can be classified as persons under the law, which would allow them to file a habeas corpus petition to contest their captivity. The NonHuman Rights Project contends that legal personhood should extend beyond just humans.
This lawsuit is similar to a previous one the group filed in 2022 regarding the confinement of an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo. In that case, New York’s Court of Appeals ruled that although Happy is intelligent and worthy of compassion, she does not qualify as a person capable of being unlawfully confined or able to file a petition for release.
The court stated that granting such rights to an elephant would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on modern society and could alter the dynamics of human-animal interactions.
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo argues that relocating the elephants and introducing them to new animals could be cruel given their age, leading to unnecessary stress. The zoo claims that the elephants are not accustomed to larger herds and, based on their experience, lack both the skills and desire to integrate into such groups.
In a statement prior to Thursday’s hearing, the zoo asserted that the NonHuman Rights Project is not genuinely concerned about the elephants, but rather seeks to establish a legal precedent that could challenge the captivity of any animal.
The zoo expressed, “We hope Colorado isn’t the state that initiates a slippery slope where even your cherished and well-cared-for dog or cat could be granted habeas corpus and potentially forced to ‘go free’ based on someone else’s opinion.”