Elephants are not people, the Colorado Supreme Court rules

A bid to free five elephants from a Colorado zoo has been rejected after a court ruled that elephants are not people.

An animal rights group argued that Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo were effectively imprisoned at the zoo, and had filed to be moved to an elephant sanctuary.

He tried to bring a petition for habeas corpus on behalf of the animal – a legal process that allows a person to challenge their detention in court.

The Colorado Supreme Court said that the matter came down to “whether an elephant is a person” and therefore had the same rights to freedom as a human – ultimately deciding that they did not.

It was 6-0 in favor of a previous district court decision that said the state’s habeas corpus process “applies only to people, and not to nonhuman animals.”

This was true “no matter how cognitively, psychologically or socially sophisticated they may be,” state Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter added in her ruling. kingdom.

While she said the five older African elephants were “majestic,” the court ruled that the claim could not be filed “because an elephant is not a person.”

The Non-Human Rights Project (NRP) has called for the elephants to be moved from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to an “appropriate elephant sanctuary” by 2023.

The group argued that animals had a right to freedom because they were emotionally complex and intelligent animals.

He claimed that the elephants showed signs of “trauma, brain damage and chronic stress” and that they were effectively “imprisoned” in the zoo.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo rejected the claim, arguing that the elephants had received remarkable care, and was upheld by a district court.

After the Supreme Court ruling, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo called NRP’s lawsuit “frivolous” and said it had “wasted” time and money on the case.

He accused the group of “abusing court systems for fundraising” and said their aim was to “manipulate people into donating to their cause by relentlessly publicizing sensational court cases with relentless appeals to supporters to donate”.

NRP said the decision “perpetuate(d) a clear injustice, stating that unless an individual is human, he has no right to freedom.”

“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 mental and physical suffering,” the group said in a declaration

An earlier bid by NRP to release an elephant named Happy from New York’s Bronx Zoo was rejected after the court ruled that she was not legally a person.