Colorado Court Considers Case of Elephants’ Legal Rights
In Colorado Springs, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has been home to elephants Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo for many years. However, an animal rights organization is challenging their captivity, arguing that these intelligent and social creatures deserve freedom akin to their natural roaming in the wild.
On Thursday, Colorado’s Supreme Court will deliberate on whether these African elephants should have the legal ability to contest their captivity using a process traditionally reserved for human prisoners. The NonHuman Rights Project contends that the elephants are enduring undue suffering while being “unlawfully confined” at the zoo and seeks their transfer to an unspecified sanctuary.
Jake Davis, a lawyer for the NonHuman Rights Project, stated in a brief to the Colorado Supreme Court in May, “They are suffering immensely and unnecessarily. Without judicial intervention, they are doomed to suffer day after day, year after year, for the rest of their lives.”
The central legal question concerns whether elephants can be granted personhood status, permitting them to file a habeas corpus petition to challenge their detention. The NonHuman Rights Project argues that personhood should not be restricted to humans.
This lawsuit mirrors a previous case involving an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo. In 2022, New York’s Court of Appeals determined that Happy, while intelligent and deserving of compassion, could not be classified as a person with the right to seek release through a legal petition.
The New York court cautioned that granting rights akin to personhood to an elephant could significantly disrupt societal norms and alter human-animal interactions.
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo argues that relocating the elephants to a sanctuary, where they may encounter new groups, would be detrimental due to their age. The zoo claims this change could cause undue stress, noting that the elephants lack the social skills or inclination to integrate into larger herds.
In anticipation of the court hearing, the zoo criticized the NonHuman Rights Project for pursuing a legal precedent that could challenge the captivity of any animal, rather than genuinely caring for the elephants. The zoo expressed concern over the potential implications, stating, “We hope Colorado isn’t the place that sets the slippery slope in motion of whether your beloved and well-cared-for dog or cat should have habeas corpus and would be required to ‘go free,’ at the whim of someone else’s opinion of them.”
