Elephants Aren’t People and Can’t Sue to Leave a Zoo, Colorado’s Top Court Rules

On Tuesday, Colorado’s highest court ruled that five elderly African elephants do not have legal standing to sue to leave a local zoo, because they aren’t human. The Supreme Court of the state ruled 6-0 against the Nonhuman Rights Project, the animal rights organization that brought forward the case.

The group alleged that the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s five elephants—named Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo—were “unlawfully confined,” according to the ruling. They made their case under the principle of habeas corpus, which allows legal persons to challenge their confinement.

Elephants have a “right to bodily liberty, because they are autonomous and extraordinarily cognitively and socially complex beings,” the organization argued, according to the ruling. The animal rights group cited affidavits from seven biologists explaining that elephants can experience empathy and self-awareness, as humans do, per Reuters’ Jonathan Stempel.

One affidavit suggested the animals “suffer from chronic frustration, boredom and stress” when they’re deprived of a variable environment, exercise and the social opportunities of the wild. The group wanted the creatures to be transferred to an elephant sanctuary.

Though the court ruled unanimously against the animal rights group, the case “does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally or these five elephants specifically,” wrote Justice Maria Berkenkotter in the decision. “Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person as that term is used in the habeas corpus statute. And because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim.”

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo cheers the decision in a statement, calling the legal affair a “frivolous lawsuit.”

“While we’re happy with this outcome, we are disappointed that it ever came to this,” the zoo writes. “For the past 19 months, we’ve been subjected to their misrepresented attacks, and we’ve wasted valuable time and money responding to them in courts and in the court of public opinion.”

“It seems their real goal is to manipulate people into donating to their cause by incessantly publicizing sensational court cases with relentless calls for supporters to donate,” they add.

This isn’t the first time the Nonhuman Rights Project has fought for the release of elephants. In 2022, the organization lost a similar court case on behalf of Happy, an Asian elephant at the Bronx Zoo in New York. That time, however, two judges ruled in favor of the organization.

“[Happy’s] captivity is inherently unjust and inhumane. It is an affront to a civilized society, and every day she remains a captive—a spectacle for humans—we, too, are diminished,” wrote judge Jenny Rivera in her dissent at the time, per the Associated Press.

In a statement, the Nonhuman Rights Project says the Colorado decision “perpetuates a clear injustice.” But they also suggest the tides will turn on cases like this one.

“Whereas the court refused to look beyond the species membership of our clients, we envision a legal system that respects the conscious experience of individuals regardless of their biological label,” says Christopher Berry, executive director for the Nonhuman Rights Project, to Newsweek’s Tom Howarth.

“A big part of our challenge is simply overcoming the inertia of the status quo—and that requires time and education,” Berry adds to Rachel Pannett at the Washington Post. “As we overcome that inertia, more and more judges will find the motivation and courage to rule in our favor.”