Colorado Supreme Court rules elephants can't pursue their own release

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that five wild-born elephants currently in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo cannot pursue their own release using a writ of habeas corpus because they are not people.

Animal rights group the Nonhuman Rights Project argued on behalf of the elephants that they are being illegally imprisoned in the zoo.

Multiple animal biologists described the elephants in  a lower court as “autonomous animals that generally have complex biological, psychological and social needs” and who can form long-term memories.

The Supreme Court ruling followed the lower court's decision and affirmed a similar decision in New York in 2022.

If animal rights groups want to expand the rights of animals, they will have to do it through legislation, not litigation, the Court said.

“While we’re happy with this outcome, we are disappointed that it ever came to this,” zoo officials said in a statement. “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.”