Rulings in favor of the animals would have allowed lawyers for both Happy and the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs — Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo — to pursue the same legal process that human prisoners use to challenge their detention, and possibly be sent to live in an elephant sanctuary instead.
The Nonhuman Rights Project, the group that advocated for the animals argued that the Colorado elephants, born in the wild in Africa, have shown signs of brain damage because the zoo is essentially a prison for such intelligent and social creatures, which are known to roam for miles a day.
DENVER — Five elephants at a Colorado zoo do not have the legal right to pursue their own freedom from a Colorado zoo, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday.
Colorado zoo elephants have no right to seek freedom because they're not human, court rules The Nonhuman Rights Project argued that the ruling ‘perpetuates a clear injustice’.
“It bears noting that the narrow legal question before this court does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally, or these five elephants specifically,” the ruling noted.
