NhRP Webinar: Historic Elephant Rights Hearing in Colorado

On Oct. 24, 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments by the Nonhuman Rights Project centered on whether the elephants confined at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo have the right to liberty and must be released to an elephant sanctuary. This hearing marked the first time any state high court in the Western US has considered whether a nonhuman being is entitled to a legal right and can invoke the protections of habeas corpus, a revered centuries-old safeguard of liberty. In the video above, go behind the scenes with NhRP attorney Jake Davis and Executive Director Christopher Berry as they share insights on and answer questions about this historic hearing and case.

You can watch the hearing here on the Court’s website (scroll down to CASE LOCATOR: Find a Case or Event and enter 24SA21 under Case Number or Description). As we argued, elephants shouldn’t be deprived of justice simply because they aren’t human. It’s the role of the courts to protect liberty, and we thank the Colorado Supreme Court for choosing to examine the injustice of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo elephants’ lives. We hope that in their decision the judges will take the opportunity to deepen our compassion and respect for other beings by affirming that the time-honored writ of habeas corpus can protect the autonomy of elephants, too.

Background on the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo elephants’ case

Drawing on fundamental principles of justice, the science of elephant cognition and behavior, and centuries of case law, the NhRP is asking the Colorado Supreme Court to recognize that Jambo, LouLou, Lucky, Missy, and Kimba are entitled to challenge their unjust confinement through the writ of habeas corpus and to order the lower court to hold a hearing on the merits of the elephants’ case. In December of 2023, the lower court had dismissed the NhRP’s petition on the elephants’ behalf simply because they aren’t human.

Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky, and Missy were born in the wild in Africa, taken from their herds when they were babies, and imported to the US in the 1970s and 1980s. The NhRP’s case is supported by experts in elephant cognition and behavior, habeas corpus, philosophy, civil rights, and animal law in the form of expert declarations and amicus briefs.

Among the elephant experts who have submitted expert declarations in support of the elephants’ right to liberty and release to a sanctuary is Dr. Bob Jacobs, a professor emeritus at Colorado College who has studied the neurological harm of zoo captivity on elephants. He has personally observed the CMZ elephants engaging in behavior indicative of chronic distress and trauma, including rocking, swaying, and head bobbing. Elephants living freely in their natural habitats have never been observed exhibiting such behaviors. “From a neural perspective,” Dr. Jacobs writes in his declaration, “imprisoning large mammals and putting them on display is undeniably cruel.”