After a court decided that elephants are not humans, a plea to release five elephants from a Colorado zoo was denied.
An animal rights organization submitted a request to transfer Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo to an elephant refuge, claiming they were essentially imprisoned in the zoo.
On behalf of the animals, it attempted to file a habeas corpus suit, which is a legal procedure that permits an individual to contest their incarceration in court.
The question of “whether an elephant is a person” and thus has the same liberty rights as a human was the crux of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, which concluded that they did not.
It upheld a prior district court ruling that stated the state’s habeas corpus procedure, voting 6-0.
