Dear John,
On October 24th, 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. Widely covered by local and national media, this hearing marked the first time the Colorado Supreme Court, or 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.
You can watch the hour-long 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). In the next few weeks, the NhRP will hold a Zoom webinar to discuss the hearing and answer your questions. Stay tuned for details, including the date and time! If you have a question about the hearing or this case that you’d like us to answer, send it as a reply to this email and we’ll address as many questions as we can in our webinar.
To read or share a recap of the hearing from our perspective, visit our blog.
At its core, this case is about something very simple: allowing Jambo, LouLou, Lucky, Missy, and Kimba to be elephants again, at least as much as is humanly possible given they can no longer be released to the natural habitats they were taken from. It’s also much bigger than that. This hearing shows that calls for justice for nonhuman animals are finally being heard, discussed, and considered. No matter what happens next, this hearing is a watershed moment for nonhuman animals and the nonhuman animal rights movement. We look forward to seeing how the court rules. A decision is expected in the coming months.
Thank you from everyone at the NhRP for your support for elephants’ right to liberty!
Lauren Choplin
Communications Director, the NhRP
