{"id":603,"date":"2025-01-22T17:36:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T21:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/?p=603"},"modified":"2025-01-24T15:10:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T19:10:29","slug":"colorado-supreme-court-concludes-unsurprisingly-that-elephants-arent-persons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/2025\/01\/22\/colorado-supreme-court-concludes-unsurprisingly-that-elephants-arent-persons\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Supreme Court Concludes (Unsurprisingly) That Elephants Aren’t Persons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On January 21, 2025, the Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed a lower court ruling that elephants maintained in a zoo were not properly the subject of a habeas corpus petition pursued by the animal rights group, Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP). Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society<\/em>, No. 24SA21 (Colo. Jan. 21, 2025).<\/a> As the court observed, “We are not alone in rejecting NRP’s attempt to extend the great writ to nonhuman animals. . . . Every one of [NRP’s] petitions for writ of habeas corpus has been denied for the same or very similar reasons.” Slip op. at 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NRP filed the writ arguing that five elderly African elephants (Loxodonta africana<\/em>) located at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo) were “unlawfully confined” and should be relocated to an elephant sanctuary. Petitioner argued that elephants held in a zoo are prone to suffer from “chronic frustration, boredom, and stress, resulting over time in physical disabilities, psychological disorders, and, often, brain damage.” Slip. op. at 6. The zoo “vigorously disputed the factual allegations in the Petition, pushing back against the suggestion that the elephants were receiving anything short of remarkable care.” Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court concluded that habeas relief was unavailable here because the Colorado habeas statute only applies to “persons,” and “persons” means human beings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Colorado\u2019s habeas corpus statute does not define the term \u201cperson.\u201d It is, however, defined by section 2-4-401, C.R.S. (2024), which contains definitions that \u201capply to every statute, unless the context otherwise requires.\u201d Under section 2-4-401(8), \u201c\u2018Person\u2019 means any individual, corporation, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, limited liability company, partnership, association, or other legal entity.\u201d Looking to the dictionary, the term \u201cperson\u201d is defined as an individual human being. See Person, Black\u2019s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) (\u201c[a] human being\u201d); Person, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/person [https:\/\/perma.cc\/6AX5-9MCH] (\u201chuman, individual\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Given the statutory definition of the term \u201cperson\u201d and the plain and ordinary meaning of the term found in the dictionary, we conclude that the General Assembly\u2019s choice of the word \u201cperson\u201d demonstrates its intent to limit the reach of section 13-45-102 to human beings. Our conclusion is further bolstered by the fact that including nonhuman animals in the definition of the term \u201cperson\u201d is the type of monumental change in the law that one would reasonably expect the General Assembly to make explicit. That is, \u201c[i]f [the General
Assembly] intended to take the extraordinary step of authorizing animals as well as people . . . to sue, they could, and should, have said so plainly.\u201d [Slip op. at 14-15 (citation omitted).]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The court likewise was not persuaded that the common law writ of habeas corpus was available: “[N]othing in the common law supports NRP\u2019s position, which rests primarily on a concurring opinion and two dissenting opinions in its unsuccessful efforts to extend the writ of habeas corpus to nonhuman animals.” Slip op. at 16. This was the case notwithstanding NRP’s argument that elephants are “autonomous:” “Habeas protections flow from the status of being a person, not from a being\u2019s ability to pass some type of autonomous capacity test.” Id<\/em>. at 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also was significant that NRP was not seeking to actually “liberate” the elephants but, instead, to move them to another form of confinement in a sanctuary: “The fact that NRP merely seeks the transfer of the elephants from one form of confinement to another is yet another reason that habeas relief is not appropriate here.” Slip op. at 19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the court summed it up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Simply put, no Colorado court, nor any other court in any other jurisdiction in the United States has ever recognized the legal \u201cpersonhood\u201d of any nonhuman species. [Slip op. at 17.]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

NRP has, for years, sought to push its animal rights agenda by burdening zoos and other exhibitors with habeas petitions seeking to move elephants to sanctuaries on the theory that holding such an animal in a zoological setting is deleterious to the animal’s welfare. (We have written about NRP’s actions several times, for example here<\/a>.) Such assertions of poor welfare generally are baseless. For example, litigation involving the Ringling Bros. Circus elephants demonstrated that they generally lived longer than their wild counterparts. In fact, Ringling had one circus elephant who lived well into her mid-70’s. One would think that these habeas petitions would, at some point, be found by the courts to be frivolous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 21, 2025, the Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed a lower court ruling that elephants maintained in a zoo were not properly the subject of a habeas corpus petition pursued by the animal rights group, Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP). Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society, No. 24SA21 (Colo. Jan. 21, 2025). … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Colorado Supreme Court Concludes (Unsurprisingly) That Elephants Aren’t Persons”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,17,402],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-african-elephant","tag-animal-rights","tag-habeas-corpus","tag-nonhuman-rights-project"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}