A US court has ruled that elephants are not human beings, rejecting a request to release five of them from a Colorado zoo.
An animal rights group, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP), had filed a request in 2023 with the Colorado Supreme Court to have five elephants from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo relocated to an “appropriate” elephant sanctuary.
The activist group attempted to submit a request foryou have a body for these animals named Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo, according to the BBC media.
According to them, the elephants in question were “imprisoned” at the zoo and had a right to freedom, in particular because they are “emotionally complex and intelligent” animals.
The group also specified that the elephants showed signs of “trauma, brain damage and chronic stress”.
L’you have a body allows a person to challenge their detention in court.
-However, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that an elephant was not “a person,” therefore did not have the same liberty rights as a human being.
The American court concluded that the procedure ofyou have a body of the State “applies only to people, and not to non-human animals.”
This complaint cannot therefore be brought, “no matter how cognitively, psychologically or socially sophisticated they may be,” said State Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter.
The NRP responded to this decision, noting that it “perpetuates a clear injustice, asserting that if an individual is not a human, they do not have the right to liberty.”
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