Colorado Supreme Court sides with lower court dismissing petition against the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Simply put, no Colorado court, nor any other court in any other jurisdiction in the United States has ever recognized the legal “personhood” of any nonhuman species.

"As we had hoped, all six participating Colorado Supreme Court justices unanimously ruled in our favor. In June 2023, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP/NRP) filed a frivolous lawsuit aiming to remove the Zoo’s five aging African elephants from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The lawsuit was dismissed, and NhRP appealed that decision by taking it to the Supreme Court in June 2024. Today, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the contentions of NhRP that there was any legal basis to move our beloved elephants away from Colorado Springs.

While we’re happy with this outcome, we are disappointed that it ever came to this. For the past 19 months, we’ve been subjected to their misrepresented attacks, and we’ve wasted valuable time and money responding to them in courts and in the court of public opinion.

NhRP has attempted this same lawsuit with several other reputable zoos. NhRP lost their case in New York. They lost in California. They were dismissed in Colorado Springs and Hawaii. Now they have officially lost in Colorado. If they continue this route – with us or with other reputable zoos – we hope people will remember that NhRP is abusing court systems to fundraise and to pay for ‘legal fees,’ as they claimed in a recent social media video – a.k.a. their salaries.

The courts have proven now five times that their approach isn’t reasonable, but they continue to take it. It seems their real goal is to manipulate people into donating to their cause by incessantly publicizing sensational court cases with relentless calls for supporters to donate.

The Colorado Supreme Court opinion states, “We are not alone in rejecting NRP’s attempt to extend the great writ to nonhuman animals. NRP has commenced similar legal proceedings in many other states on behalf of elephants and chimpanzees living in zoos and other facilities. Every one of its petitions for writ of habeas corpus has been denied for the same or very similar reasons.”

Some of our supporters were surprised that NhRP chose to attack Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, of all places. We have consistently ranked as a top-five zoo in the nation by popular vote. Last year, we celebrated raising $5 million for frontline conservation efforts, including over a million dollars for African elephants. Our national recognition as a leader in animal care and conservation is likely what drew their attention to us. Our latest accreditation was historic. In nearly 50 years of AZA accreditations, CMZoo was only the fourth organization to earn a completely ‘clean’ report, which means there wasn’t a single major or minor concern reported – including in the strenuous review of our elephant care program.

While NhRP was collecting funds and wasting taxpayer dollars in our county and state’s highest courts, we were busy at work, growing our in-house veterinary team to three full-time veterinarians and funding a team of experienced animal care professionals to focus solely on the cutting edge of animal care in accredited zoos. We were also embarking on an historic upgrade to our giraffe habitat, including construction of a giraffe center that’s going to revolutionize giraffe care for our profession for decades to come.

And finally, we were busy saving animals. Because a portion of every Zoo admission goes to field conservation, our members and guests surpassed raising one million dollars for elephant conservation while we were fighting to protect our elephants at home."