(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The Colorado Supreme Court has unanimously sided with the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (CMZoo) in a lawsuit deemed "frivolous" by the zoo, which was seeking to release the elephants from the zoo and move them to a sanctuary. The lawsuit was originally filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP) in 2023, but it was dismissed by an El Paso County judge. The organization then appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, which ultimately made a unanimous decision on Jan. 21, 2025 that the elephants should stay where they are. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: CMZoo elephant case heads to Colorado Supreme Court "While we are happy with this outcome, we are disappointed that it ever came to this," CMZoo said in a statement. "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." CMZoo explained that its efforts to further conservation and education surrounding elephants have been unwavering, recently celebrating $5 million raised for frontline conservation efforts, including over a million dollars for African elephants. CMZoo said its latest accreditation was historic--in nearly 50 years of Association of Zoos and Aquariums (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 its elephant care program. According to CMZoo, the NRP has attempted the same lawsuit with other zoos across the country in New York, California, and Hawaii, and all have failed. The Colorado Supreme Court said in its decision that the NRP was not actually seeking freedom from captivity for the elephants, but rather freedom from specifically CMZoo. Courtesy: Cheyenne Mountain ZooCourtesy: Cheyenne Mountain ZooCourtesy: Cheyenne Mountain ZooCourtesy: Cheyenne Mountain ZooCourtesy of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo "NRP is not actually seeking the right to liberty... it conceded as much during oral argument, acknowledging that it was not suggesting that the Zoo should open its gates and set the elephants loose to roam free in Colorado Springs and beyond... Instead, it asked to transfer the elephants from the Zoo to a different confinement. 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," the Supreme Court opinion reads. The NRP responded to the Supreme Court's decision, and its statement can be read in its entirety below: This Colorado Supreme Court opinion perpetuates a clear injustice, stating that unless an individual is human they have no right to liberty, "no matter how cognitively, psychologically, or socially sophisticated they may be.” Future courts will reject this notion, as judges in the United States and around the world have already begun to do. As with other social justice movements, early losses are expected as we challenge an entrenched status quo that has allowed Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo to be relegated to a lifetime of mental and physical suffering. We’ll share further analysis of this opinion as well as our next steps in the coming days. Nonhuman Rights Project