“This court, no court is the proper venue for what they’re trying to accomplish.”

John Suthers, a former U.S. attorney and Colorado attorney general who is now representing the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Boulder, Colo. Suthers responded to the NonHuman Rights Project’s (NhRP) claim that five elephants in the zoo should be able to dispute their detention. The NhRP unsuccessfully tried to have an elephant at the Bronx Zoo named Happy legally considered a person with the ability to pursue a petition seeking release. The New York ruling said giving such rights to an elephant “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society.” Now, the NhRP is again arguing that the five elephants, Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo, are such intelligent and social creatures that they are, essentially, being held prisoner in the zoo. The Colorado court will issue a ruling in the coming weeks or months. (Associated Press — Oct. 24, 2024)