An animal rights group’s lawsuit accusing Cheyenne Mountain Zoo of illegally confining and neglecting its five elderly African elephants, and demanding they be relocated to a sanctuary, has been dismissed by the 4th Judicial District in Colorado Springs.

“Issues of the sort raised by this case, involving mankind’s stewardship of the planet and its living creatures, grow more pressing each year in light of the rapid advance of climate change, habitat loss, and the mass extinction of numerous species,” said El Paso County District Court Judge Eric Bentley, in a ruling filed Dec. 3. “On the other side of the equation, it is unfortunate that this case pits two organizations against each other that perhaps ought to be on the same side.”

A writ of habeas corpus petition filed in June by the Florida-based Nonhuman Rights Project claimed the zoo’s elephants, Jambo, Missy, LouLou, Kimba and Lucky — all female and born in the wild between 40 and 54 years ago — were traumatized and chronically stressed due to their life in captivity. A habeas corpus petition seeks the liberation of a person unlawfully confined. The group argued that by virtue of their highly developed intelligence, elephants fit the legal definition of personhood and therefore are due rights to “bodily liberty” and protection under the law.

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Similar arguments failed to sway the courts in a series of 2022 suits the nonprofit filed against zoos in California and New York.

In a lengthy response explaining his decision, Bentley acknowledged the “profound and far-reaching” implications of attempts to legally blur the line between human-like and human, as well as the complexities of arguments that lie at the nexus of ethics and public policy, science and sensibility.

“There is no doubt that views, norms, and expectations regarding treatment of highly intelligent species of animals are rapidly evolving,” Bentley said. But “one segment of the animal-rights movement seeks to go beyond the expansion of animal-welfare laws to recognize the legal ‘personhood’ of at least some species of highly intelligent animals.”

Bentley found that the nonprofit’s petition didn’t seek justice for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s elephant herd, under existing laws, so much as to create a legal toehold for an expansion of existing rights — a “sustained nationwide campaign … to establish rights for animals at large.”

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“This case does not concern just ‘five elephants,’ as the NHRP asserts…. It concerns, as the NHRP well knows and intends, an opening of a heretofore-unopened legal door that — were it to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court and be affirmed — would quite likely have the effect of upending much of our legal system, in which humans, for better or worse, exercise dominion and control over the animal world,” Bentley said. “If an elephant today, why not a dog, a pig, a cow, or a chicken tomorrow?”

Bentley also didn’t buy the nonprofit’s assertion that it was the best “next friend” to speak on behalf of zoo’s nonhuman human residents.

“There is a legitimate question in this case as to who properly speaks for the elephants (or, in other words, who gets to be the “elephant Lorax”) — the NHRP, which represents that it wants to improve their lives by moving them to an accredited elephant sanctuary, or the Zoo, which has fed them, nurtured them, and taken care of them for many years,” Bentley said. “It appears to be the Zoo, and not the NHRP, that has the more significant relationship with Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo.”

The Nonhuman Rights Project said it is still “analyzing the decision,” and would announce its next legal steps in the coming weeks.

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“Further litigation will not be necessary if the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo chooses to do what is morally right and just: release the elephants to an accredited sanctuary, where they can live out the rest of their lives in an environment that can meet their complex needs,” said the group, in a statement posted Tuesday on its website. “Nevertheless, the NhRP is prepared to litigate this case to its ultimate conclusion. Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky, and Missy are entitled to their freedom, and they deserve nothing less.”

Elephants in the wild can live up to 70 years. The median life expectancy of elephants in zoos and preserves, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, is 39.4 years. The youngest member of Cheyenne Mountain’s elephantine “Golden Girls”  retirement community, 38-year-old Malaika, was euthanized earlier this year after major, and worsening, health and mobility issues.

Fifty-four-year-old Missy is one of the oldest African elephants in human care.

Zoo president and CEO Bob Chastain said Tuesday that he applauded Judge Bentley’s decision, but knows the fight likely is not over.

“While it is a relief to get over this first hurdle, it is sad to know that we will continue to pay significant legal fees to further defend ourselves after this group has lost so many times and wasted so much of the court’s and four different accredited zoos’ time,” Chastain said, in a Tuesday statement from the zoo. “This out-of-state group makes money off of our distraction from our mission of saving animals from extinction.”