The Colorado Supreme Court has heard arguments that elephants deserve human status and should be released from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. This gave Colorado the dubious accomplishment of being the first higher court in a Western state to hear arguments that nonhumans are entitled to this legal right. This will be a fantastic addition to the state’s resume.

I’ve written before about the absurdities that many have dubbed the “Disney effect” or anthropomorphism. This is something that can be easily recognized since most films of this genre “feature” animals that talk, show human emotions and periodically feature bulls walking on their hind legs with their udders between their legs. .

It’s one thing to watch Baloo the Bear fly a plane and fight pirates in an after-school cartoon – yes, I’m a child of the 1980s and 1990s – but it’s another to not recognize the deviation from reality.

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Elephants and other animals demonstrate intelligence, sensitivity and create friendships. However, one group argued before the state Supreme Court that Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s elephants deserved autonomy. Stop the world, I want to get out of this.

Justices on the state’s highest court were rather skeptical. Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jamba should be released based on a habeas corpus argument that merits autonomy. I know you will be stunned, but the cause is championed by animal rights activists.

Jake Davis, an attorney with the Nonhuman Rights Project, denounced the “tremendous physical and psychological harm endured” by elephants simply because they were born with “poor physical biology.”

The judges quickly interrupted him and asked questions about the letter of the law. Davis, who shares a love of flowery parts of speech with another activist whose name I can’t remember, compared elephants to other groups like enslaved people and women.

“All of the people you just mentioned are human people,” Judge Richard Gabriel said. “Can you name a single case where they attributed an animal matter to a non-human? »

No, he couldn’t. He presented a proposed dissenting opinion in 2020 by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Alison Y. Tuitt after the group attempted to remove Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo.

“The arguments made by the NhRP are extremely compelling for moving Happy from his solitary, solitary one-acre exhibit at the Bronx Zoo to an elephant sanctuary…(Happy) is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity. »

Pandora’s box of evils could barely compare to the onslaught of nonsense that would be brought to court by people seeking to become people for animals and other non-human things. If I were a betting girl, I’d say one of the activist groups has probably already written their arguments for granting human status to all the livestock so they can be released.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was represented by former state Attorney General John Suthers, who said that if an animal rights group had concerns about Cheyenne Mountain’s treatment of animals, it should call the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which governs animal welfare, or the local prosecutor. for criminal prosecution.

“They don’t do it because they know they’re not committing an offense,” Suthers said. “Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has the legal authority to detain elephants.”

Chief Justice Monica Marquez was the only one to lend a shred of credibility to the argument made by Davis, saying that the applicability of habeas corpus has evolved over the centuries to different categories of individuals.

Suthers said recognizing women and slaves as humans was the prerogative of the courts. This does not allow the writ to be applied to other species. I don’t know the intestinal fortitude Suthers must have mustered to gather and cite case law to counter Davis’s argument that non-humans are humans. It’s weird.

The Nonhuman Rights Project is, according to the website, the only civil rights organization in the United States dedicated solely to securing the rights of nonhuman animals. They also filed lawsuits in California, Hawaii and Michigan and listed 14 elephants and chimpanzees among their clients. In 2023, they spent just under $1.7 million on litigation ($1.1 million), education ($497,246), and legislation ($64,967). Their total revenue was almost $2.2 million.

Colorado, as you may recall, hosted a legislative circus in 2021 and passed a law banning traveling circuses due to concerns about the treatment of animals. We’re now in the heat of seeing the rubber hit the road, demanding that all eggs sold in the state come from cages by 2025, following new pressure from activists. My collection of photos of empty shelves is starting to rival the pandemic egg shortage. Legislating based on social sympathy makes marketing easier, but the unintended consequences are considerable.

Rachael Gabel writes on agriculture and rural issues. She is an assistant editor for Fence Post Magazine, the region’s leading agricultural publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle ranching families. She is the author of children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.