DENVER (KDVR) “An elephant is not a person” and is not afforded the same liberties as a person under the Colorado Constitution, the Colorado Supreme Court decided Tuesday.

The state’s highest court upheld an El Paso County District Court decision that decided five elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo were not included in state liberty statutes. The petitioner, the Nonhuman Rights Project, had argued the animals should be included and should be moved to a sanctuary “because they are autonomous and extraordinarily cognitively and socially complex beings,” according to the opinion announcement.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo officials in a statement claimed the Nonhuman Rights Project is “abusing court systems to fundraise” by publicizing “sensational” court cases.

The Nonhuman Rights Project appealed the district court’s dismissal of a habeas corpus proceeding, which under Colorado law grants people “confined or restrained of his liberty” the ability to petition the court for relief. The organization had argued the Colorado Springs zoo was unlawfully confining the elephants, named Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo.

The state supreme court on Tuesday said the habeas corpus law does only just that: grants people that ability, which the elephants are not.

The Nonhuman Rights Project said in a statement on their website, the 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.'”

In affirming the district court’s original opinion, the state supreme court said the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was not unlawfully confining the elephants, and the Nonhuman Rights Project’s plan was not sufficient for habeas corpus anyway, regardless of elephants’ status as a person or not.

Finally, we observe that NRP is not actually seeking the right to liberty—that is, freedom from captivity—for the elephants. 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, any more than it was suggesting that very smart dogs could not be “kept” as house pets. 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.”

Colorado Supreme Court decision

The court acknowledged the animals’ magnificence, saying in their opinion, “it bears noting that the narrow legal question before this court does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally or these five elephants specifically.”

Since the elephants do not have legal standing as a person, though, the court did not need to decide the actual habeas corpus standing. The court advised in their opinion the Nonhuman Right’s Project’s efforts to expand rights for animals, including the Cheyenne Mountain elephants, were best efforted in legislative measures, not judicial courts.

“While we’re happy with this outcome, we are disappointed that it ever came to this,” zoo officials said. “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.”

This is not the first case the Nonhuman Rights Project has argued for unlawful containment.

The Colorado Supreme Court and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo officials cited several other dismissed cases, in New York, California and Hawaii, as evidence the argument had no standing in Colorado either.

“We are not alone in rejecting NRP’s attempt to extend the great writ to nonhuman animals,” the supreme court opinion states. “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.”

Zoo officials agreed.

“The courts have proven now five times that their approach isn’t reasonable, but they continue to take it,” their statement read. “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 Nonhuman Rights Project said in their statement they expect early losses but are still challenging “an entrenched status quo that has allowed Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo to be relegated to a lifetime of mental and physical suffering.”