DENVER (AP) — Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo have lived in Colorado Springs for decades in the elephant exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Now an animal rights group is trying to release the elephants from what they say is essentially a prison for such highly intelligent and social animals known to roam for miles a day in the wild.
Colorado's highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether the older African female elephants should be legally able to challenge their captivity under a long-held process used by prisoners to dispute their detention. The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project says the animals are languishing while “unlawfully confined” at the zoo, and wants them released to an unspecified elephant sanctuary.
“They are suffering immensely and unnecessarily. Without judicial intervention, they are doomed to suffer day after day, year after year, for the rest of their lives,” a lawyer for the group, Jake Davis, said in a May brief submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court.
The main legal issue is whether or not the elephants are considered persons under the law, and therefore able to pursue a petition of habeas corpus challenging their detention. The NonHuman Rights project argues that legal personhood is not limited to humans.
The lawsuit is similar to an unsuccessful one the group filed challenging the confinement of an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo in 2022. New York's Court of Appeals ruled that Happy, while intelligent and deserving of compassion, cannot be considered a person illegally confined 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" and change how humans interact with animals.
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo says moving the elephants and potentially placing them with new animals would be cruel at their age, potentially causing them unnecessary stress. It says they are not used to being in larger herds and, based on its experience, they do not have the skills or desire to join them.
In a statement ahead of Thursday's hearing, the zoo claimed the NonHuman Rights Project isn't concerned about the elephants but is just trying to create a judicial precedent that would allow the captivity of any animal to challenged.
“We hope Colorado isn’t the place that sets the slippery slope in motion of whether your beloved and well-cared-for dog or cat should have habeas corpus and would be required to ‘go free,’ at the whim of someone else’s opinion of them,” it said.
This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephant Kimba at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP)
This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephants Kimba, front, and Lucky, back, at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP)
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Feliks' journey resembles a Hollywood movie script, with kidnappers, smugglers and clandestine border crossings.
The year-old eastern imperial eagle from Serbia, started flying in August and later set off on his first migratory flight toward the Middle East, only to be captured by poachers, sold illegally and retrieved in a daring cross-border mission.
While Feliks returned home safely last week, his ordeal highlighted both the widespread practice of profit-driven, illegal animal trade and an unfaltering struggle by animal protection groups to counter it.
“It’s getting worse year after year, season after season, day after day,” said Michel Sawan, the head of the Lebanese Association for Migratory Birds, who played a key role in Feliks's rescue. "We can actually barely believe ... the mission was done successfully."
The eastern imperial eagle is an imposing bird of prey with a wingspan of up to 2 meters (6 feet). The protected species in Serbia was down to a single breeding pair back in 2017 but has recovered thanks to the tireless work of the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia, or BPSSS.
The precious offspring of a new generation of eagles, Feliks was ringed and got a “small backpack” with a transmitter before setting off last August, Uros Stojiljkovic from the BPSSS said.
“Everything seemed normal,” Stojiljkovic added. “We didn't dream all this would happen."
Feliks first circled close to home before heading southeast across North Macedonia, Greece and Turkey. His tracking signal was lost in late October in Syria.
“We hoped this was because there was a problem with the transmitter or something,” Stojiljkovic said.
Weeks passed by before the news came from Sawan: Feliks was put up for sale after he was captured by poachers who catch migratory birds by placing water in the desert, or shoot at them, capture them with nets or even chase them with motorcycles.
“When Felix was caught at first, it was posted on many WhatsApp groups for selling wild birds illegally trapped in Syria,” Sawan said. “I started my phone calls with people I know in Syria and we were able to reach out for Feliks.”
Paying money to smugglers was out of the question but Sawan wasn't ready to give up.
Feliks was sold to a buyer in Lebanon and resold back into Syria before Sawan managed to retrieve him through a network of associates. Getting Feliks over the border into Lebanon was then impeded by fighting in the region and bad weather, he said.
Eventually, a group of refugees carried Feliks in a potato sack over the Nahr al-Kabir river on the northern border between Syria and Lebanon. “It was crazy,” Sawan said.
Now safely in Sawan's bird sanctuary in Beirut, Feliks still needed to get back home, a task that became virtually impossible after the start of the war in Iran in February.
After three failed attempts, the Serbian army came to the rescue through its troops serving in a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Finally, on June 22, Feliks arrived back in Serbia aboard a military transport plane.
Feliks is now in a zoo in northern Serbia where he must be quarantined for 21 days. Experts from the BPSSS say the eagle will get a new transmitter before he is released again.
Over the past decade, the BPSSS has worked hard to plant trees and set up bird platforms across the flat agricultural plain of northern Serbia. Back in 2017, volunteers organized a 24-hour watch of the remaining nesting pair to make sure they were safe. A European Union-backed project later helped beef up the population to the current 29 breeding couples.
Dangers are still many, from accidental poisoning to electrical cables, Stojiljkovic said.
“Feliks went full circle and came back to where he had set off,” Stojiljkovic said. “Let's hope he won't be bored here.”
Feliks, an Eastern imperial eagle which flew from Serbia across North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Syria, where he fell victim to traffickers looks out from a cage at Palic Zoo after returning in Serbia, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
A worker inside the cage at Palic Zoo looks among trees for Feliks, an Eastern imperial eagle which flew from Serbia across North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Syria, where he fell victim to traffickers after returning in Serbia, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Feliks, an Eastern imperial eagle which flew from Serbia across North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Syria, where he fell victim to traffickers, looks out from a cage at Palic Zoo after returning in Serbia, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Feliks, an Eastern imperial eagle which flew from Serbia across North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Syria, where he fell victim to traffickers looks out from a cage at Palic Zoo after returning in Serbia, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
