Five wild-born elephants that have long inhabited a two-acre plot in a Southern Colorado zoo will not be able to pursue their own release, the state's highest court ruled this week.

Responding to a petition from an animal rights group, the Colorado Supreme Court decided that although these female African elephants are "majestic," the "interests protected by the great writ of habeas corpus" does not extend to animals.

The writ of habeas corpus is a legal procedure through which prisoners can challenge their incarceration. Colorado's habeas statute, the ruling stated, "only applies to persons, and not to nonhuman animals, no matter how cognitively, psychologically or socially sophisticated they may be."

"Because an elephant is not a person, the........

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