Two Asian elephants at the Honolulu Zoo have a legal right to "liberty" and should be relocated to a sanctuary, a nonprofit animal rights organisation has argued in Hawaii's Supreme Court.
On Monday (9 November), the Hawaii Supreme Court heard arguments from the Nonhuman Rights Project regarding two elephants – Mari, 51, and Vaigai, 41.
The organisation is asking the court to relocate the elephants to an accredited sanctuary, and says Mari has been at the zoo since 1982 and Vaigai since 1992.
In a statement from August, the Nonhuman Rights Project said: "Elephants are autonomous beings with extraordinarily complex cognitive, emotional, and social lives, which, the NhRP argues, gives them a profound interest in their bodily liberty that warrants protection under Hawaii’s common law.
"Scientific evidence submitted in the case demonstrates that elephants form lifelong social bonds, grieve the loss of loved ones, solve complex problems, and possess the autonomy necessary to direct their own lives."
The court on Monday heard arguments "concerning whether Mari and Vaigai may invoke the common law writ of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of their confinement", the Nonhuman Rights Project said.
A writ of habeas corpus is a legal procedure that allows a person who has been arrested or detained to challenge the lawfulness of their confinement before a court.
The Nonhuman Rights Project says the legal protection should extend to the elephants, and argues that their 1.5-acre habitat at the zoo "restricts their autonomy".
In a petition, the group also alleges the habitat lacks adequate shade and enrichment activities.
"The world’s foremost elephant scientists have established that Mari and Vaigai are autonomous," attorney Jake Davis, representing the Nonhuman Rights Project, told the court (via the Independent).
The Nonhuman Rights Project first filed the petition in 2023, with the case dismissed in 2024 by a circuit court.
Elephants are "autonomous beings"
Hawaii’s Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld the circuit court's decision earlier this year, finding that elephants do not qualify as “persons” under the state’s habeas corpus statute.
The City and County of Honolulu is opposing the petition.
Patricia Sendao, deputy corporation counsel with the City and County of Honolulu, described the organisation's request as "a sweeping pronouncement that fundamentally alters our laws regarding animal welfare".
In 2025, Colorado's highest court ruled in favour of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, saying five elephants at the site did not have the legal right to pursue their release because they are not human.
This came after a New York court ruled in 2022 that an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo was not legally a person and would remain there.
Both cases were brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project.
