Elephant Cognition Experts Make the Case for Mari and Vaigai’s Liberty

Mari and Vaigai are serving life sentences, confined solely for the purpose of public exhibition. Taken from their families in the wild and shipped overseas, they continue to bear the consequences of wrongs humans committed against them.

Mari arrived at the Honolulu Zoo in 1982. Vaigai in 1992. The people who decided their futures called them gifts and consigned them to decades of captivity—as the law recognized no right of theirs that stood in the way.

On November 9, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court will hear arguments in our case seeking recognition of their fundamental right to bodily liberty. An amicus brief submitted by four elephant cognition experts explains what is at stake for Mari and Vaigai—and why their interests in freedom warrant legal protection.

Neuroscientists Dr. Lori Marino and Dr. Bob Jacobs, elephant welfare expert Catherine Doyle, M.S., and former zoo elephant manager Lester O’Brien bring decades of experience studying elephant brains, behavior, and captive environments. All four contributed to a peer-reviewed publication examining the potential neurological consequences of captivity for elephants and cetaceans. In their brief, which is based on that publication, the experts describe how confinement harms the very capacities that make elephants who they are.

An elephant’s life encompasses relationships developed over decades, decisions made across vast landscapes, exploration, communication, and the accumulated knowledge of a family. She has places to go and reasons to go there. Her days unfold through her own choices and those of other elephants, within a world humans did not construct for an audience.

Strip that away, and what remains is an elephant body that is visible to zoo visitors, while so much of her life is not.

Mari and Vaigai have been reduced to objects of display, confined for people to look at. Visitors can see their trunks, ears, and immense bodies without ever encountering the complexity of the lives they were denied. The institution responsible for that deprivation attempts to justify it. The experts’ brief challenges the zoo’s account by examining what captivity does to an elephant’s mind.

“A damaged brain is at least as consequential as a damaged knee,” they write. Chronic stress and impoverished environments can disrupt the neural systems responsible for emotion, memory, motivation, and movement. An elephant can be fed and receive veterinary care while her environment continues to undermine her neurological well-being.

Even visible suffering can be repackaged as entertainment. Mari and Vaigai have been documented rocking and swaying, repetitive movements known as stereotypies. Due to zoo propaganda, visitors sometimes mistake these movements for dancing: people can stand in front of a suffering elephant and walk away believing they have seen a happy one. In reality, as the experts explain, these aberrant behaviors reflect dysregulated motor systems attempting to cope with chronic stress and deprivation.

Against this evidence, zoos point to enrichment, education, and conservation. The brief confronts the inadequacy of those defenses.

A feeding device or tire may interrupt monotony, but humans still determine what an elephant receives, when it appears, and when it disappears. More fundamentally, enrichment does not restore control over her movement, relationships, or surroundings. It attempts to treat deprivation created by captivity while leaving its source in place.

Nor can an education and conservation mission justify the immense suffering inflicted on Mari and Vaigai. Elephant biology does not change in captivity. Whatever benefit the zoo claims to provide to the general public by holding elephants captive, Mari and Vaigai bear the consequences of confinement long after visitors go home. Closing time ends the day’s entertainment, but brings no relief for the elephants who provide it.

The experts identify a meaningful alternative: placement in an accredited elephant sanctuary. Mari and Vaigai would continue to receive care while having substantially more space, varied surroundings, opportunities to forage, and greater freedom to choose how to spend their days. Because nothing can return the decades taken from them, the years ahead become more urgent.

Crucially, the brief connects science to our demand for the fundamental right to liberty. Elephant autonomy is a capacity expressed through decisions about movement, relationships, and daily life. It does not disappear because humans prevent its exercise—it is only suppressed. The experts urge the Court to recognize Mari and Vaigai’s liberty right and permit them to challenge their confinement through an evidentiary hearing.

On November 9, the Court will consider whether Mari and Vaigai may invoke Hawaiʻi’s common law writ of habeas corpus. A favorable ruling would allow their case to proceed.

The experts have placed before the Court an account of zoo captivity measured by its consequences for elephants, rather than its value to humans. Their brief exposes the injustice of leaving Mari and Vaigai’s fate to an institution that can acknowledge the extraordinary minds of elephants while keeping them in conditions that harm them. Should Mari and Vaigai’s fundamental right to liberty be recognized, their interest in liberty would carry legal force.  Finally, they would have recourse against the zoo’s inexcusable willingness to disregard their suffering.