Lawsuit Seeks Right to Liberty for Pittsburgh Zoo Elephants

~ Supported by elephant cognition and behavior experts, the case is the first filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project in Pennsylvania ~

October 21, 2025—Pittsburgh, PA—The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) has submitted a habeas corpus petition to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, demanding the right to liberty of five elephants held in captivity in the Pittsburgh Zoo. The filing comes less than a week after the Pittsburgh Zoo announced that two of the elephants, sisters Victoria and Zuri, will be transferred to its breeding center in Fairhope. The NhRP will also be petitioning the Court for injunctive relief to prevent this transfer while the litigation is ongoing.

The NhRP is initially asking the Court of Common Pleas to issue “an order to show cause,” which would require the Pittsburgh Zoo to justify its imprisonment of elephants Angeline, Savanna, Tasha, Victoria, and Zuri in a habeas corpus hearing. Courts in New York have already issued this habeas corpus order on behalf of an elephant and two chimpanzees. Ultimately, the NhRP is urging the Pennsylvania courts to either release the elephants to a sanctuary or consider them as candidates for rewilding. 

“The scientific evidence submitted in support of this lawsuit makes clear that these elephants are suffering physically and psychologically because they’re deprived of their freedom,” said NhRP Litigation Director Elizabeth Stein. “The courts have the power and duty to remedy this.” 

The first litigation of its kind in Pennsylvania, the NhRP’s petition has the support of renowned experts in elephant behavior and cognition whose declarations testify to elephants’ deep physical and psychological need for freedom of choice and movement. Several comment specifically on video footage of the elephants engaging in behaviors indicative of chronic stress and trauma, such as rocking, swaying, and head-bobbing–“a coping mechanism for the loneliness, boredom and frustration that characterizes zoo life,” writes Dr. Joyce Poole, who’s studied the social behavior and communication of elephants for over 50 years. These behaviors have never been seen in free-living elephants.  

The Pittsburgh Zoo stands out among US zoos for how long it has used dominance-based elephant management techniques. For example, it used bullhooks on the elephants until the Pittsburgh City Council passed a bullhook ban in 2017. A bullhook is a tool used to control elephants through pain and the fear of pain. In 2014, the USDA cited the Pittsburgh Zoo for using dogs to “nip and charge” the elephants. A year later, the zoo gave up its accreditation by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) rather than comply with new safety standards that would prevent handlers from physically interacting with the elephants. In 2002, an elephant at the zoo, Moja, killed a handler. According to one news report, Moja was with her 3-year-old calf Victoria when a handler “urged her to move along, and the elephant butted him and pinned him to the ground with her head, crushing him.” Only in 2024 did the Pittsburgh Zoo regain its accreditation after finally agreeing to the new AZA standards. 

Like virtually all zoos accredited by AZA, the Pittsburgh Zoo has a history of forcibly separating elephants, including closely bonded ones. In 2014, the Pittsburgh Zoo transferred Moja to a wildlife safari in Oregon, separating her from her daughters Victoria and Zuri when they were 15 and six, respectively. As detailed in the expert declarations, elephants in the wild are close to their mothers and other herd members their entire lives. Absent court intervention, Victoria and Zuri, will themselves soon be separated from Tasha, Savanna, and Savanna’s daughter Angeline–elephants they’ve known their entire lives–to be used for breeding at the zoo’s “International Conservation Center.” 

On a recent visit to the Pittsburgh Zoo, the NhRP captured video of Angeline chewing on the chains that line her stall in the zoo’s concrete-floored elephant barn, where the elephants appear to spend much of their time behind bars, especially in the winter months. Another image  shows sisters Savanna and Tasha reaching out to touch each other’s trunks through the bars that separate them. 

“Recognizing the elephants’ right to liberty isn’t only appropriate as a matter of law, but also a matter of morality and justice,” said Courtney Fern, the NhRP’s Director of Government Relations and Campaigns. “At its core, this lawsuit is about deepening our respect for the freedom of other beings and making sure we’re upholding the values and principles of justice that protect us all.”

A currently unavailable documentary film, Elefamilia, provides a window into the history of captive elephant breeding at the zoo. One scene viewed by the NhRP shows Moja reaching out to Zuri after Zuri’s birth. They are separated by bars. Another shows a bullhook being used on and thrown at Savanna during and after Angeline’s birth. After the birth, Savanna was chained.

The NhRP is the only civil rights organization in the US dedicated solely to securing rights for nonhuman animals. Writing in The Atlantic, historian Jill Lepore called the NhRP’s litigation to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo to a sanctuary “the most important animal-rights case of the 21st century.” That litigation concluded in New York’s highest court in 2022, with Judges Rowan Wilson and Jenny Rivera issuing landmark dissenting opinions in favor of recognizing the availability of habeas corpus to certain nonhuman animals. 

The court had a duty to “to recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society,” Judge Wilson wrote. Both Happy’s case and the Pittsburgh elephants’ case draw on fundamental principles of justice, liberty, and equality, centuries of case law, and the science of elephant cognition and behavior.

• Access the NhRP’s media kit, including court filings and photos and videos of the elephants for use in media coverage (credit Molly Condit).
• Visit the elephants’ client page including the elephants’ biographies and information about the exhibit
• In early 2025, a Pittsburgh-based national animal advocacy group called the Christian Animal Rights Association created a Change.org petition urging the director of the Pittsburgh Zoo to release the elephants to a sanctuary. It currently has over 13,000 signatures.
• The Pittsburgh Zoo has been included on In Defense of Animals’ list of “10 Worst Zoos for Elephants in North America” in 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2020.