A Washington, D.C.–based animal-rights group has filed a lawsuit in Somerset County seeking to secure the liberty of two Pittsburgh Zoo elephants.

The elephants were recently moved to an international conservation center in Fairhope, where the suit claims they are being forcibly bred.

Wednesday’s lawsuit is the second in a series of legal actions taken by the Nonhuman Rights Project against the operator and head of the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium.

The Pittsburgh Zoo currently houses five elephants. Angeline, Victoria and Zuri were born in captivity at the zoo, while Savanna and Tasha are wild African savanna elephants who were separated from their herds, according to court documents.

In October – less than a week after the zoo announced that sister elephants Zuri and Victoria would be transferred – the Nonhuman Rights Project sued the Zoological Society of Pittsburgh and zoo President and CEO Jeremy Goodman in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

The lawsuit called for the release of all the zoo’s elephants from captivity, arguing that, as animals, they possess a “fundamental right to bodily liberty.” It cites testimony from biologists, ethologists and conservationists who say the elephants are displaying behaviors consistent with chronic stress and trauma caused by inadequate enclosure conditions, according to court documents.

The Nonhuman Rights Project initially filed a petition to stop the transfer of elephants sisters Zuri and Victoria during court proceedings. In November, Allegheny County Judge Alan Hertzberg denied the nonprofit’s petition stating that the elephants had already been moved.

The Nonhuman Rights Project said in a Thursday news release that when Zuri and Victoria were relocated to the conservation center, they were no longer in Allegheny County, where the original lawsuit was filed. As a result, the group filed a second lawsuit in Somerset County.

The lawsuit is 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 Victoria and Zuri in a habeas corpus hearing.

This is the same order in the ongoing lawsuit on behalf of the zoo’s remaining elephants, Angeline, Savanna and Tasha in Allegheny.

Courtney Fern, director of government relations and campaigns for the Nonhuman Rights Project, said that the breeding process is physically taxing on the elephants and often requires multiple blood tests, as well as placing them in a “squeeze cage” to keep them still during semen injections.

“Victoria and Zuri will have no chose who they mate with,” Fern said.

A Pittsburgh Zoo spokesperson once again provided the same statement from the first lawsuit, stating that the young elephant’s move was nearly “two years in the making” and that Zuri and Victoria had been safely moved to the International Conservation Center on Oct. 27.

The spokesperson declined to answer specific questions regarding how the breeding process worked during a phone call on Thursday.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)