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Nepal Sharply Hikes Permit Fee for Everest Climbers 

Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
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Nepal Sharply Hikes Permit Fee for Everest Climbers 

Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 

Nepal will increase the permit fees for climbing Mount Everest by more than 35%, making the world’s tallest peak more expensive for mountaineers for the first time in nearly a decade, officials said on Wednesday.

Income from permit fees and other spending by foreign climbers is a key source of revenue and employment for the cash-strapped nation, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.

A permit to climb the 8,849 meter (29,032 feet) Mount Everest will cost $15,000, said Narayan Prasad Regmi, director general of the Department of Tourism, announcing a 36% rise in the $11,000 fee that has been in place for nearly a decade.

"The royalty (permit fees) had not been reviewed for a long time. We have updated them now," Regmi told Reuters.

The new rate will come into effect from September and apply for the popular climbing April-May season along the standard South East Ridge, or South Col route, pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Fees for the less popular September-November season and the rarely climbed December-February season will also increase by 36%, to $7,500 and $3,750 respectively.

Some expedition organizers said the increase, under discussion since last year, was unlikely to discourage climbers. About 300 permits are issued each year for Everest.

"We expected this hike in permit fees," said Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based expedition organizer, Furtenbach Adventures.

He said it was an "understandable step" from the government of Nepal. "I am sure the additional funds will be somehow used to protect the environment and improve safety on Everest," Furtenbach said.

Regmi did not say what the extra revenue would be used for.

Hundreds of climbers try to scale Mount Everest and several other Himalayan peaks every year.

Nepal is often criticized by mountaineering experts for allowing too many climbers on Everest and doing little to keep it clean or to ensure climbers' safety.

Regmi said cleaning campaigns were organized to collect garbage and rope fixing as well as other safety measures were undertaken regularly.

Climbers returning from Everest say the mountain is becoming increasingly dry and rocky with less snow or other precipitation, which experts say could be due to global warming or other environmental changes.

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Court: Elephants Can't Pursue their Release from Colorado Zoo Because they're Not Human

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephants Kimba, front, and Lucky, back, at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP, File)
FILE - This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephants Kimba, front, and Lucky, back, at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP, File)
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Court: Elephants Can't Pursue their Release from Colorado Zoo Because they're Not Human

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephants Kimba, front, and Lucky, back, at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP, File)
FILE - This undated photo provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo shows elephants Kimba, front, and Lucky, back, at the Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Cheyenne Mountain Zoo via AP, File)

Five elephants at a Colorado zoo may be “majestic” but, since they're not human, they do not have the legal right to pursue their release, Colorado’s highest court said Tuesday.
The ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court follows a similar court defeat in New York in 2022 for an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo in a case brought by an animal rights group. Rulings in favor of the animals would have allowed lawyers for both Happy and the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs — Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo — to pursue a long-held legal process for prisoners to challenge their detention and possibly be sent to live in an elephant sanctuary instead, The Associated Press reported.
“It bears noting that the narrow legal question before this court does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals generally or these five elephants specifically. Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person as that term is used in the habeas corpus statute. And because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim,” the court said in its ruling.
The same animal rights group that tried to win Happy’s release, the Nonhuman Rights Project, also brought the case in Colorado.
The group argued that the Colorado elephants, born in the wild in Africa, have shown signs of brain damage because the zoo is essentially a prison for such intelligent and social creatures, known to roam for miles a day. It wanted the animals released to one of the two accredited elephant sanctuaries in the United States because the group doesn’t think they can no longer live in the wild.
The zoo argued moving the elephants and potentially placing them with new animals would be cruel at their age, possibly causing unnecessary stress. It said they aren’t used to being in larger herds and, based on the zoo's observations, the elephants don’t have the skills or desire to join one.
In a statement, the Nonhuman Rights Project said the latest ruling "perpetuates a clear injustice” and predicted future courts would reject the idea that only humans have a right to liberty.
“As with other social justice movements, early losses are expected as we challenge an entrenched status quo that has allowed Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo to be relegated to a lifetime of mental and physical suffering,” it said.