ABA Humane Education Program

The Animal Law and Law in Public Service committees of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice (TIPS) section of the ABA is taking a bite out of crime– crime against animals, that is. The committes are teaming up with Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers (HEART), a humane education organization, to work with children in school [...]

Diet & Climate Change

This post over at Prettier than Napoleon (cool name for a blog, no?) about the carbon footprint of various dietary regimes bears noting.  Commendably, it cites the high carbon footprint of meat-based diets.  It then claims, however, that since the carbon footprint of eating chicken is lower than that of eating beef, the data put [...]

The [Animal] Law of Evidence

Colin Miller over at EvidenceProf Blog examines the evidentiary issues underlying an animal cruelty prosecution in Texas.  In  Vevrecka v. State, 2009 WL 179203 (Tex.App.-Hous. 2009), the defendant was charged with cruelty to five dogs found on her property (their condition was so dire that 4 were later euthanized).  As part of her defense, the [...]

Raising Duck Liver

D’Artagnan, Inc. has reluctantly agreed to stop claiming in its advertising that the ducks whose engorged livers are used in its foie gras are “hand-raised with tender care under the strictest of animal care standards.” They further have ceased saying that the ducks’ livers are “not diseased” but “simply enlarged.”  The company’s shift comes in [...]

Puppy Mills — Combating the Scourge

Following up on Suzanne’s fine post about puppy mills, it seems to me that the issue has pervaded both the traditional media and the blogosphere with increasing frequency of late (even Oprah did a show last year, as did NPR).  Perhaps this upsurge stems partly from the new era in Washington although I am still [...]

US Air Flight 1549 and Animal Welfare

According to Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, both engines of the A-320 carrying the 150 passengers that boarded US Air Flight 1549 at La Guardia were taken down by bird strikes. This generated a slew of articles, interviews and news clips about bird control management in U.S. airports. As it turns out, the FAA has a a [...]

Progressing from “Agriculture” to “Food”

California recently passed a new law ending (in 2015) the most intensive forms of confinement for pigs, calves and egg-laying hens.  Now, California’s senate has renamed its agriculture committee the  “Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture”. The committee will tackle the issue of how farmed animals are treated in state farms, and is requesting feedback from the public on exactly [...]

Bob Barker: Animal Law Sugar Daddy

Bob Barker, of The Price is Right fame, has just donated $1 million to the University of Virginia to underwrite an Animal Law Program there.  This is in addition to $1 million he has already given to Harvard, Duke, UCLA, Northwestern, Georgetown and Stanford respectively (rumor has it that Yale turned him down).  While Barker [...]

Arne Naess: 1912-2009

I have written and will continue to write about the overlap between animal and environmental issues (and the laws such issues spawn) but what I have not yet done and now will belatedly do is acknowledge my intellectual debt to Arne Naess, who died this past Monday at the age of 96.  Naess was the [...]

Why is it a crime to stomp on a goldfish?

The Mississippi Law Journal just published my article titled “Why is it a Crime to Stomp on a Goldfish: Harm, Victimhood, and the Structure of Anti-Cruelty Offenses”, 78 Miss. L. J. 1 (2008). It’s now available on Westlaw and Lexis. Also, a final draft completed before law review editing can be downloaded from ssrn here. Here’s [...]

Women, Animals, and Advertising

Very interesting thread at the always intriguing Feminist Law Professors blog discussing the images below and asking whether they are “Mocking Sexism or Mocking Feminism?” The text in both ads (for Eram, a French shoe company) says (more or less): “No women’s bodies were exploited in this ad.” Given the parallels noted by many scholars [...]

The Super Slam: Ethics and the Trophy Hunt

It has been a busy news cycle.  Our economy continues to tank, the conflict in Gaza continues to rage, an unarmed man lying face down in police custody in Oakland is shot dead.  The list goes on.  Much other news, both good and bad, permeates the airwaves, print, and ether. Faced with all this, I [...]

Switzerland Sets The Bar High by Expanding Animals’ Rights

On September 1, a new law went into effect in Switzerland, which greatly advances the rights of numerous species. The law is receiving plenty of attention around the world, with the media marveling at how far out on a limb Switzerland has gone. Under the new law, wild fish, guinea pigs, domesticated horses, dogs and fish, [...]

Institute for Critical Animal Studies

I have recently become aware of an academic program called the Institute for Critical Animal Studies. Based in Syracuse, NY, its website (www.crtiticalanimalstudies.org) states that it is “the first interdisciplinary scholarly center dedicated to promoting critical scholarly dialogue and research on the principles and practices of animal advocacy, animal protection, and animal-related policies in the [...]