Dolphin Slaughter in Denmark

From the email:  Thanks to Laura Westra for this translation of the Italian text: SHAME!  It is Incredible that it should exist! what todo? other than report it and offer these images as far as possible. DENMARK; A SHAME …pictures…. Although this appears incredible, every year in Denmark this brutal and bloody massacre happens in [...]

GRIDA in Rearview — A Most Excellent Event

Only time for a brief word about the GRIDA conference b/c I’m now at a different conference, this time of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.  The GRIDA event was outstanding.  Lecture topics ranged from animal behavior to AETA.  Among the highlights: David Favre advanced his vision of animals as living property; Steve Wise sketched [...]

Some Thoughts On a Shelter Closing

Several posts on this blawg have commented on the troubling reality underlying the legal status of animals, which is that so long as animals remain property under the law, any legal advances are only made in terms of animals’ relationships to humans, not for the sake of any inherent right to autonomy. I return to [...]

The Otter Hunt Reborn

En route to Montreal for the GRIDA Animal Law Conference (see post here), I picked up some Canadian newspapers.  From the NationalPost, I learn that aboriginals on Vancouver Island hope to kill 1% of the region’s sea otters per year for “ceremonial reasons.” Sea otters, like so many other fur-bearing animals, were hunted to near [...]

Animal Issues Front & Center at Sunstein Confirmation Hearing

Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s choice for administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (a sort of Administrative Law Czar), is a law academic (U of Chicago and now Harvard) and an advocate and scholar of animal law.  He supports (among other things) the creation of a private right of action for animal protection [...]

Some Good News from the Courts

Hot off the email: Dear friends and colleagues, I’m happy to share with you that the story of Animal Legal Defense Fund  v. Woodley has been reported on with great care as a big feature story in the June issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. It’s a fantastic tribute to the huge team effort that [...]

Animal Law Symposium: The Impact On & Opportunities For Animals in the Current Political and Economic Climate

Call for Papers The Animal Law Section of the Maryland State Bar Association, in conjunction with the University Of Baltimore School Of Law and the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Law, will host the first-ever regional Mid-Atlantic symposium on animal law.  The Impact On & Opportunities For Animals in the Current Political and Economic Climate [...]

Vilsack Going South on Us

My low expectations for Secretary Vilsack (USDA) were briefly raised with Kathleen Merrigan’s appointment to the #2 spot over there (see post here).  Then I read stuff like this, where Vilsack tells Congress that the “vast, vast, vast majority of farmers who are raising livestock are very sensitive” to the need to be careful about [...]

Great News for Farmed Animals from Both Sides of the Atlantic

On the US side, Maine has become the sixth U.S. state to ban extreme confinement of certain factory-farmed animals! It joins Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and California in what has become a massive and sustained push by people across the country to better the living conditions of animals in factory farms. See the news here: [...]

Live Skinning Raccoon Dogs and Other Tales from the Fur Farm

Sometimes, information presents itself that is so stirring, so disturbing, so utterly inconceivable that even those of us paying attention to these issues are shaken to the core. Such was the case when I chose to view the undercover video of a Chinese fur farm taken by investigators of Care for the Wild, EAST International, [...]

What Price Sushi? Tuna on the Brink

The bluefin tuna can go from 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds. Underwater.  One of the top predators in the ocean, the fish can grow to 10 feet in length and weigh 1500 pounds.  It also makes really good sushi — dead bluefin can sell for over $100,000.  Consequently, it has been fished to [...]

Another Cool Animal Scholarship Opportunity

Call for papers: for the new multidisciplinary and international Journal of Animal Ethics to be published by the University of Illinois Press in partnership with the Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in 2010. The Journal will be a journal of inquiry, argument, and exchange dedicated to exploring the moral dimension of our relations [...]

Polar Bears, Secretary Salazar and Climate Change

Polar bears cannot catch a break.  The Bush Administration reluctantly declared the bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) a year or so ago.  The threat arose because of shrinking habitat caused by polar ice melting.  That ice melt is, of course, a result of climate change. Once a species is classified [...]

Animal Law as Masculine Sentimentalism?

That’s a possibility I hadn’t considered before.  But I think Susan Pearson (History, Northwestern University) is onto something.  On May 15, 2009, Dr. Pearson will present her paper “The Dove Has Claws”: Anticruelty Reform and Masculine Sentimentalism in Gilded Age America at the Newberry Library in Chicago.  The Newberry hosts a “Seminar on Women and [...]

Pulled Pork Ad

Words fail me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9K8jQQ8g3A&feature=player_embedded –dnc hat tip: Feminist Law Professors

European Parliament Bans Trade in Seal Products

The European Parliament has banned all trade in seal pelts and seal products.  The move was strongly criticized by Canada and particularly by the Canadian Sealers Association, which insists that the Canadian method of clubbing young seals to death on the ice is humane.  The Association also notes that seals eat a lot of cod [...]

Swine Flu: Born in North Carolina

So it turns out that the H1N1 or (let’s call it what it is:) SWINE Flu is a Tarheel.  This outstanding post in Daily Kos tells the story about how the genes of this most recent virus are traceable to a 1998 outbreak at a Sampson County, North Carolina industrial hog facility.  The whole piece [...]

Pete Seeger, Hope, & Animals

Yesterday, I attended Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration (and benefit for the Clearwater) at Madison Square Garden.  The music and spirit of Seeger (and the Weavers) were a huge presence in my house during my childhood and remain so to this day.  To attend this event with multiple generations of my family was a blessing [...]

U.S. Justice Dept Joins the Fight

The U.S. Justice Department has joined the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in a lawsuit against Hallmark Meat Packing and Westland Meat Company, Inc. for defrauding the federal government. The Humane Society of the United States had filed a qui tam action in federal district court against the two companies following their abusive [...]

PETA and . . . Michael Vick

PETA continues to break new ground in the unusual approach to animal advocacy sweepstakes.  Apparently, Micheal Vick is in talks with PETA to become a spokesperson for the organization.  We can interpret Vick’s motives in a number of ways.  Perhaps he has rehabilitated himself and developed a love (or at least respect) for animals while [...]

Veggie School Lunch Options

Wyntergrace Williams, the 14-year-old daughter of talk show host Montel Williams, is lobbying the U.S. Congress to reform the Child Nutrition Act to more accurately reflect the health benefits of vegetarian and vegan meals in public school lunches by offering more non-meat and non-dairy options. Wyntergrace, who is vegetarian, is circulating a petition for support [...]

The Politicization of Animal Use

 Conservative political radio talk show political host Rush Limbaugh has joined forces with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to support a U.S. crackdown on “organized dog fighting and other animal cruelty crimes” according to the Washington Times. To this end, Limbaugh has lent his voice to some public service radio announcements. Limbaugh’s [...]

Babies and Pigs in Diapers

Nadya Suleman, the California mother of 14 children, has said in a recent news interview that she is considering adopting a pet pig and/or a small dog.  PETA is urging Ms. Suleman to refrain.  According to PETA, a representative of that organization sent Ms. Suleman an e-mail dated April 27, 2009 (this is a copy, [...]