Joyce Tischler is ABA TIPS Animal Law Section Honoree

Joyce Tischler will be honored by the Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice (TIPS) Animal Law Section at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association which convenes this week in Chicago.   Tischler, co-founder of the ALDF and animal advocate for three decades, will be presented with the Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law [...]

Animal Advocacy: A Threat to All That’s Right and Good…

Here’s a newsflash: animal rights people control the discourse on animal issues.  At least that was the message of the recent meeting of the Animal Agriculture Alliance.  One speaker, Professor Wes Jamison of Palm Beach Atlantic University, opined that animal advocates drape their message in a cloak of religiosity because people are ignorant about yet [...]

Finch Fighting Ring Broken Up

Good grief; who even knew there was finch fighting?  Another day, another gruesome exploitation of animals in the news… –David Cassuto

Racing “At” (Not “To”) the Airport

Today, I learned that county officials would like to install slot machines in Miami International Airport (MIA).  Generally, I disapprove of slot machines; they embody all the bad about gambling (anti-social, no skill involved & you can’t beat the house) and none of the good (skill involved, you can beat the house, and it’s social).  [...]

Sunstein… More on the Inertia Sweepstakes

Yes, there are other things to blog about but the Cass Sunstein nomination saga is both perversely fascinating and important.  Sunstein’s views on animal issues are at best tangential to the position of Head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.  Yet, they are raising Republican dander like nobody’s business.  Today, Senator John Cornyn [...]

Sunstein, Chambliss and the Pound of Flesh

In case you were wondering what (among other concessions) Cass Sunstein had to do to move his nomination forward, here’s a little tidbit.  Sunstein wrote Saxby Chambliss a letter, which Chambliss then read into the Congressional Record, in which Sunstein promises to  “respect” gun rights and “not take any steps to promote litigation on behalf [...]

In Memoriam: Frank McCourt

To my knowledge, Frank McCourt did not spend a lot of time thinking about animal issues.  However, he was the first person who taught me to care about writing and to appreciate the power of language.  He did that as he did everything — with a twinkling eye and a raft of good stories. Every [...]

AETA’s First Legal Challenge

We knew that the government would eventually invoke the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) and now it has.  Earlier this year, authorities arrested 4 activists for alleged threats and vandalism against research facilities at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley and charged them under AETA.  The defendants (known as the AETA 4) argue that the [...]

If Everyone Were Vegetarian…

We wouldn’t have the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashing into people’s homes. –David Cassuto (is not making this up…)

Wild Horse Protection Bill Makes it Through the House

As usual it wasn’t pretty (the term “sausage-making” seems disturbingly apt), but H.R. 1018, a federal bill to protect wild horses and burros from commercial sale and slaughter and also from wholesale government-sponsored killing, made it through the House. The vote was 239-195.  Among other things, the bill directs BLM to make wider use of [...]

Sunstein Nomination: The Hold is Lifted

Saxby Chambliss has stepped out of the way.  Confirmation is apparently within reach. –David Cassuto

Sunstein Nomination Inches to a Standstill

It would seem that Senator Chambliss remains worried about his peeps’ potential exposure to lawsuits by animals should Cass Sunstein be confirmed.  He also doesn’t like the fact that Professor Sunstein does not view the 2nd Amendment as a a blanket license to own weapons. Further updates as events warrant. –David Cassuto

The United States Doesn’t Torture? Animal Testing in the Military

Charles J. Rosciam is a retired captain with the Navy Medical Services Corps – a combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient.  He and 16 other retired armed forces medical personnel are attempting to convince the Department of Defense (DOD) to stop torturing and killing animals as part of its trauma training program.  Each year, in [...]

On Animals, Death & the Media

A Cal-Maine industrial egg facility in Texas caught fire last Thursday.  The facility was damaged but fortunately, no one was hurt.  Oh yeah, and 800,000 hens died. Stephanie, over at Animal Rights – Change.Org, lays bare the media’s indifference to animals. –David Cassuto

Sunstein Nomination Inches Forward

Cass Sunstein will meet with Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) today in an effort to convince him (Chambliss) that Sunstein’s thoughtful and comparatively moderate positions on animal rights and welfare won’t result in him (Chambliss) and his constituents facing lawsuits from pigs and other confined animals.  Chambliss had earlier placed a hold on Sunstein’s nomination to [...]

Obama Backs Bill to Ban Prophylactic Antibiotics

In a potentially promising development, President Obama’s Principal Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs testified in support of a bill that would ban subtherapeutic antibiotic use in animals.  The reason: pumping animals full of antibiotics is bad, bad, bad.   In addition to the systemic animal abuse such drugs enable, their downstream environmental impact is [...]

On Dumb Animals and Climate Change

Today, Krugman uses the metaphor of boiled frogs to bring home the reality of collective inaction on climate change.  He is referencing the widely held belief that if you put a frog in cold water and then heat the water, the frog won’t know that it’s being cooked (until it’s too late).  The comparison is [...]

Food and Environment

I spend a lot of time talking about the ethics of industrial farming as it relates to the treatment of animals.  Now, I want to say a few words about diet, environment and the law.  On average, Americans consume forty-five more pounds of meat per year than they did fifty years ago.  According to the [...]

No Standing to Object to Foie Gras

New York is the foie gras capital of the United States.  Several years ago, the Humane Society, among several other complainants, asked the Commissioner of Agriculture to declare foie gras an adulterated food product.  The underlying rationale was that force-feeding ducks causes them to become diseased, as evidenced by their engorged livers.  Those engorged livers [...]

Canned Hunting of Endangered Species is Illegal

From the Stuff You Probably Thought Was Too Obvious to Have to Sue About Desk: A district court in Washington D.C. has struck down a Bush Era U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service rule that allowed canned hunting of endangered species.  Canned hunting is the shooting of semi-tame animals on fenced  “ranches” (see here for some [...]

Nationwide Dogfighting Crackdown Leads to 26 Arrests

7 states, 400 dogs.  Apparently this was not one large ring.  Just lots of people around the country with vicious, sadistic streaks.  Read all about it here. –David Cassuto

Dorgan’s Proposed Folly — Elk Hunting in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Today’s NYT has an editorial on a proposed elk hunt in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  The herd has grown to over 900 animals since 1985, when elk were reintroduced to the region.  Apparently, a herd of that size stresses the ecosystem so Senator Dorgan has proposed a “common sense” solution of allowing [...]

What you can do to Stop the Monkey Business in Puerto Rico

Unfortunately, my hometown of Puerto Rico continues to struggle with cruelty related issues. After the dog killing fiasco that took place in the town of Vega Baja in 2007, one hopes that Puerto Ricans have become more cognizant of these types of issues. What is about to take place in the southern town of Guayama [...]

New York Animal Law in Perspective

Many believe that state animal cruelty laws are not tough enough and that states ought to implement an “eye for an eye” approach.  Others believe such approaches would be no more effective for crimes against animals than for crimes against people.  In New York, laws are evolving but what’s going on elsewhere? Similar to New [...]

Sunstein Redux

Will Harvard’s Cass Sunstein become an animal advocate in the White House? If confirmed by the Senate as the Head of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office ofInformation & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Sunstein would be responsible for the office which reviews all regulatory proposals from the Administration.  Yesterday, June 30, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) [...]

GEIG – A Coda and a Step Forward for Animal Ethics

This was a very productive 5 day meeting of GEIG.  In addition to attending some fine discussions and papers over the last several days, I also officially joined the IUCN CEL Ethics Specialist Group, something I mistakenly thought I had done in Barcelona at the IUCN Congress back in the fall.  The IUCN (International Union [...]