David Cassuto
Ok, there’s much to catch up on and this will be the first post of several. Let’s start with the AALS Animal Law Section panel held last Saturday in San Francisco. The conference in general was quite good. Despite a labor action at the main conference hotel, which caused many sections (including ours) to be moved at the last minute, and despite the session taking place at O-dark thirty (8:30 a.m.) on a Saturday, the session was well-attended by interested folk, many of whom were new to animal law.
The panel was moderated by Verne Smith and speakers included our hero (speaking about climate change and CAFOs), Rebecca Bratspies speaking on issues relating to transgenic animals and agriculture, Thomas Kelch, discussing laws related to animals and agriculture in the EU and China, and Bruce Wagman offering an optimistic (!) assessment of recent developments in animal law litigation. For me, the thing that most stood out from the panel and the discussion following was the range and diversity of expertise among those involved in animal law, both at the academic and practice level.
Maybe it’s just because it’s a snow day here in the east, but doggone it, I’m feeling a little hopeful today.
Filed under: animal advocacy, animal law, animal law education, Uncategorized | Tagged: animal advocacy, animal ethics, animal law, animal welfare, CAFOS, climate change, environmental advocacy, environmental ethics, environmental law, factory farms, farmed animals, global warming, industrial farming |
Animal Blawg 
please sign 2 petitions at http://www.change.org by me
1)change the status of pets/companion animals from property to “furry” children
and
2) demand that specialty veterinary hospitals take resonsibility for infecting pets with MRSA
please help me get signatures on both, thank you
Part of the appeal of hamburgers and nuggets is that their boneless abstractions allow us to forget were eating animals. That perhaps is what the industrial food chain does best obscure the histories of the foods it produces by processing them to such an extent that they appear as pure products of culture rather than nature – things made from plants and animals. on this ..In what animal welfare advocates are describing as a historic advance Burger King the worlds second-largest hamburger chain said yesterday that it would begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers that did not confine their animals in cages and crates….The company said that it would also favor suppliers of chickens that use gas or controlled-atmospheric stunning rather than electric shocks to knock birds unconscious before slaughter.