More on the Vegan Dialogues

Matthew Blaisdell
This is a summation/expansion of my comments (see post & comments here) relating to the NY Times Op-Ed in which the writer likened the killing of animals for meat consumption to the Holocaust.
I know only about as much as the general public regarding animal rights/law.  I do think that the issues involved are fascinating, [...]

Are Seahorses Becoming Extinct?

Elisa D’Ortenzio

Today, there are so many threats to the various ecosystems and the animals that live in them that it has become hard to keep track of them all.  One animal that seems to receive little attention is the seahorse, even as many believe the seahorse to be a flagship of endangered marine habitats of [...]

The Utopian Suggestion of Natural Predator Reintroduction

Jonathan Vandina

The deer population in the Northeast has exploded. Some maintain that one of the reasons is due to the previous housing boom. During the boom, thousands of acres of land were cleared with the intentions of building homes that were never built.  This cleared land permitted sunlight to hit the ground, which facilitated grass [...]

Protecting Animals, One Mouthful at a Time

David Cassuto
Emory University is attempting to preserve “heritage” turkeys by feeding them to its students.  The Standard Bronze and Bourbon Red turkeys are in danger of dying out due to lack of demand.  So, apparently, is the Tennessee Fainting Goat and other species that don’t fit the factory farm mold.  The lede of this Chronicle [...]

“One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, No Fish”

Jennifer Church
This Monday, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the international body that sets annual tuna fishing limits, announced a reduction in the fishing quota of the Bluefin Tuna.  However, most scientists agree that the reduction does not go far enough to save bluefin tuna from near extinction. The EU, US [...]

NEPA, Preliminary Injunctions, and Animals

David Cassuto
A few days ago, I and a few colleagues from Pace and several other American law schools met at Shanghai Jiao Tong  University School of Law with a number of Chinese academics and members of the Chinese Ministry of Environment.  We were there because the Chinese government wanted our input as it attempts to [...]

IUCN Academy Colloquium — No Animal Law Here…

David Cassuto
I’m currently in China having all kinds of interesting experiences.  For example, it was only in Shanghai a few days ago that I saw my first wheelchair-accessible urinal.  I’ve also seen more pictures of Chairman Mao in the last 2 days than I had seen in the previous . . .  well, ever.   I’m [...]

The Dirty Side of “Clean” Energy

Micheal Friese

Saving the wild salmon in the Columbia River Basin is an issue that does not get much press outside of the Pacific Northwest.  However, the possible extinction of the Columbia River Salmon has far reaching effects.  One of the more interesting issues (and representative of the greater environmental and animal advocate’s conflict) is that [...]

Interior Proposes Polar Bear Habitat

David Cassuto
A while back, the Bush Administration reluctantly declared the polar bear threatened (under the Endangered Species Act) due to global warming and shrinking habitat.  It determined, however, that it would not use the ESA as the basis to require steps to curtail climate change.  Indeed, the Bushies had no intention of curtailing climate change [...]

Livestock Emissions Account for 51% of Greenhouse Gases

Katie Hance

In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that livestock accounted for 18% of greenhouse gases, making livestock emissions “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.”  However recently, Worldwatch Institute, a Washington D.C. environmental think-tank, reported that livestock emissions actually account for 51% of greenhouse gases.

You Would Never Raise Your Voice to Your Mother…

 Sandra Mekita
            Walking along a crowded Boston street, you can see people stopping abruptly in front of you – if you did not run into them first – glaring at the spectacle across the street in front of a McDonalds. There are five people with signs and bullhorns surrounding a person in a beakless chicken [...]

The Standing Conundrum

Gillian Lyons

One of today’s hottest debates in the field of animal law is the status of animals as property. (For more on one aspect of this property debate- take a look at Gary Francione’s Animals as Property.)  To my mind, one of the most important aspects of this debate is how this current property status [...]

Florida’s Python Predicament

Jonathan Vandina
It’s 4 PM. The hot Florida sun has warmed the thermo regulated American alligator (Alligator missipiensis) with the ability to satisfy its day long hunger. The tiny touch receptors on the mouth of the apex predator feel an unexpected yet familiar sensation. It’s a slight ripple, a change in water motion coming from the [...]

CAFOs — An Unregulated Assault on the Air & Water

David Cassuto
Today’s NYT does a good job of describing the environmental and human health crisis wrought by CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).  It does a less good job of describing the horrendous conditions imposed on the animals thus confined.  Still, a lot of tragedy gets captured in this little vignette:
In June, Mr. Natzke explained to [...]

Ohio’s Issue 2

Laura Schierhoff
In February, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) met with members of Ohio’s livestock industry to discuss passing humane legislation in that state.  HSUS had its eye on Ohio to pass legislation to ban the use of poultry cages, veal crates and gestation stalls.  Agribusiness in Ohio knew this was not [...]

A Victory for “Flipper”

Chris Cuomo
Each year hunters in the western Japanese town of Taiji hunt and kill over 2,000 dolphins by hand.  Activists worldwide have attempted to end this gruesome display of animal cruelty, but have been unsuccessful. Under International Whaling Commission regulations, whaling is banned, but the hunting of dolphins is still permitted.   Apparently Japan has also [...]

Nonhuman Animals, Human-Created Environments

Karl Coplan
Sunday’s New York Times article about the threat to the La Cienega marsh on the Mexico-US border raises interesting questions about human responsibilities to maintain human-created environments that have been occupied by natural species.  The La Cienega marsh was created by the diversion of Arizona agricultural runoff too high in salt content to be [...]

National Lawyers Guild Activist Handbook

The National Lawyers Guild has published a new booklet for animal and environmental activists entitled: Operation Backfire: a Survival Guide for Environmental and Animal Rights Activists.  You can download it here. It offers some background on the AETA and AEPA (predecessor to AETA) and how to comport yourself when detained or questioned by law [...]

Sunstein Filibuster Broken

The Senate voted 65-35 today for cloture on the Sunstein appointment.  That means an up or down vote on his appointment will likely happen later this week.  A little more here.  The wingnut jamboree continues, however, as Glenn Beck has thrown his formidable lack of sense or decorum into the fray.  More on this as [...]

A Sub-Optimal Ruling on the Rocky Mountain Wolf Hunt

Judge Molloy has refused to stop the wolf hunt that has already begun in Idaho and will soon begin (September 15th) in Montana.  Yet his decision to deny the preliminary injunction sought by Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, the Humane Society & others does  acknowledge that the plaintiffs will likely prevail (eventually) on the merits.
Courts [...]

Radio as Animal Enterprise — Some Further Thoughts on AETA

The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for downing two towers in Snohomish County, Washington.  The ELF statement declared that: “AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.”  No one was injured but the property [...]

IUCN Study of Elephant Meat Trade — Consulting Opportunity

From the email — an opportunity to lead a study for the IUCN Species Survival Commission on the elephant bushmeat issue in Central Africa.   Note the looming application deadline.
The Impact of the Elephant Meat Trade in Central Africa
Call for Applications – Deadline 4 September 2009
1. Background
The IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group aims to undertake a [...]

Deer Culling in Westchester — Rhetoric vs. Reality

I recently received the email below from my colleague (and occasional guest-blogger), Vanessa Merton.  I found the topic so interesting (and topical — see the panther post below) and the email such a good read that I asked her if I could post it on the blawg.  She agreed and so…

David, I didn’t see [...]

Panthers in the Suburbs

[The op-ed below appeared in the Westchester Herald (ten or so pages after Ed Koch's movie review and immediately following  Congressmember Nina Lowey's piece on health care reform).  It deals with recent sightings of what appear to be a large cat in the New York suburbs.  For some good background on the issue, see this [...]

More on the Meat/Climate Change Nexus

The link between livestock agriculture (particularly but not exclusively industrial agriculture) and climate change is getting some serious discussion, albeit not by those who actually pass laws about such things.  I’ve blogged about the issue here and am finishing up an essay for the Animals & Society Institute on CAFOs and climate change.
Legal Planet has [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 previous [...]

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 [...]