Newsflash: Dolphins are Smart

David Cassuto
This article discusses some recent scientific findings about the intelligence of dolphins and their ability to communicate and learn.  The researchers conclude that “it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing.”
That’s nice, of course, but one wonders how many [...]

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association — A Climate Change Hero…?

David Cassuto
Guess what?  Apparently, human contributions to climate change is still iffy science and even if it weren’t, the beef industry sequesters rather than releases carbon and should be rewarded for its zealous fight against climate change.  So says the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).  According to the NCBA, agriculture was responsible for less than [...]

AALS Animal Law Section Third Annual Panel

David Cassuto
A few years ago, after many years in the wilderness, the animal law community successfully created a section within the American Association of Law Schools (AALS).  This year will be our third and we once again have a great panel lined up for the AALS annual meeting.  The skinny follows:   

Sentient Brussel Sprouts and Other Convenient Tropes

David Cassuto
Natalie Angier writes in today’s NYT about how plants are sophisticated organisms and therefore any kind of dietary regime causes pain.  Jasmin Singer rips Angier a new one here.
UPDATE: Check out this rebuttal  as well.

Some Externalized Havoc from Industrial Agriculture

David Cassuto
Following up on Jessica’s prairie dog post of a little while back, here’s an excellent piece on the havoc industrial agriculture wreaks on wild animals (in addition to farmed animals) and the non-animal environment.

Electrocuting Lobsters

David Cassuto
So here we have a device (which sells for £2,500 — or roughly $4,400) that kills lobsters almost instantly by electrocution rather than forcing them to endure the 3-4 agonizing minutes they typically spend being boiled or roasted alive.  Is this a step forward?  Will it lead to more lobster consumption — a prospect [...]

Meat, Copenhagen and Climate Change

David Cassuto
Concerned citizens the world over have gathered in Copenhagen to hammer out a plan to arrest climate change and prevent a planetary apocalypse.  Many have written much about the talks (check out, for example, Andy Revkin’s blog) but at least as interesting is what’s being neither talked about in Copenhagen nor much covered elsewhere.  [...]

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, [...]

Critical Animal Studies Is Here For Good

David Cassuto
I have been remiss in not remarking on the surge in recognition and spreading impact of the academic field of Critical Animal Studies.  Not only are there a number of cool blogs about it (e.g., this and this and this) but one of the preeminent thinkers in the field is my good friend and former [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Ethics of Culling Wildlife — More News from GEIG

Dateline Florence (I just like saying that), where the Global Ecological Integrity Group Conference continues:
One of today’s speakers — an ecologist from Australia — asked: When is it ethically appropriate to cull wildlife to reduce the disease threat to humans?
While I am pleased that such questions get posed, they raise predicate questions which seldom get [...]

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 [...]