Horse Racing: An Elitist Sport or Animal Abuse?

Erika-Marie Kissh

The life of a racehorse is one that even before its conception is planned out and greatly influenced by human beings. Their birth, life, and death, are unnatural and can be seen as out-and-out abuse in every stage of the horses’ life. The main reason why racehorses are forced to live such unnatural lives at the hands of humans is because horse-racing is an extremely lucrative “sport”. The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities estimates that prize money for races worldwide is approximately $3.5 billion dollars a year, and the global industry of horse-race betting makes approximately $116 billion dollars of revenue in a given year.

For thoroughbred racehorses, in particular, their conception and birth is planned out as meticulously as possible to ensure maximum race training time. Mares are forced to

PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS IN CHINA LEAD TO AN IVORY BAN: How an NBA player helped end the sale of ivory in China

Keisha Sapphire Holgate

Between 1979 to 1987,illegal poaching of African elephants to obtain their ivory tusks caused a decline of their population from 1.3 million to only 600,000 individuals. Currently, tens of thousands of elephants are killed each year for their ivory. Elephant ivory is aesthetically valued due to certain attributes such as the “durability, the ease with which it can be carved, and its absence of splintering [making it] uniquely suited for a variety of uses”. These properties have made ivory an indicator of social status, with it being used in musical instruments such as piano keys, billiard pool balls, utensils, jewelry, ornamental carvings and other worked ivory items. Many legal sales of ivory include these worked ivory products under the classification as an antique. “Ivory” is often lumped together with materials such as jade, ebony or amber, in terms of the intricate and valued carvings or jewelry they help make. China is the biggest consumer market for jewelry and ornamental products carved from ivory.

After an 1989 international treaty banned ivory, China chose to permit domestic trade, with a licensing system that permitted the import of ivory tusks that were from natural deaths or seized by authorities.  Ivory in the legal Chinese market is also from pre-CITES ivory and includes the 2008 CITES-supported sale that brought in 60,000 metric tons to

We Need the KITTEN Act: USDA’s Directive Doesn’t Go Far Enough

Robert Gordon

Toxoplasma gondiiis a parasite that is believed to effect 40 million people in the United States. The U.S. government has been researching it for more than 35 years. It is generally caused by eating undercooked meat that has been contaminated. Most people infected with it will never know that they are hosting a parasite. However, infected humans with weakened immune systems, such as infants, those with autoimmune disorders and the elderly may develop a serious and sometimes fatal sickness known as toxoplasmosis.

One unusual trait about toxoplasma gondiiis that the only known definitive hosts for purposes of sexual reproduction are felines (domestic cats and their relatives). Thus, scientific research often involves cats. In fact, beginning in 1982, the United States Department of Agriculture has infected hundreds of kittens each year with parasite-infected meat to harvest toxoplasma gondiieggs. Some of the cats were even fed dog and cat meat obtained from overseas markets prompting activists to dub the research “kitten cannibalism.” The kittens were then euthanized. Since the program began an estimated

A FIGHT FOR THE FETAL PIGS: PUTTING K-12 ANIMAL DISSECTIONS IN THE PAST

Amy O’Brien

We all remember that middle school biology class. The one where the teacher divided us up into pairs, instructed us to put on our safety goggles and plastic gloves, and emerged from the supply closet with bags of fetal pigs soaked in formaldehyde. At this point, some of us ran out of the room crying, while others enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to extract the organs from these lifeless creatures.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated or uncommon scene. In fact, estimates suggest that as many as 10 to 12 million animals are bred and harvested every year for classroom dissections. Recently, animal rights advocates and lawmakers have fought back against the school systems and the scientific community, seeking to change state laws and policies pertaining to classroom dissection.

In response to animal cruelty concerns, some states have enacted “student choice” policies, giving students the option to opt out of dissection in exchange for another educational project. California is one of those states. Under current California law, students with “moral objections” to animal dissection can participate in an “alternative

So what’s stopping us from eating our Pets? Cats, dogs, Guinea Pig, and horses.

Katy Alvarado

Well, you wouldn’t eat a member of your family, would you? We build silent bonds with our pets such that they become to form a part of our family. The act of killing our beloved friends and companions that just happen to be of a different species feels so wrong that most would not even think about doing it, let alone consuming the meat. This is because we tend to draw a line between those animals we keep as pets and those animals we consider only as sources of food. The association between animals and food helps to swallow any guilt about killing the animal and makes it a more a necessary process by which we continue to survive. But pets are animals just the same as chickens, cows, and sheep. So setting aside this emotional bias that we have towards our pets, what is stopping us from eating cats, dogs, guinea pigs and horse? As it turns out, very little.

 

While killing your pet and then eating it sounds like first degree murder, the truth of the matter is that up until the end of 2018 if you found yourself in one of the 44 states that only required you to humanely kill your cat or dog, then there was nothing else stopping

The World’s Lovely Giants: Elephants in Entertainment Begin to Receive Legal Protection Through State Initiatives

Caitlin Ens

Elephants used for entertainment purposes often suffer physically and psychologically due to poor living conditions and treatment. Entertainment elephants live half as long as those found in the wild: they experience obesity from being chained up all day, arthritis from walking on hard concrete surfaces, starvation, dehydration, and many other fatal conditions. Today, the general public is more informed than ever about the animal abuse that occurs in circuses. Consequently, public concern for circus elephants has increased dramatically over the past decade. Videos were released showing the cruel and abusive conditions that circus elephants endure. In 2017, Ringling Brothers (Ringling Bros.), one of the largest circus corporations, closed its operations for good. Previously, the business had vowed to phase out their iconic elephant acts by 2018, but high operating costs and decline of ticket sales made the circus an “unsustainable business.” This was considered a victory for animal rights advocates even though circuses are still prevalent in the United States.

 

In response to campaigns against the use of wild animals in circuses, seven states and 149 localities have passed various restrictions or bans. In 2019, New Jersey and Hawaii

Higher Learning? : Animal Dissections in Classrooms Across America

Keisha Sapphire Holgate

In many ways, dissection of animals in schools has evolved tremendously, yet in other ways it has remained exactly the same as it was 100 years ago. Each year, an estimated 10-12 million animals are used for dissection in classrooms across America. Currently, in 18 states and counting, students in Kindergarten through the 12th grade have laws and policies that legally give them a choice about whether or not to participate in classroom activities harming animals. In New York state, New York Consolidated Law Article 17 § 809(4) allows a student to object on moral or religious grounds to participate, or even witness, an animal dissection without penalization of a failing grade in school. The law requires this objection to be in writing by the student’s parent or legal guardian. The NY state law ensures that an alternative is provided for the abstaining student to allow the

BU Law Review Symposium on “Beating Hearts”

David Cassuto

Sherry Colb & Michael Dorf’s book, Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights is the subject of an online symposium by the Boston University Law Review.  You can find it here.  Full disclosure: I was one of the respondents.

Habeas News

David Cassuto

This is an important, potentially historic oral argument.  Go if you can:

 

 

Appellate Division, First Department, County Supreme Court to Hear Oral Argument in Two Chimpanzee Rights Cases Filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project

The Nonhuman Rights Project will argue its appeal of the failure of the New York County Supreme Court to issue writs of habeas corpus on behalf of two captive chimpanzees, Tommy and Kiko, in a hearing at the Appellate Division, First Department, Supreme Court in Manhattan at or after 2 p.m. on March 16^th.

The ruling that results from the hearing may determine whether Tommy and Kiko—both featured in the new HBO documentary Unlocking the Cage—will be recognized as legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty or remain “things” deprived of even a single right.

Yellowstone bison: The road to slaughter starts at home

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

A young wild bison, separated from family, forlorn and frightened, is confined in a sorting pen at Yellowstone National Park’s capture facility. Click for photo credit & info.

(Please see 3/10/16 update in comments section.)

The specter of death hovers over the world’s first national park. Approximately 150 wild bison have been rounded up within the boundaries of their ostensible refuge, Yellowstone National Park, and are being held in a capture facility–also located within park boundaries. They number among those who will be killed and those already killed this season–as many as 900–and they’re slated for shipment to slaughter–perhaps as soon as the week of March 7th. However, before they make that final migration, they’ll be further terrorized. Watch what transpires (see video) when these massive, wild animals of wide open spaces are confined in small capture pens and squeeze chutes: witness their terror; see how they injure themselves and their herd mates–observe the gaping wounds and the indignities endured before they’re crammed into livestock carriers for the terrifying ride to industrialized death. 

A survey of animal law; are animals ‘things’?

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”
~Abraham Lincoln

Two items of possible interest to readers of this blog:

• “Are animals ‘things’? The law evolves.” ~Harvard Magazine

Excerpt: “As the role of animals in society and the economy has evolved, and more recently, as scientific research has revealed more about animals’ cognitive abilities and social development, public sensibility has changed dramatically, often leaving outmoded law behind. As a result, lawyers worldwide have begun searching for innovative ways to make animals more visible to the law: strengthening and enacting new anti-cruelty statutes, improving basic protections, and, in some more radical cases, challenging animals’ property status itself in an effort to grant them fundamental rights.” 

Bear 399: Delisting the grizzly you know

Kathleen Stachowski    
Other Nations

We humans don’t relate well to nonhuman animals at the population level–so goes the theory. But give us the particulars about a specific individual–tell us his or her story–and we get it: this is someone who has an interest in living. Someone with places to go…kids to raise…food to procure. Like us, this is someone who wants to avoid danger–while living the good life. This is an individual with a story–and a history.  

Wildlife Welfare: Adopting a New Ethic Everyone Can Agree Upon

Michelle D. Land

Harris’s Hawks, native to the Southwest, form complex social groups and hunt cooperatively, sometimes stacking 3-birds high to maximize good perching locations and find prey more efficiently.

Why animal protection organizations and environmentalists don’t collaborate more meaningfully is a long-standing question without a satisfactory answer.

Typically, the explanation for a lack of sustained cooperation between the two is that animal protectionists are concerned about individual animals, while environmentalists care only about populations or healthy ecosystems. This “mission loyalty” is a false dichotomy. Climate change perturbations, palm oil plantations, industrial farming, habitat loss, over-harvesting…the list of intersecting interests is too long to exhaust. Ecosystems are comprised of millions of individual animals. And individual animals depend upon healthy ecosystems to thrive. Conservation biologists, Chris Darimont and Paul Paquet in their 2010 article, Wildlife conservation and animal welfare: two sides of the same coin? illuminate this point:

Although rarely considered, depriving animals of their life requisites by destroying or impoverishing their surroundings causes suffering of individuals through displacement, stress, starvation, and reduced security. The same human activities driving the current extinction crisis are also causing suffering, fear, physical injury, psychological trauma, and disease in wild animals. These discomforts are well beyond and additive to what might occur naturally (i.e., non-anthropomorphic).

On November 18^th, a report by the Endangered Species Coalition entitled

Cecil and Obie: Owning animals, dead or alive

Photo from Care2 petitions – click image

Kathleen Stachowski     Other Nations

Cecil the lion is dead, long live Cecil. Obie the tiger lives–and dies–in successive purgatories for 45 years running.

Cecil, a unique individual and beloved personality, was slain by a small and hollow man for no reason other than ego. This one “special” lion’s death triggered a tipping point and unleashed worldwide condemnation.

And then there’s Obie, one beloved football mascot who has required a veritable breeding mill to produce the 45 individuals who’ve served as namesake. Make no mistake–it’s the mascot who’s beloved, not the unique tiger cub plugged into the role annually. Old Obies live and die in obscurity as wild captives no longer cubbishly cute, as now-dangerous adults consigned to–well, who knows? Who cares?  

A human-bear tragedy in Yellowstone

“Blaze” & cub in 2011; Amy Gerber photo. Click image for more photos.

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

A 63-year-old male hiker is dead, killed and partially consumed by a grizzly bear while hiking in Yellowstone National Park.  A 259-pound mother grizzly, who was at least 15 years old, is also dead, killed by the caretakers of her home in Yellowstone National Park. Her two female cubs-of-the-year, likely seven or eight months old, are dead insofar as their ability to live wild, free-ranging lives goes; they’ve been shipped off to the Toledo Zoo for lifetime incarceration.

It was the hiker–a man referred to by the media as “an experienced hiker”–who set this string of tragedies in motion by breaking cardinal rules for hiking in griz country: he hiked alone, off trail, without bear spray. While acknowledging that his tragic death has left a grieving human family, his apparent lack of regard for the safety measures that could have saved his life as well as the bears’ lives is squarely responsible. Bears do what bears do for their own reasons. When we enter their home, it’s up to us to do so with respect and humility. 

The Community Impact of CAFOs

Seth Victor

Saratoga, WI is a small town in central Wisconsin. Set on the banks of the Wisconsin River, this community of a few thousand people is likely not a major destination for tourists roaming through the state, but by all appearances it seems a typical mid-western settlement from the 19th century that evolved into a small town befitting a Prairie Home Companion yarn. It is also the setting of an ongoing fight between the community and a proposed CAFO, one that has drawn intense public ire.

Shrine Circus 2015: ‘Turn and stand’ for animals

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

“F—ing dopers!” This invective was snarled in our direction as we stood outside the Adams Center on the University of Montana campus in Missoula one recent April weekend. Inside the Adams Center, the Shrine Circus (produced by the Jordan World Circus) was putting enslaved animals through their miserable paces at the business ends of whips and bullhooks.

“F—ing dopers”? We clutched signs reading “Have a heart for circus animals”; “Cruelty isn’t entertainment: Have compassion”; “Circuses: No fun 4 animals,” and the like. Our assemblage of 22 activists–people who set aside chores and pleasures to show up 53 times over two days and five performances–ranged from a six-year-old to several retirees, some sporting lustrous, silver hair; one was retired from a career in finance, another from federal service. We included a former teacher and a current teacher, an equine rescue volunteer, students, an archeologist, an insurance claims examiner, an adult education specialist, and a case worker in geriatrics. “F—ing dopers”? Really?

NY SALDF Symposium

Andrea Rodricks

Join us for the 2015 SALDF New York Animal Law Symposium! The symposium is presented by the SALDF chapters of Pace Law School, CUNY School of Law, Columbia Law School, Yale Law School, Brooklyn Law School, and NYU School of Law, and is sponsored by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF). Register at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1364349.

When: Saturday, April 18th, 2015 from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

Where: Pace Law School
78 North Broadway
White Plains, NY 10603

Please join us for the first regional symposium of the New York area SALDF chapters. The symposium’s main topic is ag gag laws and factory farming, with a bonus “Hot Topics in New York” panel, which will include issues relating to carriage horses and captive exotics.

Featuring many ALDF speakers, including Director of Legislative Affairs Chris Green, Litigation Fellow Jeff Pierce, Of Counsel Justin Marceau, and Manager of Investigations T.J. Tumasse, Professor David Cassuto, and many more esteemed speakers from animal law related fields. For a complete list of speakers and the most up to date panel information, please visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/343435589190374/.

“Rabbit, rabbit” or “Night of the Lepus”–it’s your choice

Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations

Soon it will be April 1st, and for those of you with superstitious or folklorish proclivities, remember to say “rabbit, rabbit!” (or “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!”) first thing upon waking–before speaking any other words. You might even go so far as to perambulate through the house saying it in each room. This ritual is to be repeated as every new month dawns. I just recently learned of this age-old practice from my friend Tracy, who rescues rabbits and runs an education campaign endearingly called Rabbitron (website; Facebook), named after her first bunny and serving as a tribute to that worthy lagomorph.  

Two animal rescues: 33 happy homecomings & one heartbreaker

Click for Facebook page

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

Anyone who works in the animal rights arena knows that a single day–nay, a single minute–can feature the most jubilant high and the utmost despairing low. One emotion follows on the heels of the other as news randomly enters your world: humans at their most compassionate and generous best–vigorously turning the wheels of justice for animals; humans at their most uncaring and depraved worst–deliberately evil monsters or indifferent agents of neglect, suffering, and death. How on earth to reconcile this? 

Ringling Bros. Retires Circus Elephants

Seth Victor

As many of you may have already heard, Ringling Bros. is retiring elephants from its act and focusing on caring for elephants in a conservation center. Wayne Pacelles of HSUS described this move as a “Berlin Wall moment for animal protection,” and attributed the change to the evolving public opinion surrounding animal welfare, including the outcry that came on the heels of Blackfish and the treatment of orcas at Sea World. The termination of elephant performances has been long-sought by PETA.

The media reaction, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a bit divided regarding Ringling Bros’s decision. An op-ed in the New York Post believes that the circus’s “craven capitulation to PETA will only embolden zealots to agitate for elimination of all circus animals — if not eventually to bestow upon all living creatures the same “inalienable rights” as humans,” and goes on to state that without exposure to animals via a circus, most people will not form a connection with the animals, and will thus not care to save them in the wild. The L.A. Times also notes that many people feel the elephants are an iconic part of the joy of the circus. Meanwhile op-eds in the New York Times range from echoing the Post to refuting the sentiments of the circus sympathizers.

Happy Year of the Sheep! (Domestic or wild, it’s no party)

Animals Australia Unleashed-click image

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

The Chinese lunar new year arrived recently, and regardless of whether you’re in the sheep or the goat camp, for the purpose of this post I wish you a Happy Year of the Sheep! Of course, there’s nothing happy about live export, perhaps only the worst fate to befall any given sheep on Planet Earth. Shame on Australia!

But wait a minute, Yanks–let’s don’t get too smug. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Farm Animals are regulated under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) only when used in biomedical research, testing, teaching and exhibition. Farm animals used for food and fiber or for food and fiber research are not regulated under the AWA” (source). This puts a sheep between a rock and a hard place–protected by welfare standards in biomedical research labs, but not in factory farms. Hmmm. Which hell would you choose?!?  

Eating Earth: an ethics-based guide for enviros & animal activists

Kathleen Stachowski     Other Nations

They’re eating me out of house and home! Idioms, as you know, are shorthand codes for more complex ideas. As I read Lisa Kemmerer’s latest offering, “Eating Earth: Environmental Ethics & Dietary Choice,” I kept returning to that idiomatic gluttonous guest or the self-centered roommate who mindlessly consumes such a vast quantity of our household resources that we’re headed for ruin.

Now consider what happens when that gluttonous dweller is Homo sapiens and the “house and home” is our planet. That’s the premise in “Eating Earth,” a readable, thoroughly-referenced book “written both for environmentalists and animal activists, explor(ing) vital common ground between these two social justice movements–dietary choice” (from the book’s jacket).  

District Court Upholds the Right to Sell Foie Gras

Seth Victor

The blawg previously commented on the ongoing issues surrounding California’s ban on the sale of foie gras, particularly the idea of giving away foie gras as a “complimentary side” when selling some other food. Last week Animal Legal Defense Fund filed another suit in the battle, arguing that La Toque restaurant was illegally selling foie gras in violation of California’s Health and Safety Code § 25982.

The suit, however, is somewhat of a moot point. On January 7th the California District Court overturned the Health and Safety Code banning the sale of foie gras, granting partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, among whom is Hot’s Restaurant Group, the aforementioned makers of the complimentary foie gras side. The District Court summarize the issue as “whether a sales ban on products containing a constituent that was produced in a particular manner is an “ingredient requirement” under Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA).” The plaintiffs argued that the PPIA preempts the Health and Safety Code. Judge Stephen V. Wilson agreed, and has enjoined the California Attorney General from enforcing the law. In summary, PPIA is a federal law that regulates the sale and distribution of birds and expressly prohibits states from imposing certain conditions on food and ingredients. Judge Wilson held that the Health and Safety Code, which is a state law, was in conflict with the federal law, and that the federal law must be held above state regulations. The “production” of including fatty liver in the sales of food is, apparently, an ingredient, and therefore must be regulated, with regards to foie gras, at the federal level.

Health and Safety Code § 25981, which bans the practice of force feeding a bird for the purpose of fattening the liver, was not before the District Court, and remains in effect. Also, there are several other facets of the plaintiff’s argument that were not granted summary judgment, including a Commerce Clause attack. The Commerce Clause argument and the remaining section banning “production” still presents an important argument, although the restaurants’ main challenge has now been overcome; Californian restaurants largely import all of their foie gras, thus the production bar will have a much smaller impact.

Yellowstone wildlife sent to slaughter; calling all buffalo warriors

Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations

Dear Americans:

You’re busy, I know. You’re busy working and playing and doing a million crazy, diverse things that Americans do in our big, crazy, diverse country. That’s just who we are, and that’s what makes us awesome.

But right now, I’m going to cherry-pick a few things we share. We’re nuts about wildlife–amiright?!? In 2011, a whopping 71.8 million of us–that was 30% of the U.S. adult population–identified as dedicated wildlife watchers in a once-every-five-years national Census survey. We spent a bundle–$54.9 billion–on wildlife watching that year.

According to the same report, 12.3 million of us visited parks and other natural areas to view wildlife (pg. 36). And in 2012, a National Parks Conservation Association poll found that “95 percent of voters see protecting and supporting the National Parks as an appropriate role for the federal government.” In one survey question, protecting natural habitats, plants and wildlife was ranked the top value of six possibilities.  

Progress at the Cost of Our Humanity

Seth Victor

The New York Times this week published an investigation into U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, and, perhaps predictably, the results are disturbing. I heartily suggest reading the whole article, but for those in a rush, here are some of the interesting takeaway points:

• U.S. Meat Animal Research Center is pioneering ways to produce meat more efficiently and cheaply via re-engineering farmed animals through surgery and breeding techniques
• In pursuing this research, animal welfare has taken a backseat. For example, since 1985, 6,500 out of the 580,000 animals the center has housed have starved. 625 have died from mastitis, an easily treatable infection.
• Nearly 10 million piglets have been crushed by their mothers each year, not because this is what mothers naturally do, but because they are being forced to have larger litters of weak piglets, and the mothers themselves are artificially larger, kept alive longer to reproduce.
• For thirty-one years, the Center worked on genetically modifying cows to regularly produce twins, noting that single births were not an efficient way to produce meat. By injecting cows with embryos from other cows that birthed twins, and then injecting them with semen from bulls who sired twins, the Center produced cows that have a 55% chance of having twins, when naturally the chances are 3%. Many of the female calves of twins are born with deformed vaginas, and the artificially large wombs create birthing problems even for single calves. Over 16% of the twins died.
• Thirty to forty cows die each year from exposure to bad weather, not including storms, in which several hundred more die.
• 245 animals have died since 1985 due to treatable abscesses.
• In 1990, the Center tried to create larger lambs by injecting pregnant ewes with an excessive amount of male hormone testosterone. Instead, the lambs were born with deformed genitals, which made urination difficult.
• In 1989, the Center locked a young cow in place in a pen with six bulls for over an hour to determine the bulls’ libidos. The industry standard is to do this with one bull for fifteen minutes. By the time a vet was called, the cows hind legs were broken from being mounted, and she died within a few hours.
• The scientists charged with administering the experiments, surgeries, and to euthanize do not have medical degrees. One retired scientist at the Center was quoted saying, “A vet has no business coming in and telling you how to do it. Surgery is an art you get through practice.”
• “The leaner pigs that the center helped develop, for example, are so low in fat that one in five females cannot reproduce; center scientists have been operating on pigs’ ovaries and brains in an attempt to make the sows more fertile.”
• Regarding oversight, “A Times examination of 850 experimental protocols since 1985 showed that the approvals [for experiments] were typically made by six or fewer staff members, often including the lead researchers for the experiment. The few questions asked dealt mostly with housekeeping matters like scheduling and the availability of animals.”
• “The language in the protocols is revealing. While the words “profit” or “production efficiency” appear 111 times, “pain” comes up only twice.”

Pony rides: Service…or servitude?

Photo: LA Progressive – click image

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

ex-ploi-ta-tion (noun): the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.

Animal exploitation comes in many shapes and sizes and often involves soul-crushing cruelty–think factory farming, circus slavery, vivisection.

But is exploitation always cruel? What constitutes cruelty, anyhow? And who defines it? If you’re the animal, these questions are meaningless: When you’re suffering–whether physically, emotionally, or both–you simply want it to stop. If you’re the animal rights activist, your definition of what’s exploitive and cruel is holistic and vastly broader than that of the person who “owns” animals–ponies, for example–and benefits financially from their work in the pony ride ring. Though they might be well cared-for, is their forced labor unfair? Is it cruel? Is it OK because they’re valued and loved? Just like the tethered ponies, this argument goes ’round and ’round.

Love it…list it…stuff it? African lion listing open for public comment

LionAid photo; click image

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

From the Have Your Cake & Eat It Too Department: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has announced that it intends to list the African lion as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) … while continuing to allow the importation of lion trophies by American trophy hunters under a permit system.

Who’s hailing this decision as a victory?

Safari Club International applauded the proposal as a win for hunters and a loss for conservation groups that sought the endangered designation that would have prohibited the importation of trophies, a big lure for hunters.

“This conclusion is a blow to the anti-hunting rhetoric put forward by organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States and International Fund for Animal Welfare,” the group said. ~The Washington Post  

Cosmetics testing on animals: Do you know as much as an 8th grader?

Click image for Leaping Bunny

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”  ~The Lorax

The students were looking forward to my visit, the teacher revealed before their arrival in the classroom. They’d been studying the use of animals in cosmetics testing and education when she initially contacted me to ask about a guest speaker.

As a former teacher myself–and one who’s spent some time with 8th graders–I had judiciously inquired about the use of graphic images. The shocking side of animal testing for cosmetic use and vivisection can be too upsetting and graphic for this student group, she told me, mentioning their empathic natures. By the time of my visit, she explained, they’d have some idea about what goes on in laboratories anyhow. She asked if I could talk about how to change laws and educate others, what people are doing for animals, why we should care, and how students can take action if so inclined.  

What’s in a name? – Animals can now be victims too, but what does this mean?

Kat Fiedler

Two recent Oregon Supreme Court rulings have afforded animals further protections, despite their classification as property under Oregon law. These rulings will allow law enforcement to provide more meaningful aid to animal victims and will allow the court system to levy stricter penalties for those found guilty of animal abuse or neglect. Together they strengthen the intervention and prosecution of animal crimes.

In State v. Arnold Nix, the Oregon Supreme Court held that animals could be victims – thus, rather than considering the starvation of twenty horses and goats into one count of second-degree animal neglect, the perpetrator would be charged with one count for each individual animal victim, or twenty counts of neglect. Naturally, allowing for the accused to be charged with twenty counts, as opposed to one, could result in significantly larger and longer punishments. Furthermore, inherent in this decision is the fact that “victim status” is afforded to more than just companion animals, as the animals in the case were horses and goats.

No country for old bears

US Fish & Wildlife Service photo

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

“Grizzly bear euthanized due to history of conflicts.” “Montana wildlife officials euthanize problem grizzly bear.” “Old grizzly euthanized, tried to get into building.” “Intrusive grizzly euthanized.” “28-year-old grizzly euthanized.”

Those Montana headlines greeted us a few days ago. This must have been one dangerous bear. Intrusive. A “problem bear.” An habitual offender.  

Predator derby document issued; comments due soon!

“Seriously? Someone gets POINTS for killing me in a contest???” (Author: Darkone, 5. Aug. 2005, Creative Commons)

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

Remember that predator derby I wrote about back in August–the one sponsored by predator hate group Idaho for Wildlife? They applied for a Special Recreation Permit from the Bureau of Land Management, which triggered a scoping period to gather information for the development of an Environmental Assessment (EA) document.

The EA for the Idaho federal public lands predator derby Special Recreation Permit has been issued; comments are accepted until October 16, 2014. 

Revisit that previous blog post, “Stop a depraved ‘predator derby’ on your public land” – there you’ll find links to the recently-issued EA and previous documents, how to comment, and updated talking points.

In case you’ve forgotten who’ll be walking (and flying) around wearing a big ol’ predatory species “shoot me” target, 

Wilderness is an animal rights issue

Kathleen Stachowski
Other Nations

“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness…I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization… what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
~Henry David Thoreau, from the essay, “Walking” (1862)

We’re in the midst of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, signed into law by Pres. Lyndon Johnson on Sept. 3, 1964–102 years after Thoreau delivered his famous dictum. It took Howard Zahniser, the bill’s primary author, eight years (after introduction in 1956), 65 rewrites, and 18 public hearings to get the job done with overwhelming bi-partisan support (those were the days!). Today, 109,511,038 acres of congressionally-designated wilderness compose the 758 units of the National Wilderness Preservation System managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  

When Can an Animal be Seized as Evidence?

Seth Victor

A provocative case came out of the Oregon Supreme Court two weeks ago addressing a warrantless seizure of a horse that was used to convict the defendants of animal abuse. As Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) reports, in the consolidated cases of State v. Fessenden and State v. Dicke, the court held that an officer was acting in accordance with the exceptions to the warrant requirements when he observed a starving horse on defendants’ property and took the horse to a veterinarian for emergency medical attention. The defendants were later charged with animal abuse, but they contended that the seizure of the horse was in violation of their right to privacy, and as it was a warrantless seizure, the evidence (the horse) had to be suppressed.

Stop a depraved ‘predator derby’ on your public land

Predatory jackrabbit. Click image to witness lagomorphs’ vicious nature.
Jim Harper photo – en-wikipedia

Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations

The Environmental Assessment has been issued; comment deadline is Oct. 16, 2014. Details at end of post.

Q: What do coyotes, skunks, weasels, jackrabbits, raccoons, starlings, and grey wolves in Idaho have in common?
A: An arsenal of bullets heading their way.

Why? All are designated as predators by Idaho Fish and Game. And unless we–you and I–send a clear message to federal land managers about the value of these animals on our taxpayer-supported public lands, they will be in the crosshairs on 3,100,000 acres (Challis, Salmon, and Upper Snake Field Offices of the Idaho Falls BLM District) during another competitive killing derby slated for early January 2015. It’s sponsored by predator hate group Idaho for Wildlife, and follows their first, controversial derby held last winter–that one limited to coyotes and wolves. This time, they’re seeking a 5-year federal special recreation permit for their expanded death-fest. 

Fur farms: Whom would Jesus skin?

Kathleen Stachowski     Other Nations

“It’s farming. It is just a different type of farming.” So said Larry Schultz in a bid to move his bobcat fur farm from North Dakota–away from the hustle and bustle of booming Bakken shale oil production–to Fergus County, Montana.

The term “fur farm” makes stomachs churn with apprehension—if not horror–depending on how much one already knows. These shadowy enterprises don’t throw their doors open to public scrutiny, so what we know of them comes from undercover investigative reports and video. But calling it “farming” can’t legitimize an ethically-bereft industry that turns sentient, nonhuman animals into jacket trim.  

On Eating Your Pets

Seth Victor

An article caught my eye this morning about a man in New Mexico who was charged with a felony for extreme cruelty against a dog. The man allegedly stabbed his girlfriend’s dog in the heart, and then marinated the remains of the animal in preparation to cook it. While animal cruelty is a crime in New Mexico, eating dogs or cats is not, and if the defendant is successful in showing he did not act cruelly, there is no consequence for killing a companion animal for food.

These types of cases crop up every once in a while, often accompanied by outrage from some segments of the population over the wanton nature of the act. As always, since the law codifies our social voice, some states have put laws in place to discourage this kind of behavior. In New York, for example, one may not ” slaughter or butcher domesticated dog or domesticated cat  to create food, meat or meat products for human or animal consumption.”

Sheep dressing, pig wrestling, chicken scrambling: Bullies are made, not born

Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations

For weeks now, our local newspaper has been running a full-page ad for the PIGGEST. RAFFLE. EVER. It exhorts me to kick-off my summer “the right way, by winning the ultimate BBQ package.” A pink pig, arms akimbo, grins sardonically. If he’d just glance down the page some nine inches, he’d see a chart of his body sliced up into meat cuts. A little less to grin about, no? The grand prize is a Weber grill and one-half of a pig. Second place gets the other half.

Every time I see this ad I’m reminded of the human tendency to distance ourselves from the other animals with whom we share sentience. We make cartoons of them and require that they serve as willing purveyors of their own dead bodies

Reproductive rights, civil rights…and animal rights.

Click image for details on Circles of Compassion

Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations

Supreme Court decisions and national anniversaries can put one in an expansive mood, though applying social justice issues to nonhuman animals is always the logical next step for some of us. After all, slavery, commodification, discrimination–the evils we’ve visited upon our own and have attempted to banish–are still just business as usual where our nonhuman animal sisters and brothers are concerned.

The recent Supreme Court ruling that for-profit employers with religious objections can opt out of providing contraception coverage under Obamacare is one such instance. By chance, I came across the image above the day after the ruling was announced and was reminded–again–that, while expressing anger and dismay over the intrusion of employers’ beliefs into women’s personal reproductive decisions, most women, in turn, give no thought to the suffering females whose reproductive eggs and lactation products they consume. These are females for whom bodily integrity and reproductive autonomy don’t exist and will never exist as long as the animal-industrial complex profits from their misery.

5th Circuit Upholds Ban on Crush Videos

Seth Victor

Four years ago the US Supreme Court overruled Congress’s attempt to regulate “crush videos,” stating that the law was an impermissible, over-broad regulation of free speech. For more analysis of the decision, see here. Though the decision was distressing, it did not herald an end of attempts to regulate that particular form of animal cruelty; Congress quickly passed an amended version of the law, one that has yet to be tested before the Supreme Court.

Last week the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated criminal charges in the case of US v. Richards for video of animals being tortured to death by a suggestively dressed woman, holding that images of animals killed for sexual gratification are not protected forms of speech, and are in fact “obscene.” Obscenity is the key to the law; obscene speech does not have the same protections as common speech, and can be regulated. Additionally, the 5th Circuit rejected an argument that the law is unconstitutional because it unfairly targets a narrow type of obscenity (here, animal cruelty), holding that particular categories of obscenity may be targeted based on their socially harmful secondary effects.

This is the first legal test of the amended law, and animal advocates have to be happy with the direction the case took at the appellate level. The court held that the law does serve a “significant interest” of preventing violence against animals, and is “reasonably tailored” to meet that interest. The 2010 version does not apply to the slaughter of animals for food, hunting, or agricultural husbandry practices, which helped it survive the “over-broad” challenge. If the Supreme Court ends up granting certiorari (it’s unclear at this point if the defendants will push it that far), it will be very interesting to see how the 5th Circuit decision holds up against US v. Stevens.