Articles

Introduction to the offences of cruelty to domestic and captive animals in England and Wales. These offences are contained in the Protection of Animals Act 1911 and the Abandonment of Animals Act 1960. Similar legislation applies in Scotland.

The rate of private possession of wild animals in the United States has escalated in recent years. Laws at the federal, state, and local levels remain woefully inadequate to the task of addressing the treatment and welfare of the animals themselves and many animals “slip through the cracks,” resulting in abuse, neglect, and often death. This article explores numerous facets of problems inherent in the private possession of exotic animals.

This article explores the delisting process for the Endangered Species Act undertaken by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It examines the mechanism of the delisting process and then looks at the recovery of seventeen species delisted prior to 2007.

This Comment attempts to resolve the considerable confusion in the law of acquisition by find of property as it relates to companion animals. First, the development of the theories of the common law and legislative solutions to lost and estray property will be examined to provide a legal foundation for analysis of lost property and animals. Then, the focus will turn to the public policy arguments that courts across the country are relying on in their decisions as new common law is made in judicial resolutions of the competing issues. Finally, the Author provides a reasonable solution in light of legislative and judicial action.

Parts I and II track the history and development of the NAIS. Part III introduces the opposition of small and organic farmers to the NAIS, and Part IV explores that opposition. Part V explores legal challenges to the NAIS, and Part VI explores the policy challenges. Part VII examines the USDA's response to small and organic farmers' concerns with the NAIS. Finally, Part VIII suggests possible solutions to small and organic farmers' issues raised by the NAIS.

This article discusses the various loopholes within the IWC that have rendered the Commission's regulations and imposition of quotas meaningless. The IWC's inability to impose penalties against nations has not curtailed harvesting of whales in excess of IWC quotas and, as a result, whale stocks continue to plummet throughout the world.

The article examines how the interest of humans are represented in the legal system and how the interests of animals might better be brought into the legal system with the creation of a new tort for the benefit of animals.

This article discusses the thousands of foals born each year that are bred for industrial purposes. These foals must then be disposed of as unwanted byproducts of the equine industry. PMU mares are bred to collect urine rich with hormones used in the production of a drug to treat menopausal symptoms. Nurse mares are bred to produce milk to feed foals other than their own. If adoptive homes cannot be found quickly, both industries dispose of their equine byproducts by slaughtering the foals, and sometimes the mares, for profit or convenience. This paper calls for an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act enabling the Department of Agriculture to regulate the PMU and nurse mare farms, and requiring both industries to responsibly dispose of these horses.

This Comment discusses the problem with the current punishments for animal abuse violations and analyzes why states should adopt statutes that require mandatory minimums in animal brutality convictions. Part II focuses on the psychological problems associated with animal cruelty, including the relationship between animal cruelty and violence toward humans. Part III examines the structure of current animal abuse legislation. Part IV concentrates on the advantages of applying mandatory minimum sentences to the anticruelty provisions of animal abuse statutes.

This Comment argues that courts should keep animal studies out of the courtroom in birth-defects toxic-torts cases. Part I sets forth the evidentiary standards used to determine the admissibility of evidence and then presents background information on birth defects and how they are studied. It also discusses the problems inherent with animal tests and the contrasting value of human data. Part II explores the admissibility of animal studies in post-Daubert birth-defects cases and argues that exclusion is warranted. Part II then urges redirection of resources to human studies and promising alternatives to animal tests, and it discusses the impact of excluding expert opinions based on animal tests from court cases. Part III concludes by summarizing the case against admission of animal studies and the positives that would result from exclusion.

Summary of the approach of the French legal system to the consideration of Animals. In French only.

This article presents an overview by Wayne Pacelle of the future of the animal protection movement.

This document provides an overview of the 11 states that have laws or regulations concerning the transportation of horses that specifically prohibit the use of double-deck trailers.

A science based paper exploring how selective breeding has created chickens with leg and heart problems.(Science based footnotes)

This article explores the legal issues surrounding animal sacrifice in the Afro-Caribbean Belief Systems (religions such as Cuban Santeria, Palo, and Haitian Voodoo). The author examines cases in Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania in making the argument that misconceptions concerning animal sacrifice and religious prejudice often fuels the controversies.

The author gives an overview of the progress of the Nonhuman Rights Project.

This note analyzes the challenges that the animal rights movement faces in reforming society’s relationship to animals--particularly in regard to farmed animals--by tracking a similar evolution of the concepts of “dominion” and “civilization” within the early feminist movement. Specific focus is on nineteenth-century white middle-class women, who viewed themselves as models of civilized, liberated womanhood, while asserting maternalistic dominion over their “primitive” and underprivileged sisters. Acknowledging the way in which nineteenth-century America--which, for socio-political and legal purposes, was composed almost exclusively of Protestant white men--was willing to gradually “grant” one class of women a voice in society, based on well-established perceptions of “true womanhood,” is important in considering the way in which modern society seems poised to acknowledge some degree of rights for companion animals, while ignoring the legally-sanctioned misery to which billions of farmed animals are subjected annually.

This article sets out for the reader how to research the full variety of animal issues for the Canadian legal system, with a focus on Ontario.