Legal Niches

The tragedy of happy meat

Posted on May 19, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski  Other Nations If you’re familiar with the Onion, you know it’s the print and online precursor to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Fake news, heavy on satire. That’s not to say that people, including high-profile people–heck, including entire governments–haven’t been taken in by Onion “reporting...

Hey Chicago?animal suffering lies behind that scenic splendor

Posted on May 13, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski  Other Nations Dear Chicago: We need to talk. You can trust me–I’m practically a native daughter. Heck, from my hometown in Indiana, we can look across Lake Michigan and see your skyline (well, on a clear day). I’m a Cubs fan… ’nuff said! But I’ve lived in Montana for going on 14 years now, and if […]

The wolverine: one gnarly dude?who needs our help

Posted on May 02, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski  Other Nations Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the stinkiest, snarliest, gnarliest, wildest of them all? Why, Gulo gulo–the amazing wolverine–of course! And the gnarly little being needs our help within the next few days (5/6/13 deadline)...

Rabbit ranching: Pat the bunny, whack the bunny

Posted on April 21, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski  Other Nations Easter morning dawned bright and beautiful in Western Montana. I glanced out the window and there sat Sylvilagus nuttallii, the mountain cottontail. Though our mostly-wild, predominantly-native property is perfect habitat, rabbits don’t show themselves readily, and the sighting was a special treat...

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A Response to the Primary Right

Posted on April 14, 2013
Jeff Pierce In his post on the Primary Right, Carter Dillard equates the right to be let alone with the right to be alone, as in, utterly and completely alone.  Up Carter?s sleeve hides an unspoken premise resembling something like this: the influence of other human beings, however minor, spoils my inalienable right to be ruggedly [...

The Animal Law Circus

Posted on April 13, 2013
David Cassuto There?s a story about a Canadian farmer who won a $100 million tax-free, lump sum payment in the Canadian lottery.  When asked what he would do with the money, he replied ?I guess I?ll just keep farming until the money?s gone.? Now let?s talk about animal law...

The Ag-Gag World ? Where Victimizers are the Victims

Posted on April 12, 2013
David Cassuto We’ve spent considerable blawgwidth here on Ag-Gag laws, with more doubtlessly to come.  Recently, I’ve been asked to speak and blog about the issue a fair bit and from that emerged the following post.  It is or will be posted in some places where people are less familiar with the issue...

Scientists See Cruelty in Killing Method Used in Japan?s Dolphin Roundup

Posted on April 06, 2013
ANDREW C. REVKIN (x-post from Dot Earth) In a new peer-reviewed study, scientists assess the killing method employed by the dolphin hunters of Taiji, Japan, by watching video recorded surreptitiously in 2011 by a German dolphin-protection group, AtlanticBlue...

A tale of two horses

Posted on April 02, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski    Other Nations Horses need your help and they need it now. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a “horse person”–you’re an animal person, and this domestic animal needs 10 minutes of your time, my time, our time...

New Jersey Takes Steps Towards Stronger Animal Laws

Posted on March 27, 2013
Seth Victor In a move to join Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island, the New Jersey Assembly passed a bill 60-5 last Thursday to ban gestation crates for pigs. A similar bill already having passed in the state senate 35-1, the measure now awaits Gov...

Wielding words for animal rights: Rapping, religion, & blogging

Posted on March 21, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski   Other Nations Do you ever suffer from weariness of words? I do. Words piled on words. Remember when Polonius–attempting to determine if Lord Hamlet had gone mad–asked him what he was reading? “Words, words, words,” was Hamlet’s crafty reply...

Veganism = Religion?

Posted on March 18, 2013
Spencer Lo When one considers the idea of ?veganism,? the notion that it is a religion?one relevantly similar to traditional religions?may strike some not only as obviously false but also absurd. Isn?t veganism (obviously) a diet at the very least or a philosophy at best? What does it offer on the ?big questions? usually associated [...

9th Circuit Continues to Rubber Stamp Illegal Whaling

Posted on March 17, 2013
Stephen O’Donohue  On February 25th, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying the Japanese whaling fleet’s preliminary injunction and dismissing its piracy claims.  The Institute of Cetacean Research kills thousands of whales every year in the Southern Ocean under the pre-textual guise of “research,” despite the uncontested fact that the [...

Animal Blawg Links 3.15.13

Posted on March 15, 2013
Spencer Lo One (unfortunate) reality of blogging, especially for a slow writer like myself, is that it?s impossible to write about everything one reads, and yet there is so much important information and valuable perspectives to share. So from time to time (perhaps weekly), in lieu of my regular manner of blogging, I?ll simply offer [...

Creating Killers: Human Tolls of Slaughter

Posted on March 14, 2013
Spencer Lo Behind the sanitized world of fast-food, everyday grocery shopping and culinary delights?all meant to satiate to our basic pleasures and needs?is an extraordinarily vast realm of brutality as normal and routine as our mealtime habits. I am referring, of course, to the often ignored truth of slaughterhouses: that billions of animals raised and [...

In Praise (and Defense) of Meatless Mondays

Posted on March 11, 2013
Spencer Lo Today, the start of the new weekday, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will serve students in its K-12 cafeteria meatless meals, thereby participating in the growing international campaign known as ?Meatless Mondays? (MM). The mandatory vegetarian program began last month, and follows a unanimous city council?s resolution passed last November endorsing [...

Can Farming Rhinos Save the Species?

Posted on March 10, 2013
Seth Victor Kevin Charles Redmon poses an interesting thought: can farming the horns of African rhinoceroses save the species? The horns of the rhinos are used throughout the world, from dagger handles to medicine. Though the animals are endangered, and protected under CITES, there is a lucrative black market business in poaching, especially when the horns fetch [...

New European Study Confirms English Cooking Is Still Bad

Posted on March 07, 2013
Seth Victor Though the title of this post is a bit hyperbolic in invoking the classic stereotype about English food, a new study posted in BMC Medicine confirms that processed meat, such as that found in the classic English Breakfast pictured to the right,  increases the risk of premature death...

Departures, arrivals, & taxidermy: Welcome to our neck of the woods

Posted on March 05, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski  Other Nations In these troubled times, we’ve come to expect the steely-eyed gaze of TSA screeners and security personnel following us in every airport, everywhere. But what you might find shocking is the glassy-eyed gaze you’ll get from wild animals when you visit Missoula, Montana’s international airport...

Animals Are Biggest Losers in Sequestration

Posted on March 03, 2013
Seth Victor As reported by Mother Jones, there is a lovely outcome to the government’s sequestering: “The Food Safety and Inspection Service’s budget would be slashed by $51 million. This would result in a furlough of as much as 15 days for all employees, including 8,400 meat inspectors, as well as a loss of 2 billion pounds [...

Why horse meat tacos are the least of our worries

Posted on March 03, 2013
Seth Victor Taco Bell moved to pull beef off its UK menus this past Friday because of traces of horse meat found in the product. A spokesperson for the company commented: ”We apologize to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority...

THE PRIMARY RIGHT

Posted on February 21, 2013
  Thinking about our first or ?primary? human right is actually a new way of thinking about how to protect the environment, and how to visualize what our planet ought to look like. When we think about the idea of being free, we usually think about the freedom to act, or the right to do [...

Spectating at dogfights: Still legal thanks to?rodeo?

Posted on February 20, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski      Other Nations Can you think of one animal species with whom you’d willingly trade places? Me neither. It’s a bum rap to be a nonhuman animal in a speciesist world, and here in Montana, brutality toward animals is a way of life...

Ag-Gag Panel at iV? Ivy League Vegan Conference

Posted on February 16, 2013
David Cassuto For those of you in the New Haven area today, please join me at iV, the Ivy League Vegan Conference.  It looks like a very interesting day.  I am on a panel about Ag-Gag laws.

Valentine?s Day: Nothing says ?I want you (and the pig) dead? like bacon roses

Posted on February 13, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski Other Nations As Valentine’s Day approaches, the question on many a mind–or maybe just mine–is, Where’s the dissonance in ”cognitive dissonance”?  According to About.com Psychology, The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs...

GEESE MEAT FOR THE POOR!! Scarsdale?s Contract with USDA to Slaughter Geese and Donate Meat to Local Food Bank

Posted on February 04, 2013
Angelique Rivard and Ally Bernstein Recent breaking news of the Village of Scarsdale?s plan to slaughter the group of geese who consider Audrey Hochberg Pond their home, along with their babies in March, and then donate the meat to a local food bank has caused quite a stir among interested members of the public...

An animal rights Super Bowl fantasy

Posted on February 03, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski Other Nations It’s Superbowl Sunday, and even as I type, the six-hour pre-game show has commenced. We’ll tune in later, for the actual game. Yes, we’re football fans, a somewhat shocking revelation to friends who know us only for our more conscience-driven pursuits...

Golden eagles die from ?snares upon theirs?

Posted on January 30, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski Other Nations Yesterday we awoke to the news that three golden eagles had been caught in trappers’ snares set in Montana east of the Divide. Two are dead; one requires surgery to remove the cable now embedded in her wing and shoulder...

The lion sleeps tonight?and so should you. List the lion!

Posted on January 26, 2013
Kathleen Stachowski Other Nations This post contains a call to action with an approaching deadline. It’s a safe bet that when President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, African lions weren’t anywhere on his radar. “Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with [...

Bear pits are the bare pits

Posted on January 16, 2013
  Kathleen Stachowski Other Nations Financial greed is a huge motivator for our species–ain’t no new news here–so I don’t wonder about the callous low-lifes who imprison bears in concrete pits and sell tickets to gawk at ‘em...

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