Volume 30.1

Alexandra Schauer, Environmental Enrichment for Farmed Animals

Environmental enrichment standards are set in many animal welfare laws, but such protections are generally withheld from farmed animals. Instead, farmed animals are subject to substandard enclosures that are under-stimulating and inappropriate for their species-specific behavioral needs. Scientific studies have shown that the inclusion of environmental enrichment in an animal’s enclosure balances their production of stress hormones, which has beneficial implications for the overall health and wellbeing of the animal. Establishing enclosure standards for farmed animals that include provisions relating to environmental enrichment would improve farmed animal well-being and, subsequently, the health of the humans who consume products deriving from farmed animals.

Kaitlyn Cameron, Striking a Balance: Why Federal and State Laws Should be Revised to Effectively Deter Puppy Mills

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was passed in 1966 with the purpose of ensuring the humane care and treatment of animals. The AWA delegates licensing responsibilities to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Services (APHIS), who have the authority to investigate violations of the AWA and penalize relevant organizations, such as puppy mills, when necessary. Unfortunately, the AWA sets forth minimum standards for the humane care and treatment of these animals and the USDA has exercised its own discretion in penalizing violations of the AWA. The AWA establishes standards for compliance, but such standards are minimal and inadequately enforced. The USDA has exercised its own discretion in penalizing violations of these minimal AWA standards, which has led to the continued licensing of puppy mills. This dynamic perpetuates the abuse and inhumane treatment of dogs and puppies. In response to the weak enforcement of the AWA by the USDA, many states have recently passed laws banning the sale of dogs from pet stores in hopes of eliminating the influx of dogs from puppy mills into the state. The disparity between these federal and state laws has resulted in minimal deterrence of puppy mill operations. Instead of taking polarized stances toward eliminating puppy mills, both federal and state legislation should meet in the middle and focus on better deterring the operation of puppy mills. This Article will analyze how the minimum standards and lackluster enforcement of the AWA has led to an extreme response from certain states who have taken action through their own legislative solutions. This Article will then propose legislation, on both the federal and state level, suggesting stronger regulations and more effective enforcement procedures to bridge the gap between the AWA and state laws in hopes of deterring and eliminating the operation of puppy mills.

Rachel de Graaf, A Critical Assessment of Bill S-203, Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act: Challenging the Exclusivity of Anthropocentrism and Science-Based Justifications

Bill S-203, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts (ending the captivity of whales and dolphins) became Canadian law in 2019, banning the captivity of cetaceans. This Article critically examines Bill S-203, arguing that it is underpinned by anthropocentric and science-based justifications that will work as exclusionary forces against many animals in need of legal protection. Instead, the Article advocates for an empathetic and multi-jural approach that accounts for human-animal interconnectedness and the unique cultures of animals. This argument is theoretically rooted in vegan ecofeminism’s empathic and non-binaristic perspective. As such, this Article scrutinizes the reasoning behind Bill S-203, asserting that the justifications employed by its proponents are exclusionary. The bill was presented through an anthropocentric lens, focusing on minimizing the captivity of select humanized animals while overlooking other unique animal qualities. Additionally, similar proposed legislation for great apes and elephants would perpetuate these anthropocentric tendencies. An alternative, multi-jural approach to legal reform that rejects anthropocentrism and science-based reasoning can recognize animal-human interconnectedness by leveraging the language of Indigenous legal orders in Canada. Such an approach would acknowledge the distinct norms, lifestyles, and cultures of animals. This Article contributes to existing literature by emphasizing empathy, alterity, and the importance of recognizing the interconnectedness of all life forms. It strives to carve out a space for the legal consideration of the ‘laws’ of other-than-human animals, challenging prevailing anthropocentric paradigms in animal legal protections.

Gary J. Patronek, Time to Free the ‘Evidence’: Animal Cruelty Prosecutions, Pre-Conviction Forfeiture, and Brady Violations

This Article presents empirical research to investigate the traditional practice of holding seized animal victims of maltreatment in protective custody until their disposition is resolved pursuant to a criminal proceeding. This is of particular concern because protective custody usually entails confinement in an animal shelter or similar institutional setting. Extended confinement under these circumstances is undesirable–especially when dealing with large numbers of animals–because such confinement causes stress that may inadvertently result in secondary victimization of the animals. Furthermore, institutional confinement poses substantial logistical challenges and imposes substantial economic costs for those tasked with caring for the animals. The impetus for this research is that in nearly half of US states, extended confinement is potentially avoidable, due to statutes which provide for a civil hearing that can lead to rehabilitation and potential rehoming of seized animals weeks, months, or even years before their release at the conclusion of criminal proceedings. Despite the prevalence of such statutes, it is unknown how often civil forfeiture is utilized in practice and whether its use is successful. Because of the lack of actual data, strategy was developed to search appeals of state-level convictions for animal mal- treatment. This Article argues that the most plausible reason for the dearth of cases containing Brady claims related to the unavailability of animals is that pre-conviction forfeiture is not being used as widely as it could in those states where that option is statutorily available.

Caitlin Kelly, The Exploitation of the Humans in Animal Agriculture

Awareness of how nonhuman animals suffer in animal agriculture has been growing for years. But are they the only victims? Selling the products and parts of hundreds of millions of animals in the United States every year requires someone to manage those animals. It requires someone to kill those animals. And it requires someone to dismember those animals long before they ever reach the neat rows of plastic wrapped packaging at the grocery store. To accomplish this process at an industrial scale means hundreds to thousands of animals are together in barns which reek of their waste and create biohazards for humans. It means dangerously fast line speeds at slaughterhouses and hyper-focused jobs dedicated exclusively to killing animals and making repetitive cuts on their bodies. Unsurprisingly, these jobs are not desirable. The workers who do them are often desperate or do not have another choice. This article analyzes three major categories of workers in animal agriculture and how the law has failed to protect them. These categories are migrants, prisoners, and children. After exploring the unique ways each category of workers is exploited in animal agriculture, this article will explain how the law, or lack thereof, made it possible and what changes can be made to help prevent their exploitation in the future.