Ten years ago, one would have been hard pressed to find even a reference to "animal law."

These days, animal law has become a viable legal specialty, with an increasing number of attorneys forming entire practices dedicated to animal issues.

Animal lawyers don't just handle legal challenges for endangered species or prosecute severe abuse cases. In response to a growing interest in protecting all animals, animal practices now represent many kinds of issues, including animal cruelty, companion animal custody during divorces, legal provisions for animals in case of the guardian's death, hunting limits, lab testing of animals, wildlife conservation regulations, even definitions of terms such as "pain" as they relate to animals, and much more.

The sheer number of animals cared for by humans has a lot to do with the increase in animal-related legal services. According to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, animal guardianship has increased nearly 19 percent in the last ten years.

The amount of money spent on those animals has nearly doubled during the same period of time, going from $17 billion in 1994 to around $31 billion in 2003.

The more people value their companion animals, the more they are demanding laws to protect them.

Because of this, animal law has taken center stage with many state bar associations, and at several law schools across the country. More than 30 law schools, including Yale and Harvard, now offer at least some animal law courses, including 'pet custody.'

"Animals can't speak for themselves, so people need to speak for them," said Barbara Gislason, a Minneapolis attorney who chairs the recently-formed Animal Law Bar Association committee.

According to many attorneys, another reason animal law is gaining strength is that people today are more aware than they were a decade ago of the fact that animals have emotions and need protection from abuse and exploitation.

"Most of this stuff has not been closely analyzed. Now people are questioning it," said David Wolfson, a New York City attorney who has handled some animal cases and has taught animal law at Yale University.

"Many people consider a pet as a family member," Gislason said. "But there's nothing in the law that reflects the role of a pet in the family."

While the field is expanding, progress is slower than many attorneys would like, mainly because most animal cases haven't gone past the district court level, making them difficult for lawyers to find and cite in their cases.

Help may be on the way.

Carolyn Matlack is an attorney and the president and managing editor of Animal Legal Reports Services (ALRS), which offers reports co-authored by attorneys to keep everyone -- from lawyers to schools to the media to corporate managers -- aware and up to date on what's happening with animals in the courts.

"Our mission is to uplift the status of animal law and therefore animals around the world," Matlack said.

The reports will be published on a regular basis and will help the reader quickly locate information, including animal-related cases and articles and recent developments that directly impact legal practices.

Animal law will also play a part as current laws are challenged by the public, such as how much to allow for damages in a veterinary malpractice suit. Currently, animal guardians can receive 'fair market value' of their animal, but many think they should be compensated more.

"What's happening now is a real interesting shift in the law in how we recognize animals as having value," said Lee Scholder, who serves as vice chair of the Minnesota Bar Association animal law committee.


Wolfson said on the law books, companion animals are viewed as personal property, much like a living room sofa. Using the property reference makes things difficult in veterinary malpractice suits, he said, because damage awards are given based only on the 'monetary value' of a companion animal, and ignore the 'emotional value' of the non-human companion.

"...These cases point to a larger trend. This area of the law needs to change to reflect that people do form special bonds with their pets," Wolfson said. "If someone carried around a rock and felt an attachment to it, that would not be acceptable. But a pet is different. The law needs to start changing its terms."

With more than 160 million animal guardians in the United States -- a figure that continues to grow daily -- animal law promises to be a positive -- and busy -- force in the future of protection for our non-human companions.

"We spend an increasing amount of time with our pets in today's world and form deep relations with them," said Nancy Peterson of the Humane Society of the United States.

"Pets are sometimes the one constant in our lives." Peterson pointed out.

 

Star Tribune
www.startribune.com/stories/462/4326372.html
Legal world going to the dogs -- and cats and cows and deer and tigers ...

Christian Science Monitor
www.csmonitor.com/2004/0126/p11s01-lihc.html
A fiercer battle in today's divorces: Who'll get the pooch?

KGW
www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D80ASLV82.html
Appellate court defines "pain" for animal-cruelty cases

 

This news story comes courtesy of ANC: ANIMAL NEWS CENTER, a Web site devoted to reporting the news from the world of animals. The SQDA strongly encourages you to visit their site: http://www.anc.org/

 

Belgium has banned the import and trade of fur from dogs, cats and seals.

The ban brings the number of EU nations that have outlawed the trade in cat and dog fur to five Belgium now joining Italy, France, Greece and Denmark.

Belgium, however, has also taken one important step further towards animal compassion, by effectively outlawing commercial ties with Canada's seal hunt, which is widely viewed by other nations as barbaric.

A breakthrough in banning the international trade in dog and cat fur by the European Commission was thought to have been reached in December, but there is now a debate over jurisdiction for the ban. The ban was intended to cut off access to one of the biggest markets for these furs.

More than half of the MEPs in the Brussels and Strasbourg legislature support the motion, which normally would mean the European Commission has to respond by drawing up a law. It would then be up to the Council of Ministers to enact it.

However, Commission officials refused to accept that they have powers to pass such a law, stating that it is up to member countries to do so if they choose.

A spokeswoman for Pascal Lamy, the trade commissioner, said, "We don't have community competence on this. Competence for it is in the hands of member states."

The campaign against the trade is focusing also on the dangerously high chromium levels present in the tanning dyes used to disguise the appearance of the product. Fur products may contain as much as six times the level of chromium allowed under European law - a level shown to be hazardous to human health.

Historically, most of the dog and cat furs that have been traded in Belgium have come from China, but in some cases they have been alleged to come from animals picked up on the streets in Belgium itself.

In 2003 BBC reporter Tim Franks viewed a secretly-recorded video in which a salesman showed a fur buyer two furs produced from cats picked up in the streets and cats farmed in the country in a "cat fur farm."

It is believed about two million animals each year are victims of the trade in Belgium alone.

The trade in seal skins and oils, most of which come from Canada, have provided nearly 600,000 euros a year in trade of the skins and oils.

The Belgian ban was welcomed by the animal rights organization Global Action in the Interest of Animals (GAIA). Activists from the group said that most animals killed for their furs are skinned alive and when killed first they are hanged or drowned so their fur is not damaged.

Fur from the cats and dogs is used in gloves, accessories and in toys for companion animals. During the initial phase of the ban, labels on all of these products will have to state if the product contains real fur.

Source: ANC: ANIMAL NEWS CENTER, a Web site devoted to reporting the news from the world of animals. The SQDA strongly encourages you to visit their site for up to date international and national news on animals: http://www.anc.org/


*********************************

American judge sentences a smuggler of endangered and protected animals to 37 months

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1203/21animals.html
Endangered creatures for sale
Illegal animal trade reaps billions yearly
Dec 20, 2003

By CHARLES SEABROOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Lawrence Wee Soon Chye, who once advised National Geographic filmmakers with
his authoritative knowledge of reptiles, hung his head as a federal judge
tongue-lashed him in an Orlando courtroom.

"Your crimes are reprehensible," said U.S. District Judge John Antoon. "They
not only are a form of animal cruelty, they also endanger public health."
Antoon wished out loud that he could sentence Chye to a much longer sentence
than the 37 months federal guidelines allow.

Chye, 38, in a prison jumpsuit brilliant as a scarlet macaw, pleaded guilty
this month to charges that he smuggled hundreds of endangered and protected
creatures to dealers and collectors in the United States last January. His
lucrative black market career, likely spawned by his fascination with
reptiles as a child in Singapore, was over.

Tens of thousands of endangered wild creatures from Brazil, Indonesia, Ghana
and other countries are being smuggled each year to black markets in the
United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Traffickers entice native people --
often resourceful children -- to capture coveted animals from rain forests
and other wild habitats. A hyacinth macaw bought for $100 from an
impoverished Amazon youngster can fetch as much as $10,000 from collectors
in the United States and Europe.

Antoon summed up the consequences of the illegal animal trade: Not only does
it threaten many species with extinction and risk despoiling entire natural
areas, but it also threatens public health by introducing exotic germs, many
of them deadly, to humans.

Both of this year's novel scourges, monkeypox and SARS, stemmed from contact
with wild animals. And West Nile virus may have originated in the United
States with an infected smuggled bird.

It was the rank odor wafting from two boxes shipped from Singapore, boxes
labeled "books and magazines," that provoked a U.S. customs inspector at the
FedEx hub in Memphis to look inside.

No books. No magazines. The inspector recoiled at what he saw.

Numerous reptiles, a few of them dead, packed tightly inside -- 198 Fly
River turtles from New Guinea, 25 Indian star tortoises from India, and
three Timor monitor lizards -- among the species protected by international
law because of their increasing scarcity in the wild. And many of them
potential carriers of deadly exotic diseases that threaten to sicken people
and other animals in this country.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service special agents traced the creatures, worth as
much as $400,000 on the black market, to Chye, described as a smooth-talking
kingpin in the world of animal smuggling. They nabbed him within hours of
his arrival in Orlando, where he planned to set up a temporary headquarters.

From his compound in Singapore, authorities say, Chye profited as a broker
of rare animals to dealers and individual buyers.

The insatiable demand for exotic pets, from parrots and macaws to pythons
and iguanas, is driving the wildlife trade, estimated at $6 billion a year.
At the high end are collectors willing to pay thousands of dollars for
exceptionally rare animals, like Komodo dragons for $30,000 each and
plowshare tortoises at $25,000 each. At the other end are teenagers and
apartment dwellers who spend $30 to $75 for animals at pet stores and exotic
animal shows and on the Internet.

"Anything that walks, creeps, crawls or flies has a price on its head," says
Mike Elkins, deputy assistant law enforcement supervisor for the Fish &
Wildlife Service in Atlanta. Trade in endangered animals is generally
illegal under a 30-year-old treaty signed by the United States and 162 other
countries. But the treaty is little match for the huge profits and minimal
risks that lure smugglers -- whose contraband most often ends up in the
United States.

And most often ends up dead. Authorities figure that as many as 75 percent
of the smuggled creatures die on their long, hot, airless journey.

Interpol, the international police agency, says wildlife smuggling is so
pervasive on a global scale, it is surpassed only by the black market in
drugs. In many areas, organized gangs, including South American drug cartels
and the Russian mafia, have added wildlife smuggling to their other
illegitimate activities.

Putting major traffickers like Chye out of business puts a dent in the
illicit trade, but perhaps only temporarily, say wildlife authorities. Other
traffickers are eager to fill the void, using a variety of ruthless schemes
to get endangered wildlife into the hands of dealers, collectors and exotic
pet fanciers.

Stopping the smugglers in this country is an overwhelming task, Elkins says,
since only 92 federal wildlife inspectors are assigned to airports and
border crossings nationwide. And preventing the extinction of some species
may be impossible.

"With the loss of habitat and the illegal smuggling of animals for profit
and gain, there are many animals that are . . . going to go extinct," says
Ernest Mayer, head of special operations for the Fish & Wildlife Service.
"So I think from that standpoint we're losing."

First U.S. stop: Miami

Most of the black market animals entering the United States arrive by air.

The hot spot in the Southeast is Miami International, with its connections
to South America. Opening cartons there, the airport's five wildlife
inspectors routinely find snakes, lizards, tortoises, parrots -- and
sometimes baby orangutans.

In an airport warehouse, inspector Jim Stinebaugh cautiously slits open a
large box labeled "Live Frogs."

"No matter how many times you do this, you get a little antsy," he says.
Poisonous snakes are sometimes found inside shipments.

In this box, Stinebaugh finds layer upon layer of plastic foam cups with
lids. Each holds a thumb-size frog, snatched from the wild and shipped from
the South American country of Suriname.

Another box holds dozens of clear plastic containers, each harboring a
crawly rose-haired tarantula spider from Chile. "They'll spray you with
hairs if you make them mad," Stinebaugh warns.

This time the animals are legal, he concludes -- headed for pet shops in the
United States and Canada.

As best he can, he checks to see if any endangered species are stashed with
the legal animals, a common ploy of wildlife smugglers.

He is mindful that one smuggling tactic is to pile bags containing water
monitors -- aggressive lizards that can be shipped legally -- atop an
endangered animal at the bottom of a crate. The smugglers know that most
inspectors are reluctant to shove around snapping lizards to look for
contraband beneath.

One of the world's most notorious wildlife smugglers, Keng Liang "Anson"
Wong, 44 -- released last month from a federal prison in California after
serving six years -- used this method. From his private zoo in Malaysia, he
shipped thousands of rare and endangered creatures, mostly reptiles, to
collectors in the United States, Japan and Europe.

To fool airport customs and wildlife inspectors, he bound the rare animals
with tape so they couldn't move and stuffed them in burlap bags stapled to
the bottom of shipping crates. Many died from the harsh shipping conditions,
but Wong stood to profit as long as some survived.

In Miami, Stinebaugh's boss, Vicky Vina, says that on a good day, inspectors
there are able to peek inside about three in every 10 shipments.

"We get awfully busy," she says. "We often get 60 to 70 wildlife shipments
through here in one day."

Scores of animals -- mostly reptiles -- were smuggled through Miami by Chye,
Wong and others.

Not all smuggled animals come through cargo facilities. Airline passengers
hide live creatures in their baggage and clothing. Miami's agents have found
tiny marmoset monkeys under hats, parrot chicks and baby snakes in
underwear, and little tortoises stuffed in baggy pants.

Once, when customs inspectors in the Miami terminal noticed a woman's bust
wiggling, they found rare parrot chicks stuffed in her bra. More recently, a
man's heavy, loose-fitting clothing was a tip-off -- he was trying to
smuggle 44 birds through the airport by taping them inside toilet paper
tubes and securing the tubes to his legs.

Sometimes the animals are simply stashed in suitcases.

In one Argentinian passenger's suitcase, Miami inspectors found 107 chaco
tortoises, 102 red-footed tortoises, 76 tartaruga turtles, 20 red Tegu
lizards, seven rainbow boa constrictors and five Argentine boa
constrictors -- all barred from global trade.

"Smugglers use every little trick they can muster to stay one step ahead of
us," says Jorge Picon, wildlife agent in charge at Miami. "It's a
never-ending struggle."

In business since '97

Chye, a short, trim man whose dark horn-rimmed glasses give him a
professorial look, acknowledged in court documents that he had bought, sold
and traded reptiles -- legally and illegally -- since 1997.

"He had a strong interest in animals and at one point worked for National
Geographic as a consultant," said his federal public defender, Stephen
Langs. Chye made no statements in court, and Langs refused to let him be
interviewed.

Prosecutors said he shipped hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of protected
animals to dealers and collectors in Florida, Massachusetts, California and
Washington state. Most were sent via FedEx, labeled as books, magazines,
lamps or other merchandise.

One California collector said Chye sent him an emerald tree monitor, which
grows as long as 34 inches, and a yellow boa constrictor in a shipment
labeled as "microwave safe" plastic container samples. Both reptiles are
protected.

In August 2002, according to court records, Chye, using the alias Jon
Morelia, (Morelia is the genus name for carpet and diamond python snakes)
met University of Central Florida business student Michael Barrera at the
International Reptile Breeders Exposition in Daytona Beach. Barrera claimed
to be an Internet reptile dealer.

He and Chye agreed to do business together. Chye, in a show of friendship,
invited Barrera to Indonesia to go "reptile hunting."

Barrera was the eventual recipient of the odoriferous shipment of turtles,
tortoises and monitor lizards that came through Memphis in January, touching
off the investigation of Chye.

When confronted, Barrera told authorities about several previous illegal
shipments between himself and Chye involving hundreds of endangered snakes,
lizards and turtles. Several of the reptiles died en route. At one point, he
said, Chye offered to send him Komodo dragons, one of the world's most
endangered species.

Barrera has not been charged. He could not be reached for comment for this
article. In court papers, he said he had known what he was doing was illegal
and that he "had been stupid" to get involved with Morelia.

A collector in Washington state tipped off investigators that Chye and a
business associate were flying from Bangkok, Thailand, to Orlando in June to
set up a temporary smuggling operation.

The associate, Leong Tian Kum, 33, a Bangkok reptile dealer, was arrested
with Chye shortly after they landed at Orlando International Airport.

Kum, aka "Bobby Lee," was charged with money laundering and illegally
sending endangered animals to a Wisconsin dealer. Authorities said he
shipped pancake tortoises from East Africa, Hermann's tortoises from the
Mediterranean rim countries, and Borneo leaf turtles in FedEx packages --
labeled "native crafts."

Arrested in Waukesha, Wis., was Reid Turowski, 28, owner of Captive Bred
Specialties, who was accused of illegally receiving the animals from Lum.
Both men face more than 10 years in prison.

The dead zone

Many smugglers avoid live animals altogether. They traffic in dead animals,
or their parts, fueling a black market that parallels the pet trade -- and
adding to the threat to individual animals, species and ecosystems.

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport receives relatively few
live animals, though it gets plenty of illegal objects made from rare
animals -- skins, shawls, carved ivory objects and the like.

When U.S. authorities find endangered or otherwise illegal animal parts at
airports and border crossings, they are sent to the National Wildlife
Property Repository near Denver, a facility that bears stark testimony to
the size and breadth of this market.

Shelves are piled high with boots, wallets, purses, briefcases and coats
made of the skin of elephants, caimans, cobras, leopards, jaguars and other
animals. Bins sag with hair clips, combs and necklaces carved from sea
turtle shells. Tons of confiscated elephant ivory occupy other bins. The
"Asian Medicine Section" holds black bear gallbladders, dried tiger penises
and powders and extracts made of tiger bones and black rhino horns.

Locked in a cabinet are more than 50 softer-than-silk "shahtoosh" shawls,
many seized from an international smuggling ring. The shawls, worth $30,000
each on the black market, are made from the fine hair of endangered Tibetan
antelopes, which must be killed before their hair can be harvested.

Though the warehouse is crammed with confiscated animal products, it's still
just a holding facility. Most of the illegal merchandise will end up in
schools or museums or being sold at auction.

"We're constantly turning over our inventory," says Special Agent in Charge
Bernadette Atencio. "If we didn't, we'd be stacked up in no time."

Trade shows popular

By far the most lucrative side of the wildlife trade is live animals.

Nearly 7 million U.S. households have a pet bird, and 4 million have a pet
snake, iguana or turtle, according to the American Pet Products
Manufacturers Association. Some of the interest comes from people who live
in apartments or those with allergies to dogs and cats.

Particularly unusual animals, however, are attention getters and status
symbols.

The fascination with exotic pets perhaps is most apparent at the more than
400 wild pet expos held around the country each year.

Typical of those gatherings is the Atlanta Reptile and Exotic Pet Show, held
last month at the Gwinnett Gwinnett Civic & Cultural Center. Scores of
visitors paid $7 apiece to get in, then stood in line at booth after booth
to buy exotic pets.

A Brazilian rainbow boa, $175. A Goliath bird-eating tarantula, $100. A
Bengal cat kitten, $400. A Moluccan cockatoo, $1,500. Emerald tree boa,
$275. African spur-thigh tortoise, $225.

Authorities say Chye and other global wildlife dealers are regulars at some
of the bigger shows, making valuable contacts and deals there. Most dealers
are believed to be operating legally.

Most of the animals they offer for sale were likely bred legally in
captivity, which authorities say avoids harm to wild populations -- but not
in every case.

The animals may have been snatched illegally from the wild, a cheaper source
of inventory for dealers.

The problem is determining if an animal is captive-bred or smuggled.

"Once an animal is smuggled in, it's difficult to determine if it's legal or
illegal," says Tom Watts-Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney who prosecutes
smuggling cases in Miami. "Dealers claim their animals are captive-bred and
legal.

"But if you go to a pet show or a store to buy an exotic pet, you really
have no foolproof way of knowing if it's legal or not."

• current information about pets, wildlife and all other animals
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They also publish a newsletter that is sent out via e-mail on a weekly basis.

Animal News Center, which is a member of the American Partnership for Pets, works with other news and not-for-profit humane organizations to gather information for its Web site and newsletter, and makes the material it publishes available for reproduction at no cost.

Among the hundreds of organizations that currently reproduce their material in their online and/or print publications are Animal Planet, the American Humane Association and Pets 911.

One of ANC current stories is :

Be sure to watch for the following documentary that is currently airing on TV stations right now.

Clover the dog and Oreo the cat may be a couple of strays, but they are about to change a lot of lives. They are the stars, along with host/narrator David Duchovny, of an inspiring new documentary that explores the lives of abandoned pets.

The film, Best Friend Forgotten, will premiere in more than 20 cities in the US and Canada as part of a Hollywood-style tour from November 2003 to February 2004 that aims to raise awareness of the pet overpopulation crisis in America.
The film will also air on PBS Animal Planet Canada this winter.