Animal rights group sues California restaurant over foie gras ban

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The animal rights group PETA sued a California restaurant on Wednesday that it says serves outlawed foie gras to patrons, in what appears to be the first lawsuit to enforce a state ban on the delicacy, PETA officials said.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said that Hot's Kitchen claimed to have stopped selling foie gras when a ban on producing or selling it took effect in July, but was offering it as a complimentary side dish to customers who order "THE Burger."

Read more in the Chicago Tribune...

California animal law crawls forward...

A good opinion by a California appellate court last week.  Apologies for the delay in posting this; just dropped the in-laws off at LAX and am catching up on things.

At any rate, I say "good" rather than "great" because while Martinez v. Robledo holds that companion animal owners may recover reasonable costs for the treatment of a wrongfully injured companion - as opposed to mere market value - the court expressly stops short of acknowledging any sentimental, intrinsic or other value.  Very disappointing for a state that often leads the nation in progressive thinking in so many other regards. 

Championing Life And Liberty For Animals

And here's a great feature about Steve Wise's pioneering efforts to gain some genuine measure of rights for non-humans, and what we can look forward to in 2013 and beyond from the Nonhuman Rights Project. 

You go, Steve!

Read the story from NPR...

L.A. council votes to ban stores from selling non-rescue dogs, cats

Yay!

Credit for the heads-up on this one goes to Steve Wells at ALDF - read more in the L.A. Times Local...

Australian Department Stores Ban Retail Fur

VegNews Magazine is reporting that the Humane Society International is reporting that "animal fur has been abolished from all Australian department stores."

Read more here... Haven't seen anyone else reporting on this yet...

World’s 1st masters of laws program concentrates on animal law, lures animal welfare advocates

Way to go, CALS! Great write-up in today's Washington Post about their new LL.M. program... and just days after wrapping up their TWENTIETH annual animal law conference!

And perhaps even better news?!...

It appears that Canada may have stopped accepting U.S. horses for slaughter!  Read more in the Daily Racing Form, and a big shout-out to food safety guru Doug Powell at Kansas State for the heads-up on this one!

More good news!

Our friends at University of Pennsylvania Law School report that animal law is back on campus there.  Read more here.  Congrats, guys - keep up the good work!

Good news!

Word has it that Idaho is now the 23rd state to approve an animal law practice section for its state bar association! Yay!

Nepal deploys drones to fight rhino poachers

See more about this we-mean-business law enforcement technique in this Youtube video. Thanks to blog reader Bruce for forwarding the link...

The irony is not lost here...

70-year-old Oregon farmer eaten by his hogs

On Wednesday morning, Terry V. Garner, a 70-year-old Oregon farmer, went to feed his animals. Several hours later, when he hadn’t returned, a family member went to look for him and found, on the ground of the hog enclosure, his dentures. 

Read more from NBC News...

Blood Ivory - Can the Slaughter of Elephants for their tusks be stopped?

IN JANUARY 2012 A HUNDRED RAIDERS ON HORSEBACK CHARGED OUT OF CHAD INTO CAMEROON’S BOUBA NDJIDAH NATIONAL PARK, SLAUGHTERING HUNDREDS OF ELEPHANTS—entire families—in one of the worst concentrated killings since a global ivory trade ban was adopted in 1989. Carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, they dispatched the elephants with a military precision reminiscent of a 2006 butchering outside Chad’s Zakouma National Park. And then some stopped to pray to Allah. Seen from the ground, each of the bloated elephant carcasses is a monument to human greed. Elephant poaching levels are currently at their worst in a decade, and seizures of illegal ivory are at their highest level in years. From the air too the scattered bodies present a senseless crime scene—you can see which animals fled, which mothers tried to protect their young, how one terrified herd of 50 went down together, the latest of the tens of thousands of elephants killed across Africa each year. Seen from higher still, from the vantage of history, this killing field is not new at all. It is timeless, and it is now.

Read the rest of Bryan Christy's insightful and sobering article in National Geographic...

Thanks to blog reader, Bruce, for the heads-up on this piece.  Want to add a personal note too; as terrific as National Geographic is - and has been for decades - the National Geographic Channel seems to have taken on some unfortunate, evil alter-ego.   It regularly airs TV programming that makes at best dubious use of animals, including bonobos, for entertainment.  NGC recently became the target of a global Facebook protest when it became known that one of planned stars for an upcoming reality show was a well-known trophy hunter.  If you have FB, you can check out that page here:

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Geographic-NO-to-Melissa-Bachman-Series/473459186017914

NGC uninvited Ms. Bachman when it realized the public relations nightmare it had created, but I'm not aware of whether it changed any of its other programming.