The Animal Legal Defense Fund’s mission is to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. The Animal Legal Defense Fund accomplishes this mission by filing high-impact lawsuits to protect animals from harm, providing free legal assistance and training to prosecutors to assure that animal abusers are punished for their crimes, supporting tough animal protection legislation and fighting legislation harmful to animals, and providing resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the emerging field of animal law. Click to see author's profile.
Iowa’s Ag-Gag law criminalizes undercover investigations at a broad range of animal facilities, preventing advocates from exposing animal cruelty and environmental, workers’ rights, and food safety violations. The law achieved its goal of suppressing undercover investigations; no investigations have taken place since the law’s passage in 2012.
The rankings are based on a comprehensive review of each jurisdiction’s animal protection laws. This is the longest-running and most authoritative report of its kind, and tracks which states are taking animal protection seriously.
Animal and food safety advocates argue that the state law criminalizing factory farm investigations violates the First Amendment. Since it was enacted in 1990, the law has successfully prevented whistleblowers from investigating the cruel conditions that millions of animals endure.
The public must have access to the USDA’s animal welfare records. This transparency is not only critically important for protecting animals, but is required by the law and necessary to hold government agencies accountable
Missouri has passed a law that prohibits many products, including plant-based and cellular meat, from identifying themselves as “meat.” It’s clear the law is designed to protect the animal agriculture industry.
When beloved and healthy dog Chloe died due to medical negligence, it became obvious that the law saw her as replaceable property, not family. The #notproperty campaign calls for animals’ legal status to match their actual status — not as property, but as thinking, feeling beings who have intrinsic value, not just economic value, and who need and deserve that recognition in the law.
A new plan by a U.S. federal agency puts as many as 1,000 wild horses in California at risk, by removing legal protections from slaughter and now allowing the horses to be sold “without limitation.” These wild horses deserve better than being forcibly removed from their home, only to be slaughtered and eaten.
There is an undeniable link between animal cruelty and family violence. This one-of-a-kind partnership will be an opportunity to educate juvenile and family court judges in the United States on addressing and recognizing animal cruelty in order to help children, families, and pets who have experienced violence.