Animal Legal Defense Fund

Registration is open! Don’t miss this years Animal Law Symposium: Shifting Legal Landscapes in a New Administration, happening May 1-2, 2025. This free two-day online event brings together top animal law experts to tackle major issues—from FDA regulatory changes to legal standing, First Amendment protections, and the future of animal & environmental law. Open to all—save your spot now! Full agenda and to register: https://lnkd.in/dh-4aEy

ANIMAL LAW UPDATE: Connecticut bans the use of goldfish as carnival prizes after amending a current law and including fish in the definition of “animal.” Goldfish suffer greatly during the process of being used as prizes — they are stored and transported in tiny plastic bags and given to people who often lack the knowledge and equipment needed to properly care for a goldfish and may die before they leave the carnival. Read our full legal analysis below!

A bill has been introduced in California that would prohibit public encounters with animals such as handfeeding, petting, holding, or playing with nonhuman primates, bears, elephants, sloths, otters, kangaroos, wallabies, servals, and caracals held in captivity. Public contact with wild animals?is on the?rise?and jeopardizes their welfare, public health and safety, and conservation.?Breeding wild animals for the purpose of forcing them to be handled by the public leads to a surplus after they grow too large, injurious, or uncooperative. They all too frequently end up in backyard menageries, poorly run facilities, or sent to auction.? Californian’s have advocated for strong animal protection laws in the state and this bill will continue to build on those efforts.

BREAKING: We've filed a lawsuit against the USDA challenging its policy of letting false and misleading food labels depicting animal-raising conditions on chicken and turkey products enter the market because it is not reviewing label imagery. Specifically, the lawsuit identifies the USDA’s approval of Perdue Farms’ Fresh Line labels, among others, which portray chickens and turkeys grazing outdoors in green grass under a bright sun. In reality, birds used in these products spend their entire lives confined in warehouses on factory farms. Our challenge over the government’s failure to ensure that imagery on labels is accurate is one of the few ways to directly challenge humane-washing.?

ANIMAL LAW UPDATE: A new Massachusetts bill bans the use of several species of wild animals in traveling shows including elephants, big cats,?nonhuman primates, bears, and giraffes. Amid growing awareness of the inherent cruelty and public safety risks of such performances, laws that ban the use of wild animals in traveling exhibits have gathered momentum, particularly over the past five years, and we expect to see more enacted in the future. The Animal Legal Defense Fund was part of the coalition of animal protection organizations that?supported this bill?and continues to work to enact similar legislation in other states.

REWARD: We are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for harming rabbits and other wildlife with blow darts. Since November, Clark County Animal Protection and Control has responded to 10 reports of injured rabbits as well as a migratory woodpecker with a blow dart embedded in the abdomen.

CASE UPDATE: The United States District Court for the Central District of California?will allow our RICO lawsuit filed against puppy mill broker JAKS to proceed. ?? This is an important first step in helping thousands of families who were tricked into buying commercially-bred puppies who were mislabeled as ‘rescues,’ but were instead raised for profit.

??LISTEN: Victory for Point Reyes’ Tule elk! ?? Recently it was announced that Point Reyes National Seashore in California would finally begin removing fencing and phase out most cattle and dairy operations in the park. This is an historic victory after hundreds of tule elk died after access to critical water and forage sources were blocked by an 8 foot fence. Our executive director Chris Green sat down with?Our Hen House?to discuss this remarkable win for wildlife protection at Point Reyes National Seashore: https://lnkd.in/gS4DdTAS

The 2024 State Rankings are out! Every year, we release a comprehensive report ranking the animal protection laws of all 50 states. This year, Oregon took the top spot for the second year while North Dakota ranked last. Are you surprised where your state ranked? https://lnkd.in/gTdhnAC7

We've joined Food and Water Watch and Defensores in suing Governor Newsom’s California Air Resources Board (CARB) over its failure to adequately address the health and environmental impacts of its recently approved amendments to one of California’s flagship climate programs – the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The LCFS incentivizes pollution in communities across the nation already overburdened with factory farm pollution, including those in California’s San Joaquin Valley, through lavish financial incentives for so-called “biogas” produced from manure. ?Californians have a right to know how their government's decisions harm their environment and quality of life.?