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| The HSUS |
| A federal court shuttered the last U.S. horse slaughterhouse on Sept. 21, 2007. |
In a field like Animal Law, it's almost cliché to talk about growth.
With Bob Barker creating million dollar endowments at major law schools, dozens of new cases each year, and hundreds of new laws being enacted, it's hard to even compare the extraordinary to the mundane anymore. But nonetheless, 2007 has been something special.
A Winning Legal Team
Fueled by an expanded staff of 13 attorneys located in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, and Seattle, a growing network of hundreds of pro bono lawyers, and a major new clinical partnership with Georgetown University Law Center, The HSUS has assembled the largest legal team for animals in the history of the animal protection movement.
And the team is winning like never before. So much so that our work attracted the attention of the National Law Journal, which featured the HSUS litigation program in a major profile of animal protection litigation.
In addition to filing more than a dozen new cases in 2007, our legal team also helped prosecutors bring scores of animal abusers and animal fighters to justice—including the recent seizure of starving and severely neglected animals in Va., and the conviction of a Florida rancher for starving his animals—one of the biggest cruelty cases ever in the state of Florida.
Year of the Horse
You can’t talk about litigation for animals in 2007 without talking about horse slaughter. In 2006, more than 100,000 horses a year were being slaughtered in the United States for food. On September 21, 2007, that number dropped to zero when the last slaughterhouse door was shut.
The road to this extraordinary victory was long and difficult, involving three different lawsuits. Things came to a head in January, when two of the country’s three horse slaughterhouses were abruptly silenced by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A lower court enjoined enforcement of a Texas law banning the sale of horsemeat. But with amicus support from The HSUS, the State prevailed in its appeal.
That left only the Cavel plant in Illinois. But that plant's operations came to a halt two months later, when The HSUS won its lawsuit to stop all U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection of horses destined for slaughter. That ruling was put on hold a month later, allowing Cavel to temporarily reopen.
In the meantime, the Illinois legislature passed a new law banning horse slaughter, which was promptly challenged in court. After several more months of litigation, the Seventh Circuit issued a pivotal ruling in September closing Cavel for good, thus ending horse slaughter in the United States.
More Than Just Horses
While America’s horses may have had the spotlight, our legal team worked overtime to secure many other courtroom actions and victories for animals in 2007, including key rulings to protect whales, lynx, dolphins, mountain lions, and dogs in puppy mills.
Our success in the courts is sending a chill down the spine of animal abusers throughout the United States, and for good reason. After decades of playing catch up against more sophisticated legal opponents, animal advocates are no longer on the defensive. This year alone, hundreds of attorneys from the country’s top 20 law firms contributed a combined total of more than $2.5 million of pro bono legal work to help HSUS’s legal team confront animal abusers in courts from California to New York.
Without enforcement, laws are just words on a page. And without lawyers, there can be no enforcement. The HSUS’s legal program is growing by leaps and bounds because of people like you and others who choose to get involved, donate legal work, or make a financial contribution to help stamp out animal cruelty. With your help, our 2008 team will be even stronger. Through your support, we can advance our ultimate goal of making sure that all animals get the legal protection they deserve.
2007 Round Up
• In January, we secured a federal court decree requiring Minnesota to take action to stop commercial fur trapping that kills federally protected Canada lynx. We also forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to cancel a proposed mountain lion hunt in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge because it violated a court ruling in The Fund for Animals v. Hall—a 2006 victory that derailed plans to open dozens of refuges to sport hunting in 2007.
• In February, we sued the nation’s largest online retailer for selling dogfighting and cockfighting paraphernalia in violation of federal law. We expanded our fight against Amazon.com later in the year when we took the Post Office to federal court for shipping these same animal fighting materials.
• In March, we hauled 12 of the nation’s biggest fashion retailers and manufacturers before the Federal Trade Commission to halt the false advertising and sale of dog fur and raccoon dog fur. Later that month, our lawsuit against the nation’s largest foie gras producer forced New York to fine Hudson Valley Foie Gras thousands of dollars for factory farm pollution.
• In April, our lawsuit against the Florida Department of Agriculture to protect dogs from puppy mills paid off when the agency agreed to develop new veterinarian health inspection requirements for dogs sold at retail.
• In May, The HSUS and other groups won their lawsuit to keep the federal government from gutting the trusted "dolphin safe" label on tuna products.
• In June, we sent a message to puppy mills everywhere when we filed a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit against the country’s most notorious puppy dealer. The case generated national discussion of the plight of puppy mill dogs and was featured in the National Law Journal.
• In July, our lawsuit against the Department of Commerce forced a court-ordered decree to protect three critically endangered whales from slow and horrific fishing gear entanglement deaths. That same month, we teamed up with environmental advocates to sue over New York’s policy of suppressing information about air and water pollution from factory farms.
• In August, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered Ringling Brothers Circus to stand trial on charges that it abuses elephants in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.
• In September, we teamed up with Georgetown Law Center to launch a new clinical education program that puts law students to work side-by-side with our legal staff on cutting-edge cases. Georgetown and The HSUS also rolled out the first law-school-sponsored postgraduate fellowship for recent graduates to work as attorneys for The HSUS.
• In October, we went to court in North Carolina to halt a massive pigeon shooting operation that massacres more than 15,000 birds a year for no other reason than gambling and amusement.
• In November, we filed a pair of legal actions with the USDA—one to shut down the cruel practice of penning wildlife and then setting off dogs upon the animals without any opportunity to escape; and the other to remove foie gras from the food supply in light of a recent study suggesting that foie gras may pose health risks to a significant number of consumers.
• In December, we ended the year by successfully defending New Mexico’s cockfighting ban in court against a challenge by cockfighters, by filing a new lawsuit to limit off-road vehicles and related sport hunting in a national park in Florida; and by putting the finishing touches on a whole host of new legal actions for 2008.
