Hessler, Jenkins, and Levenda (2017) on the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry

Kathy Hessler, Becky Jenkins, and Kelly Levenda, “Cruelty to Human and Nonhuman Animals in the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry.” Sustainable Development Law & Policy 8(1): 30-38 and 56-63, Fall 2017.

• Something like 1 to 3 trillion fish are caught each year for human consumption (fishcount.org.uk).

• The wild-caught fishing industry encompasses the catching of finfish; crustaceans (including shrimp); mollusks (snails, clams, etc.); cephalopods (octopuses, etc.); and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.).

• Some wild-caught fish are consumed by humans, but much is consumed by livestock and pets, too; most fishmeal and fish oil is now used for aquafeed.

• Common fishing methods include trawling (dragging a net); purse seining; gillnetting; tangle and trammel netting; rod & line, trolling; pole & line, longline (often with bait fish). [Each of these fishing methods has its own set of welfare concerns, but all of the methods seem quite horrid to me, alas.]

• Underappreciated(?) welfare issues with capture include: by-catch; exhaustion and high mortality of captured fish pre-slaughter; decompression; crushing; predators; hooks; and ghostfishing. 

• The slaughter of wild-caught fish is often gruesome: it can be long and painful, with death typically due to suffocation or live gutting. Fish are not given protection via the US Humane Slaughter Act.

• The authors offer some suggestions (pages 32-34) for improving the welfare of wild-caught fish. Among the suggested measures are: a ban on the use of live bait; limiting the duration of suffering by emptying nets and lines more frequently; banning j-shaped hooks and gillnets; permitting only near-surface-level fishing; banning gaffing and shortening the landing stage; and, rendering fish unconscious prior to slaughter.

• Towards the end of the article (pages 34-37) the authors move away from fish welfare to concentrate on the welfare of the humans who work in the wild-caught fishing industry. Commercial fishing is dangerous and often deadly, and abuses are hard to monitor on the high seas; it also is hard to provide emergency medical care in remote areas at sea.

• Forced labor seems to be commonplace in the global fishing industry. Migrant workers in fishing, who face barriers in seeking justice for violations of their rights, are sometimes exploited. 

• Seafood importers, and not just exporters, need to address production and labor issues (page 35).

Liebman (2022) on US Animal Law

Matthew Liebman, “Key Animal Law in the United States.” Chapter 33, pages 436-448, in Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare, Andrew Knight, Clive Phillips, and Paula Sparks, editors, Routledge, 2022. 

• Early legal protections for animals were aimed at securing human property and preventing a brutalization of human society.

• Most US laws on animal protection are state (via the “police power”) and local. The federal laws rely (for Constitutional imprimatur) upon the Commerce Clause, so transport and slaughter are the main areas addressed.

• Animals in US law are property (or, for wild animals, potential property), essentially “things”; but…

• …if someone intentionally kills your pet dog, do they only need to compensate you for the dog’s “market value”?

• But "every state has an anticruelty law, which limits how owners can treat their animals, at least in some limited contexts. This protection sets animals apart as a unique form of property: no other form of property receives legal protections based on its own interests [p. 438]."

• The federal Animal Welfare Act (1966): sets minimum care standards for some research animals, pets, and bred animals; dogs and primates get some special protection.

• The federal “28 Hour Law” (1873): animals in transport must have a food-water-exercise break every 28 hours; chickens and turkeys are not covered by this law.

• Humane Slaughter Act (1958, 1973): requires animals to be stunned before slaughter; chickens, the most commonly slaughtered land animal, are not covered.

• The federal Endangered Species Act (1973): offers protections to animal and plant species ruled to be threatened or endangered.

• Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (2019): makes some types of animal abuse federal felonies.

• Custody disputes and companion animals: the interests of the animals might receive attention from the court.

• Anti-cruelty laws are based on the notion that some animals are sentient. Nonetheless, there might be legal consequences from explicit declarations of animal sentience in the law. The legislature of the state of Oregon has made such a declaration. This declaration, however, was insufficient to give a horse named Justice the opportunity to sue his human abuser for damages -- the lead attorney for Justice was Matthew Liebman, the author of the article we are outlining here.

• The Nonhuman Rights Project has tried to bring habeas corpus actions in the name of their clients, captive elephants and chimpanzees. So far these legal actions have not been successful, though some individual judges have been sympathetic.

• Animal cruelty laws generally must address several dimensions: What animals are covered? (Insects?; wild animals?; fish?); What conduct is proscribed? (Acts of omission?); What conduct is permitted? (Standard factory farm cruelties are typically exempt); and, What sanctions are applied? (Ban offenders from owning animals?) 

• Some states and localities in the  US ban animals (or some subset of animals) in circuses; some states ban testing of cosmetics on animals; and, some states ban stores that sell pets.

• “…animal laws in the United States still assume that animals are exploitable resources that humans are allowed to use [p. 447].”

Rowan, D'Silva, Duncan, and Palmer (2021) on Animal Sentience

Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva, Ian J. H. Duncan, and Nicholas Palmer, “Animal Sentience: History, Science, and Politics.” Animal Sentience 31(1), 2021

• “…the lot of animals has worsened considerably since Bentham penned his famous phrase.”

• Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (2012, pdf): humans are not special when it comes to consciousness! Birds, for instance, demonstrate consciousness.

• The best evidence is that all mammals, all birds, and many other species (like octopuses) possess the neural/physical capacity for consciousness, and they also demonstrate intentional behavior.

• Milestones include Ruth Harrison and her book, Animal Machines (1964); the Brambell Report (1965, pdf) (a report on farmed animal welfare prepared for the British government); and the formation of the British advocacy group Compassion in World Farming (1967).

• In assessing animal welfare, one of the difficulties involves measuring feelings and their intensity -- though clearly subjective feelings are central to wellbeing.

• One way to discern animal welfare is to offer animals two (or more) options, and see which one they choose -- a revealed preference approach. The next step is to gauge the strength of the preference, perhaps by altering the "price" (in effort, say) that animals are willing to pay to take their preferred option. 

• The “Five Freedoms” are well-known and widely adopted guidelines for animal welfare, growing out of the Brambell Report, where the focus was on livestock. 

• "Of all the stimuli or states of suffering in animal agriculture, pain is probably responsible for a bigger reduction in welfare than any other... [p. 6]." Bad flooring generates a lot of pain in farm animals.

• Other sources of pain include difficult social interactions in crowded settings, surgeries conducted without anesthesia, and fast-growth-related problems. Boredom also can harm animal welfare.

• Traditionally, examinations of animal welfare have focused on suffering, but pleasure also is important. 

• Animal sentience is now explicitly recognized in legal documents in many parts of the world, including in the EU, Colombia, and the post-Brexit UK.

• The Animal Protection Index (available at https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/) encapsulates country-level information on the legislative protections for animals.