SAOVA Friends,
We have written before about animal abuser registries and how dangerous
they are. Establishing animal abuser
registries is a campaign championed by the California-based Animal Legal
Defense Fund (ALDF) whose mission is to use the legal system to change the
current property status of animals and advance the interest of animals under
the law.
ALDF asserts that registries will not only prevent criminal conduct,
but will also raise public awareness about the connections between animal
cruelty and human violence. ALDF is a major promoter of the theory that animal
abusers go on to victimize people. They have even gone so far as to say animal
abusers are potential serial killers, citing the cases of Albert DeSalvo, the
Boston Strangler; Jeffrey Dahmer; Ted Bundy; and other infamous serial killers.
Manchester Metropolitan University researchers Heather Piper and Steve
Myers looked at such claims and found a surprising lack of any actual valid
evidence for it. They write, “Research supporting the supposed links is based
mainly on extreme and non-representative samples. Accounts suggesting links
between those who have harmed animals and later violence toward humans often
rely on the same small sample of extreme criminals in the US. Researching a
limited population to produce a broadly applicable generalization is
problematic. Any number of life experiences could also be shown to correlate
with the behavior. A further problem is that much of the research tends to
suffer from fallacies of logic. Just because some serial killers have harmed
animals, this does not mean that all or even the majority of those who harm
animals will become serial killers. Yet this stance is taken in much of the
literature.”
Now that the FBI has established a category for felony animal abuse and
is preparing to collect data on animal cruelty crimes through its National
Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), it may become increasingly difficult
to maintain logic over hysterics when dealing with proposed animal abuser
registry bills.
All abuser registry bills must be read very carefully to ascertain what
sections of cruelty law apply. If the proposed registry bill is written to
include misdemeanor offenses, then failure to provide specified shelter or
tethering a dog incorrectly could place someone on the registry. Dog breeders and sportsmen pride themselves
on the care provided to their dogs.
Regardless, one should never assume it is impossible to become involved
in a disagreement with local officials over the adequacy of shelter or
condition of kennel dogs. Lose the
argument and your name, photograph, and case information could be included in
an online registry which animal activists can access. Any information placed
online about animal abusers will be widely circulated, putting these
individuals at risk of harassment and vigilante justice.
Registries would also include hoarders who represent a large percentage
of animal cruelty cases. Animal hoarding refers to the compulsive need to collect
and own animals for the sake of caring for them that usually results in
accidental or unintentional neglect or abuse. Animal hoarding is a mental
disorder and approximately 40 percent of object hoarders also hoard animals.
Hoarders have an intense emotional attachment to the animals in their care and
confuse loving the animals with the reality of their inability to provide a
safe, clean, and healthy home for them. Treatment of hoarders by mental health
services is a far better solution than years of public exposure and humiliation
on web site lists where they are unrealistically stereotyped as dangers to
society.
The first registry bill was introduced in Colorado in 2002. Since then hundreds of bills introduced to
enact animal abuser registries have been unsuccessful in twenty-seven (27)
states.
It is not completely clear why in the current session the Tennessee
Legislature became thoroughly enchanted with the animal abuser registry bills
introduced by Senator Jeff Yarbro (D21-Nashville) and Representative Darren
Jernigan (D-60). The online animal abuser registry was supported by the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI). As first introduced the bills included
misdemeanor offenses for general animal cruelty charges which could have placed
every dog breeder, owner, and sportsman in the state at risk. The House passed
this version. Fortunately, a Senate substitute proposed by Senator Brian Kelsey
(R-31) removed the section citing general animal cruelty. This substitute passed the Senate and was then
accepted by the House.
ALDF suffered over a decade of failure with their registry campaign. This
year Tennessee sadly became the first state in the nation to honor their
campaign by enacting a registry bill.
Thank you for reading. Cross Posting is encouraged.
Susan Wolf
Sportsmen's and Animal Owners' Voting Alliance
Working to identify and elect supportive legislators
ALDF OPENS NEW FRONTIER FOR ANIMAL PERSONHOOD
May 15, 2015. Christopher A. Berry, ALDF Staff Attorney, writes on the
ALDF blog “What are the legal implications for splicing human cells into
nonhuman animals? When does an animal become a person—how much human material
is required? Where do we draw the legal line? Cutting-edge research in
“chimera” science blurs traditional morality and raises critical new questions.
And human protection laws may provide the clues we need to solve this puzzle.”
Berry continues, “. . . for more than a decade scientists have been
creating human-animal chimeras by grafting human stem cells into animal bodies.
This results in purely human cells replacing some of the animal parts.” “A
traditional use of these chimeric and transgenic creatures involves grafting
human immune cells into mouse bodies because this is thought to produce more
accurate results in biomedical research that uses the mice to study human
diseases. But a string of recent revolutionary new research involves humanizing
animal brains, resulting in chimeras and transgenics with significantly
enhanced cognitive abilities.”
Berry reports that in one study from 2013, researchers implanted human
glial progenitor cells—a type of brain cell that supports neurons in the brain
and contributes to cognitive function—into mice brains, causing a significant
increase in mouse learning ability and change in behavior. Berry warns there are no laws regulating this
type of research humanizing animal brains and no requirement that any animals
that might eventually exhibit human-like intelligence receive human-like
rights.
One researcher involved in this project quickly dismissed any idea that
the added cells somehow make the mice more human. "This does not provide
the animals with additional capabilities that could in any way be ascribed or
perceived as specifically human," he says. "Rather, the human cells
are simply improving the efficiency of the mouse's own neural networks. It's
still a mouse." (New Scientist http://tinyurl.com/mgpq2tm)
However as they believe this area of research lacks proper regulation,
ALDF filed a formal rulemaking petition with the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) asking that agency to enact regulations under the Public Health
Services Act. The Public Health Services Act imposes a duty on HHS to protect
the rights of human research subjects in all federally-supported research. 42
U.S.C. § 289. These protections include informed consent, assessment of risks
and benefits, and equitable selection of subjects. 45 C.F.R. §§ 46.101, et seq.
Specifically, ALDF’s rulemaking petition asks HHS to enact regulations that (1)
require special oversight of all research involving human-animal chimeras and
transgenics, and (2) require that animals exhibiting human-like intelligence as
a result of those experiments be granted all protection normally given to human
research subjects. HHS has until December 2017 to respond to ALDF’s petition.
Berry summarizes ALDF’s efforts. “While the adoption of ALDF’s
rulemaking proposal helps promote the welfare of human-animal chimeras and
transgenics by requiring additional oversight, the real value is in obtaining
personhood status for those animals exhibiting human-like intelligence. As it
stands now, the only member of the animal kingdom with personhood status is the
human species. By compelling the legal system to recognize that biologically
manipulated animals with human-like intelligence and at least a drop of human
DNA ought to receive the same rights as human research subjects, we can build a
bridge between rights for humans and rights for all the other animals.”
Source: ALDF Blog http://tinyurl.com/lalllqm
INDIANA DNR RULE CHANGES
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has posted proposed rule
changes for Section 312 IAC 9-10-16 Dog training ground permit. The proposed
rule changes would adversely affect beagling in Indiana by placing time
restrictions on field trials and unreasonably limiting training
opportunities. No fences that divide
the training ground into parcels less than 10 acres would be allowed. This would eliminate smaller pens necessary
for use in training unstarted dogs and puppies. Permits would not be issued or
renewed without the pen first being inspected by a conservation officer or
wildlife biologist. Inspection process may include the removal of a sample of
rabbits for biological examination.
Additional record keeping has been proposed including name and address
of each person from whom rabbits are obtained and the dates and numbers of all
rabbits released into the training ground. Also required would be the recording
of date of death or discovery of a dead rabbit and proximate cause of mortality
of any rabbit. Records must be kept for three years and made available at
inspections. There are questionable and
vague requirements for supplemental feeding and watering of rabbits, with no
criteria listed, and specified percentages of types of cover.
The rule with proposed changes is posted at IDNR http://www.in.gov/nrc/2377.htm with a
link to submit comments. On June 4,
2015, at 5:30 p.m., at the Fort Harrison State Park
Inn, 5830 North Post Road, Roosevelt Ballroom, Indianapolis, Indiana
the Natural Resources Commission will hold a public hearing on this and other
proposed amendments. Submit your
comments now.
PENNSYLVANIA TETHERING AND SHELTER BILL ON THE MOVE
Senate Bill 373 to amend the state’s cruelty laws has unanimously
passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and is now eligible for a floor vote.
The bill prohibits a dog from being tethered outside for more than 30
minutes if the temperature is below 32 degrees. Compliance with this
requirement would be impossible for those who work and are not home should the
temperature drop during the day. This
would also have direct, negative impact on field trials and winter dog
sports.
The bill also sets specific standards for shelter and bedding for dogs that
are kept outdoors. SB 373 requires dog
housing to be moisture proof with a floor raised 3 inches from the ground, wind
proof, and have an eight-inch overhanging roof to keep out rain. These
requirements would force dog owners, breeders, and sportsmen who keep dogs
outside in winter to virtually custom build new dog houses. The bill includes size requirements for dog
houses and prohibits certain types of bedding such as hay.
Current PA law already states that it is an offense “to deprive any
animal of necessary sustenance, drink, shelter or veterinary care, or access to
clean and sanitary shelter which will protect the animal against inclement
weather and preserve the animal's body heat and keep it dry”.
Animal rightists and those with no practical experience in animal
husbandry or dogs’ needs should not be writing Pennsylvania law. Look up SB 373 http://tinyurl.com/l3949q6 and contact your Senator now to oppose these
burdensome and unnecessary regulation changes. http://tinyurl.com/kf9qpwf
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