Brooks Animal Law Digest

New York Senate Bill 9538 would prohibit the use of horses for carriage rides in the City of New York. Reintroduction of the bill follows the widely publicized August 10, 2022 collapse of a carriage horse in Hell’s Kitchen, after which the carriage operator began beating the fallen animal. The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Rules.

A New York state dairy farm is leading a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Vermont against the country’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), arguing that the organization has violated antitrust law and artificially lowered the price of raw milk. The lawsuit alleges that DFA has created a “monopsony,” a market in which many sellers have only a single buyer, across the dairy industry in Vermont and ten other states in the northeastern United States. 

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced availability of a provisional agenda for its participation in the nineteenth meeting of the parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which will be held in Panama City, Panama in November 2022. FWS is holding a virtual public meeting on September 6, 2022 to discuss the agenda, and will also accept written public comments through September 21, 2022.

Prosecutors in the German State of Hesse are investigating whether universities and other laboratories are violating the country’s criminal law against hurting animals “without reasonable cause” when they kill animals they no longer need.

Chinese authorities conducted a major wildlife crime enforcement operation between February 15, 2022, and May 15, 2022, resulting in the confiscation of:

• More than 130,000 individual wild animals and plants;
• 140,000 wildlife products;
• 97 tons of timber; and
• 46,000 pieces of illegal hunting gear and fishing gear.

The law enforcement operation involved eleven different governmental agencies and culminated in the interception of more than 14,000 traffickers.

Australia published new reforms in its Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, including a requirement for ducks to have bathing water, and a prohibition on the use of battery cages by 2036. Animal welfare groups celebrated the improvements, but are disappointed at the protracted phase-in.

President Biden signed the tax, climate, and health care legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act into law. The bill includes renewable energy tax credits and incentives, and appropriates $50 million in competitive grants to fund climate research as it relates to weather, ocean, coastal, and atmospheric processes and conditions, and impacts to marine species and coastal habitat.

New York Senate Bill 9538 would prohibit the use of horses for carriage rides in the City of New York. Reintroduction of the bill follows the widely publicized August 10, 2022 collapse of a carriage horse in Hell’s Kitchen, after which the carriage operator began beating the fallen animal. The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Rules.

A New York state dairy farm is leading a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Vermont against the country’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), arguing that the organization has violated antitrust law and artificially lowered the price of raw milk. The lawsuit alleges that DFA has created a “monopsony,” a market in which many sellers have only a single buyer, across the dairy industry in Vermont and ten other states in the northeastern United States. 

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Los Padres Forest Watch announced a settlement agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that ensures the permanent closure and restoration of eleven long-dormant oil wells inside the Carrizo Plain National Monument––a central California habitat for wildlife like the San Joaquin kit fox and the blunt-nosed leopard lizard. The agreement settles litigation that plaintiffs commenced in 2020 claiming that the Trump administration’s approval of a new oil well and pipeline in the national monument would harm threatened and endangered wildlife. Plaintiffs were represented by CBD and the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford University.

The Center for Biological Diversity delivered a sixty-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS). The notice alleges that FWS has violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to designate critical habitat for the Barrens topminnow since adding the imperiled fish to the list of endangered and threatened species in 2019.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Bat Conservation International, the Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association, and the Tropical Audubon Society delivered a sixty-day notice of intent to sue the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect the endangered Florida bonneted bat, Miami tiger beetle, Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak and other listed species from the Miami Wilds water park and retail development in South Florida.

The Minnesota Deer Farmers Association (MDFA) challenged the validity of an expedited emergency rule adopted by respondent Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) temporarily prohibiting the movement of farmed white-tailed deer in Minnesota to help prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease. The court ruled that MDNR had the statutory authority to adopt the rule and declared the rule valid in part, while declaring MDFA’s additional challenges moot and incapable of repetition.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) published notice that it has received multiple Endangered Species Act recovery permit applications for protected species of fish, mussels, amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals. FWS is accepting public comments through September 12, 2022.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) published notice of its intent to conduct an information collection relating to its Bison Donations Transfer Protocol, which describes the process for the donation of available surplus bison from FWS to eligible organizations, Tribes, or intertribal organizations. FWS is accepting public comments on the proposed information collection through October 11, 2022.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) published notice of its intent to issue regulations authorizing the nonlethal, incidental, unintentional harassment of northern sea otters during the U.S. Coast Guard’s marine construction and pile driving in the Gulf of Alaska coastal waters. FWS is accepting public comments through September 14, 2022.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) published notice that it has received multiple Endangered Species Act recovery permit applications for protected species of fish, reptiles, insects, and mammals. FWS is accepting public comments through September 15, 2022.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight, LLC (Atlantic Shores Bight) to incidentally harass marine mammals during site characterization surveys off the coasts of New Jersey and New York. The IHA is effective from August 10, 2022, through August 9, 2023.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) received an application from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for an Endangered Species Act permit to enhance the survival of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead through rescue and relocation of these species from drying coastal streams in Northern California. The fish included in the application are the Central California Coast Evolutionary Significant Unit of coho salmon, the threatened Northern California Distinct Population Segment of steelhead, and the threatened Central California Coast Distinct Population Segment steelhead Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin counties. NMFS is accepting public comments on the application through September 15, 2022.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is amending its labeling regulations to remove provisions that require packages of meat or poultry products that contain at least one pound or one pint, but less than four pounds or one gallon, to express the net weight or net contents in two different units of measurement on the product label. This change is effective October 17, 2022.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a public health alert in connection with ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli. The products were produced by Hawaii Beef Producers, LLC, and distributed to retail locations in Hawaii under the “Hawaii Big Island Beef” brand.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced its intent to list magnificent ramshorn, a freshwater snail species from southeastern North Carolina, as an endangered species and to designate critical habitat for the snails under the Endangered Species Act. FWS will accept public comments on the proposed listing through October 17, 2022.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a final rule prescribing the seasons, hours, areas, daily bag, and possession limits for hunting migratory birds. Taking of migratory birds is prohibited unless specifically provided for by annual regulations. This rule is effective August 19, 2022.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published notice that The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California has applied for a permit to conduct research on six cetacean species, including endangered blue whales, fin whales, and humpback whales along the coast of California. The permit states, “the purpose of the research is to understand the distribution, movements, seasonality, habitat use, and behavior of cetaceans, and anthropogenic threats to these species.” NMFS is accepting public comments on the application through September 19, 2022.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced availability of a provisional agenda for its participation in the nineteenth meeting of the parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which will be held in Panama City, Panama in November 2022. FWS is holding a virtual public meeting on September 6, 2022 to discuss the agenda, and will also accept written public comments through September 21, 2022.

The Center for Agriculture & Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School has released a report that analyzes and evaluates the extensive adoption and support of manure anaerobic digesters with a specific focus on the resulting equity implications. Ruthie Lazenby, “Rethinking Manure Biogas: Policy Considerations to Promote Equity and Protect the Climate and Environment,” Center for Agriculture & Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School (August 2022). “The report finds that relying on manure biogas systems to mitigate livestock GHG emissions ignores both the extensive emissions created by the livestock industry outside of manure storage, and the environmental justice impacts of locking in existing systems of industrial animal agriculture by investing in expensive, durable infrastructure that requires the ongoing production of manure to remain financially viable.”

A global research team “surveyed 4,291 members of the general public on their perceptions of animals and animal welfare across 14 geographically and culturally diverse countries.” The study found that most people agree that the welfare of both farmed animals and companion animals is important, and that laws that protect that welfare were also important. Michelle Sinclair, PhD, et al., International Perceptions of Animals and the Importance of Their Welfare, Front. Anim. Sci. (August 18, 2022).

An article in the Michigan State University College of Law Animal & Natural Resources Law Review examines “the progress and setbacks of the legal landscape, the effects of the entertainment industry, and the legal steps necessary to end big cat trafficking in America.” Carney Anne Nasser, Welcome (Back) to the Jungle: The Status of America’s Tiger Crisis, 18 Mich. State U. College of Law Animal & Nat. Res. L. Rev. 1 (Aug. 2022).

Prosecutors in the German State of Hesse are investigating whether universities and other laboratories are violating the country’s criminal law against hurting animals “without reasonable cause” when they kill animals they no longer need.

The European Court of Justice found that Estonia’s zero tolerance limit on Listeria monocytogenes cannot be applied to food which has left the control of the producer and is already on the market, and instead the existing higher tolerance limit will apply. The case originated when Estonia’s Agriculture and Food Board ordered M.V. Wool, a manufacturer of fish products, to cease production following the discovery of Listeria monocytogenes in samples taken from the company’s salmon and trout products in retail stores.

Chinese authorities conducted a major wildlife crime enforcement operation between February 15, 2022, and May 15, 2022, resulting in the confiscation of:

• More than 130,000 individual wild animals and plants;
• 140,000 wildlife products;
• 97 tons of timber; and
• 46,000 pieces of illegal hunting gear and fishing gear.

The law enforcement operation involved eleven different governmental agencies and culminated in the interception of more than 14,000 traffickers.

According to TRAFFIC, the leading wildlife trafficking monitoring agency, Indonesian authorities seized ten helmeted hornbill casques from a trafficker in North Sumatra who was trying to sell the parts from critically endangered animals on Facebook. The trafficker was linked to a previous seizure of CITES Appendix I-listed species parts including pangolin scales, helmeted hornbill casques, and Sumatran tiger bones.

Australia published new reforms in its Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, including a requirement for ducks to have bathing water, and a prohibition on the use of battery cages by 2036. Animal welfare groups celebrated the improvements, but are disappointed at the protracted phase-in.