This episode of the Animal Law Podcast features Christopher Berry, Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, discussing a groundbreaking court case that recognizes companion animals as family members in certain legal contexts. Mariann and Christopher explore how this New York decision challenges decades of precedent that treated beloved pets as mere property rather than family, potentially opening new doors for animal legal rights.

This episode explores:

• The absurd legal status of companion animals in tort law, including a Texas case where a taxidermied dog would receive more legal protection than a living one
• The facts of a landmark New York case involving a family dog killed in a crosswalk accident
• How courts are beginning to recognize companion animals as family members in negligent infliction of emotional distress claims
• The perverse incentives created by current laws that often make it “better” to kill than injure an animal
• The broader implications for animal rights and the Non-Human Rights Project’s work on procedural rights for animals

This compelling conversation highlights how the legal system’s treatment of companion animals reflects deeper inequities in our relationship with all animals, and how common law evolution can help change the world for animals through the legal system.

Christopher Berry is Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, where he leads the organization’s groundbreaking legal effort to secure fundamental legal rights for nonhuman animals. Before joining the NhRP in 2024, he spent over a decade at the Animal Legal Defense Fund focusing on civil enforcement of animal protection laws and elevating animal legal status through strategic litigation.  

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

In this compelling episode, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Elise Bennett, Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, about the lawsuit challenging the controversial immigration detention facility in Florida’s Everglades. Bennett details how this hastily constructed center in Big Cypress National Preserve threatens endangered species, water quality, and the integrity of a crucial ecosystem that has received billions in restoration funding over decades. The case hinges on federal agencies’ failure to conduct required environmental impact assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), highlighting how environmental laws may protect wildlife habitats even in politically charged circumstances.

This episode explores:

• How the facility threatens endangered Florida panthers (only 120-230 remain in the wild) and the endemic Florida bonneted bat
• Environmental impacts including artificial lighting visible from 15 miles away and even from space
• Legal strategies using NEPA to challenge federal agencies’ failure to assess environmental impacts
• Complex jurisdictional questions as state and federal agencies attempt to evade accountability
• Potential water contamination risks in an ecosystem that’s critical to Florida’s environmental health

Elise Bennett is the Florida and Caribbean director and a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. She advocates for endangered species and wild places in Florida and the Caribbean. Born and raised in Florida, she holds a law degree and a certificate of concentration in environmental law from Stetson University College of Law, as well as a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and policy from the University of South Florida. Before joining the Center’s Florida and Caribbean program, Elise focused on protecting rare amphibians and reptiles in the eastern United States.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

In a groundbreaking episode of The Animal Law Podcast, we explored radical new concepts that could fundamentally transform how constitutional law treats animals. Host Mariann Sullivan welcomed Cambridge University’s Raffael Fasel and Queen Mary University’s John Adenitire to discuss their book “Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism” – a work that challenges centuries of legal tradition by proposing constitutional frameworks that recognize the inherent worth of all sentient beings.

While traditional constitutions rely on the “hypothetical consent of the governed,” this revolutionary approach acknowledges that billions of sentient beings are governed by constitutional systems but have no voice in shaping them. The authors argue for a dramatic shift from anthropocentric legal structures to ones that provide “due concern” for all creatures capable of experiencing pain, pleasure, and complex emotions.

Key Discussion Points:

• The historical evolution of constitutionalism from divine right monarchy to modern democratic systems
• Why sentience, rather than rationality or autonomy, should be the foundation for constitutional worth
• How existing animal welfare protections in constitutions worldwide fall short of true recognition
• The application of proportionality principles when animal and human interests conflict
• Practical challenges of implementing constitutional rights for domesticated and wild animals
• The role of micro-boards and participatory democracy in determining animal interests
• Real-world examples from Ecuador’s rights of nature to Switzerland’s animal dignity provisions
• Why this “realistic utopia” framework offers hope for incremental progress toward comprehensive animal rights

This episode challenges listeners to reconsider fundamental assumptions about law, democracy, and moral consideration – making complex constitutional theory accessible to animal advocates seeking systemic change.

Dr John Olusegun Adenitire is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, School of Law and a Co-Director of the Forum on Decentering the Human, an inter-disciplinary research centre. He completed his PhD in Law at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. He has held visiting research fellowships at Yale, Oxford, New York University, and Fordham University. He has published extensively on constitutional rights, discrimination law and theory, and animal rights. He teaches animal rights law, public law, legal philosophy and EU law at Queen Mary.

Dr Raffael Fasel is Assistant Professor in Public Law at Cambridge University and founding Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law. Dr. Fasel is a leading voice in animal rights jurisprudence, holding degrees from Cambridge (PhD), Yale (LLM), UCL (MA Philosophy), and Fribourg (LLB, LLM). His award-winning research earned the prestigious Yorke Prize and SNSF Ambizione grant. Recent publications include More Equal Than Others: Humans and the Rights of Other Animals (Oxford 2024), Animal Rights Law (Hart 2023), and Animals and the Constitution (Oxford 2025). Expert in constitutional theory, human rights, and animal law with visiting positions at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and NYU.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

In this episode of the Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan welcomes back Will Lowrey, legal counsel for Animal Partisan, alongside David Rosengard, managing attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund‘s Criminal Justice Program. They dive into an obscure but potentially game-changing legal tool: laws in certain states that allow private citizens to obtain search warrants when they have evidence of animal cruelty. While their recent attempt to use this procedure against Jenny O Turkey for its “ventilation shutdown plus” practices (which essentially slow-cooks birds to death during bird flu outbreaks) hit a roadblock in Minnesota, the team isn’t giving up.

• Factory farm cruelty meets legal loopholes: The guests explain how animal cruelty laws technically apply to farmed animals in all 50 states, despite industry claims to the contrary, and why they refuse to give up on using these laws despite frequent agricultural exemptions.
• What exactly is “ventilation shutdown plus”?: Prepare to be horrified as David Rosengard explains this USDA-approved depopulation method that seals barns, cuts off airflow, and pumps in heat, essentially cooking birds alive while they simultaneously suffocate.
• The government approval dodge: The court dismissed their case partly because federal agencies approved the practice, but as Will points out, “There’s no statute that Congress has passed that says you may overheat birds to 104 degrees for four hours and kill them.”
• California, here they come: Despite the setback, Animal Partisan is already preparing to test similar private warrant laws in California, where they’ve discovered another untapped legal tool that could help expose factory farm cruelty.
• The public doesn’t know: As David notes, when polled, people consistently say farm animals should be treated humanely and would pay more for better treatment – they just drastically underestimate what’s actually happening behind closed doors.

Will Lowrey is the Legal Counsel for Animal Partisan, a legal advocacy organization focused on challenging unlawful conduct at farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories. Will previously spent several years as Legal Counsel for Animal Outlook, a national nonprofit farmed animal protectionorganization, where he divided his time between civil litigation and undercover investigations. Will has engaged in numerous lawsuits, as well as criminal and administrative enforcement actions against the government, industrial agriculture, and research laboratories, including cases involving federal slaughter laws, public records, false advertising, public nuisance, animal cruelty, and others. Will has taught Animal Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law. 

As Managing Attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund‘s Criminal Justice Program, David Rosengard champions justice for animal cruelty victims through groundbreaking legal strategies, including pioneering work to establish animals as legal crime victims and expand Courtroom Animal Advocate Programs. A Lewis & Clark Law School honors graduate who teaches animal law at his alma mater, David has contributed to significant publications on animal law while advancing constitutional arguments that recognize animal sentience in the legal system.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

Alene Anello of Legal Impact for Chickens joins us once again, this time to talk, not about chickens, but about cows. Of course, the laws affecting farmed animals are often the same regardless of species and Legal Impact for Chickens thinks it would be great to see some of California’s rather good laws protecting farmed animals actually enforced. For that reason, Legal Impact for Chickens, which is a legally constituted Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in California, is seeking an injunction against Alexandre Family Farm, which sells its milk all over the country, to stop it from violating those laws. Alexandre says, no way, you are just a private entity and you cannot bring us into court for the way we treat our cows. The answer to which of these parties is correct hangs in the balance, and it just couldn’t be more important.

Key points from this episode:

• Legal Impact for Chickens is using its status as a legally constituted SPCA to enforce California animal cruelty laws through civil litigation
• Alexandre Family Farm, a dairy that markets itself as “regenerative,” faces allegations of serious animal welfare violations including pouring salt in cows’ eyes
• California Corporations Code sections 10404 and 14501 potentially allow SPCAs to bring civil cases enforcing animal protection laws
• Industry whistleblowers, not undercover investigators, provided much of the evidence about alleged cruelty at Alexandre
• The case could create a precedent for enforcing existing animal welfare laws when criminal prosecution is unavailable
• Civil injunctions focus on preventing future cruelty rather than punishment, offering a potentially more effective remedy for animals

Alene Anello founded Legal Impact for Chickens. Before that, Alene graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for a federal judge, and then started litigating for animals. She has worked at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and The Good Food Institute. Alene is committed to helping chickens to honor the memories of two beloved birds, Conrad and Zeke.

• Legal Impact for Chickens
• LIC v. Alexandre Family Farm
• Dairy Deception: Corruption and Consumer Fraud at Alexandre Family Farm
• Proposed Class Action Complaint

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

FarmSTAND attorneys Kelsey Eberly and Skye Walker join us on this episode to discuss an absolutely infuriating case, Blumm v Northwest Natural Gas Company. They explain how an increasing number of dairy farms are more in the business of selling the methane being produced by their manure piles, or, as they call them, “lagoons,” than selling milk. Now, in Oregon, natural gas consumers are actually being hornswoggled into paying more for the privilege of getting methane that comes from cow poop, even though it is just as bad for the climate as any other methane, and we are actually deliberately imprisoning cows on factory farms in order to produce it. Fortunately, FarmSTAND is on the case and, on behalf of some angry, deceived consumers, is fighting back.

This episode explores:

• How factory farms are marketing biogas as “renewable natural gas”

• The truth about methane digesters and manure management systems

• Why dairy industry “climate solutions” actually harm the environment

• Legal strategies for challenging corporate greenwashing

• Consumer protection laws and environmental marketing claims

• The intersection of factory farming and fossil fuel industries

• How deceptive carbon offset programs work

As a Senior Staff Attorney at FarmSTAND, Kelsey Eberly engages in strategic litigation and movement-centered advocacy to fight corporate control and expose the abuses in the industrial animal agriculture system. Before joining FarmSTAND, Kelsey was a lecturer and litigator with the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, a policy fellow at the Brooks McCormick, Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, and an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Kelsey specializes in litigation to combat secrecy and increase transparency in the industrial food system—challenging efforts to silence investigations and whistleblowers and advocating for consumers misled by animal agribusinesses’ deceptive marketing. When not working to transform the food system, Kelsey can be found running over the hills and dales of Vermont, listening to investigative journalism podcasts. 

Skye Walker is a legal fellow at FarmSTAND based in Portland, Oregon, working primarily on environmental and consumer protection matters. Skye holds a B.A. in environmental policy from Oregon State University and a J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School. Skye has diverse internship and clinical experience in the public interest field and recently concluded a fellowship at the Colorado Attorney General.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

Edie Bowles, the Managing Director of UK law firm Advocates for Animals, joins us on this episode to help us understand what appears to be a groundbreaking decision in animal welfare law that involves one of the most widespread and egregious practices in industrial animal agriculture, the breeding of factory-farmed chickens raised for meat in ways that cause unbelievable suffering. At first glance, this case may not look like a win for animals, but on closer examination, it appears that the court has done something extraordinary that could have substantial ramifications for the lives of the most widely abused animals in the world: chickens.

Key Discussion Points:

• The interpretation of UK welfare regulations for industrial chicken farming
• How Paragraph 29 challenges fast-growing chicken breeds
• The role of the RSPCA’s research in legal proceedings
• Enforcement mechanisms for animal welfare laws
• The future of chicken breeding practices in agriculture
• Private prosecution options in UK animal law

Edie is a solicitor and the managing director of Advocates for Animals. She has advised almost all of the main animal protection organizations, smaller organizations, and individuals across all animal protection laws and campaigning. She often speaks on animal protection issues and has done so in the UK Parliament, the French Sénat, and the East African Legislative Assembly.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

Chris Green and Rebecca Garverman join us this week to talk about a case that managed to catch the attention not only of the public at large but of a number of lawyers and, after a great deal of hard work, resulted in a historic victory. You may have heard about the plight of the Tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore. These extraordinary animals, native to California, are lucky enough, or at least apparently so, to reside in a staggeringly beautiful national park. In spite of this, for years, they have been dying because their access to forage and, most importantly, water has been blocked by, of all unimaginable things, an 8-foot fence put there so that dairy farms could continue to use the land and the water instead. This is an amazing story involving so much hard work by so many people that, mirabile dictu, produced a phenomenal result: the removal of the fence and phase-out of most cattle and dairy operations from the park.

Key Discussion Points:

• Point Reyes National Seashore’s native Tule elk population faced mass deaths when trapped behind fence protecting dairy farms
• Harvard Animal Law & Policy Clinic challenged National Park Service’s failure to protect elk dying from lack of water access
• Legal battle combined with media attention led to historic December 2023 victory: removal of 8-foot fence at Point Reyes
•  January 2024 settlement phases out most dairy operations, with Nature Conservancy’s $30 million buyout protecting 16,000 acres for wildlife
• Victory allows California’s Tule elk to roam freely at Point Reyes National Seashore for the first time since 1978

Chris Green, Executive Director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, is a leading authority in animal law and policy. After founding ALDF’s Legislative Affairs Program, he served as inaugural Executive Director of Harvard Law School’s Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program. His achievements include defeating Ag-Gag legislation, implementing wildlife protection policies, and advancing non-lethal animal encounter training for law enforcement. A Harvard Law graduate and recipient of the American Bar Association’s Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law, Green regularly testifies on animal protection legislation and is frequently quoted in major media outlets.

Rebecca Garverman is a Massachusetts-licensed, Boston-based Staff Attorney. She works for the NhRP exploring new legal rights for nonhuman animals. Previously, Rebecca served as a Staff Attorney for Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic and worked in private practice as a corporate attorney at Goodwin Procter. Rebecca is also a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Animal Law Practice Group. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rebecca has presented oral arguments to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as well as the Western District of New York.

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

Paul Sherman, senior attorney with the public interest law firm The Institute for Justice, joins us this week to discuss the legal battle over cultivated meat in Florida. Paul is leading the landmark lawsuit brought by UPSIDE Foods, challenging Florida’s controversial statute that criminalizes (criminalizes!) the production and sale of USDA-approved cultivated meat products in the state.

This pivotal case examines constitutional challenges to state food regulation through both the dormant commerce clause and federal preemption arguments. Key questions include: Does cultivated chicken meet the federal definition of poultry? How does the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act affect producers’ rights? And can states ban products that federal regulators have deemed safe?

Key Discussion Points:

• Federal preemption of state food safety regulations
• Interstate commerce implications for cultivated meat
• USDA approval process for novel food products
• State restrictions on food technology innovation
• Legal framework for challenging state food bans

Paul Sherman is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he champions individual rights and constitutional protections through groundbreaking litigation. Specializing in First Amendment cases and economic liberty, Sherman leads significant legal challenges including UPSIDE Foods’ fight against Florida’s cultivated meat ban and cases defending plant-based meat alternatives’ advertising rights. His work at the nonprofit public-interest law firm focuses on challenging restrictive occupational-licensing laws that burden free speech and defending individual liberties in both federal and state courts. Sherman holds a law degree from George Washington University Law School and degrees in political campaigning and political science from the University of Florida.

• Institute for Justice website
• Florida Cultivated Meat Ban Case Information

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, all donations will be TRIPLED up to $20,000! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!

Emily Miller of Food and Water Watch joins us to talk about Food and Water Watch v EPA, which involves the Clean Water Act and why, when it comes to one particular industry (guess which one!), it is so ineffective in guarding our water from being polluted with outright filth. Whether it comes to the failure to require factory farms to get permits or failure to ensure the factory farm permits that do exist are actually protective of water quality, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with enforcing it, are failing to live up to their names, and too often the courts are failing as well.

Emily Miller is a Staff Attorney at the national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch. Emily primarily focuses on legal strategies to address factory farm air and water pollution harming frontline communities, the environment, and the climate. She is based in Colorado.

• Food and Water Watch website
• Food and Water Watch on Facebook
• Food and Water Watch on Instagram
• Food and Water Watch on TikTok

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You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on iTunes, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, all donations will be TRIPLED up to $20,000! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fourteenth glorious year!