Bruce Wagman 5thMay09 Keynote Transcript (With Pictures) Updated 060709 FINAL

8/3/2019 Bruce Wagman 5thMay09 Keynote Transcript (With Pictures) Updated 060709 FINAL

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A N I M A L L A W

L E C T U R E S E R I E S

K E Y N O T E A D D R E S S

BRUCE WAGMAN

SCHIFF HARDIN

ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND (US )

I really cant thank you all enough for coming, and thank Voiceless enough for

having me here. Its really my honour and privilege to be here in this room, in thiswonderful room filled with so many people. The fact that you are here proves the

legitimacy, not only of the movement but of what Justice Kirby said in his opinion

and other judges have said in America in their opinions - animal law is a matter of

public concern. Its a matter thats on peoples minds. Whether you are somebody

who is ready to go and ready to fight for the animals or just interested, merely the fact

that youre here demonstrates that this is something that our society is interested in

and needs to address. This morning we had a QC, an MP, a judge. This evening we

have Justice Kirby and others. It is quite impressive. It is rare, even in America, that

we get these many esteemed people showing up.

What I have been asked to do is tell you a little bit about my history, how I got to

the point where I am today with respect to my practice as an animal lawyer, and then

to discuss some particular cases. I am going to lead you through a bunch of cases as

we go through.

First, were going to look at this nice picture. Two dogs and a woman on a beach.

And Im going to tell you that I

brought this picture out last night,and Professor Sankoff brought out

almost an identical picture. My

picture is from Stinson Beach,

California; his picture was from

some beach in New Zealand. We

debated about who had a better

beach, but the point is we both had

that picture, and I suspect many of

you have some similar picture or a

picture of an animal. The point is that the things Ill be talking about today are world


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wide. Theyre global. Im going to talk about American law, but its not just

happening in America; its not just happening in Australia. Its happening

everywhere, and I mean both the concern for animals, and the abuse and torture and

suffering of animals.

I first came to animal law almost by mistake. There was a busy job, one I wanted

a break from. There was an American Bar Association conference, it said something

about animals. I had dogs and cats, I thought Id go. I walked in, I found out about

the way animals were treated in America, and I walked out with a revelation, the only

one Ive ever had in my life, and I said I cant participate in this suffering any more,

and Im going to do what I can to change. Over the last 17 years, my practice has

gone from one pro bono case here and there with respect to animal law to what I

describe as a seven day a week, 150 per cent time animal law practice. For the last

five years, thats basically all Ive done. So now, were going to run through a bunch

of cases and clients, if you will, that Ive had over the years.

That was my first client.

Hes a Tuli elk. He lives in the

Point Reyes National Seashore

in California, and he and about

300 of his family were put on

this land to get away from a

disease called brucellosis (that

was not named after me). Overtime, they did very well. They

got over the disease and they

spread, and on that land as well

were a bunch of ranchers, who

had been given 99 year leases for $1 to continue their use and exploitation of animals

in farming situations. So the first case was to try to get them off the land. The first

case was a good example of how to be an animal lawyer and how not to be an animal

lawyer. Dont take a case that requires Federal statutes, tries to get people who have

been on the land for 500 years off it when youve been out of school for three weeks.

It doesnt work. So we lost, and thats another point. PETA has said it, Justice Kirby

has referred to it. We are trying to change the world here. Were going to lose. Every

social justice reform movement, every civil rights movement, has a lot of losing cases

before the success finally comes. What we have thats not going to stop is the passion

and the heart to continue.

When I lost a case pretty badly early on, but it was a total situation of a judge just

not acknowledging the interests of animals, I called up Joyce Tischler, the head of the

Animal Defense Fund in tears, and she said Bruce, the bad news for them is youre

not going away, and thats where we are at today.


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Heres a list of many American animal protection organizations, some of which

may be familiar to you, some of which arent, but you can sort of tell what they all do

and they have all been clients at

one time or another.

I like sometimes - because Im

an animal lover - to list my

clients by species, so Ive had

chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas,

lions, dogs, cats, elephants, seals,

dolphins and millions and

millions of animals involved in

factory farming.

Dolphins we learn a lot as animal

lawyers. Thats one of the exciting

things about it.

Its an intellectually challenging

field, because we are trying to take the

square peg of animals and put it in the

round hole of the law some place its

never been before, and try to convince

judges to understand that they can do

that as well. But we also learn the facts of things that may look okay to us on their

face, like a swim with the dolphins program. I thought a swim with the dolphins

program Id never been involved in one, but it sounded pretty cool. You get in a

pool with a dolphin and they pull you around boy, its every kids dream. It turns

out those dolphins are seriously drugged. They are on constant drugs for their

digestive system because they have ulcers and they are on antidepressants all the time

because they are locked in a situation they can never get out of. We are not supposed

to be with dolphins. So my next case was to try to stop a swim with the dolphins

program in Reno, Nevada. I know youre from Australia, you may not realize youmay have heard of Las Vegas. Its a really horrible place that were usually

embarrassed about if were from America. Well, Reno is like the slums of Las Vegas.

I hope theres nobody from Reno here. My point really is its not a place for dolphins.

They dont belong there and thats what we fought.

We talk about companionship a lot. Many of you may have companion animals.

Thats what brings many people to animal law, their dogs or their cats. How much

would you pay for your dog or your cat? Many people would say Not a million

dollars would I give him or her up for, so many of the cases in animal law these daysin America are law suits over injuries or deaths of animals. What would you do if


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somebody came in and killed one of those animals, who happened to be mine? How

do you value them is the question. How do judges take this piece of property and

decide what the real value is? We have talked about property, but appreciate this: my

dogs and my cats arent worth as

much as this bottle of water. I gotthem from the pound, they were

about to kill them. They were

worthless in the eyes of the law,

and the market the day I got them.

They have devalued in price.

From a strictly market perspective

I should pay somebody who kills

them, but thats obviously not the

way we value animals. So we try

to value what that companionship is; what price do you put on a piece of property

whose only value is the benefit that he or she brings you, whether medical, therapeutic

or companionship? There has to be a way to value that, and more and more judges

are appreciating that, but the law still says property, but there are ways to change it,

and thats a whole other lecture.

Custody cases are very big.

This case is the plaintiff, the dog,

versus the cat saying who gets the

bed.

But seriously, custody cases

are big in America these days, and

while theyre sometimes just

between two couples who are

bickering and using the dog as the

pawn, just like people use children,

we do take on cases in which we

are trying to decide the animals best interest. If the animals best interest is at issue

that changes everything, because in general again theyre property. You get the

Cadillac, she gets the dog, but if we can get a judge to say Wait, Im going to

consider where the dog goes based on who treats the dog better, that actually is from

the perspective of the dog and that is so important. So that increases the value of

animals because it takes that piece of property and turns them into something

different. I like to call it quasi-property. Theyre not people were never going to

say theyre people but theyre not property. Theyre not this bottle. Another

custody case.


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Heres where it gets ugly,

and by ugly I dont mean really

ugly like the dogs arent ugly,

but this world is ugly. This is a

horrible place for manyanimals. Many of you have

animals who are probably

asleep on the pillow right now

whether you know it or not, but

these animals never left that

cage. I do a lot of work on cases that are known as hoarding cases, or collector cases.

In the past four years I have had four cases, and those four cases alone involved 1100

animals kept by four people in situations like this.

They never leave the cages; the cages are never cleaned; they live and breathe in

their urine and faeces for months and months and months. Many of them are

breeders. Theyre breeders and theyre hoarders. The animals suffer badly. Theyre

stacked constantly. If youre at the bottom of the stack of four crates, you know what

comes down all the time. These people dont change that and the animals suffer very

very badly. Number one we have what most of you can appreciate, whether you have

companion animals or not confinement; the confinement that were going to talk

about even more with pigs and cows. These dogs never get out to do anything. They

never get any interaction. We have trained domestic animals to be with us. These

animals get no human interaction, get no human connection, nor do they even get time

to do anything with themselves.


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But even worse than that,

if it could be worse, is the

physical disease.

Heres one of the dogs

from the 550 dogs and 21

birds we took from a couple

in Sanford, North Carolina.

The couple are both 68 going

on about 85 and what they did is not take care of 550 dogs. Every once in a while

they walked around and threw some food in, but the problems we see in these cases

are exhibited by this female Pomeranian here.

Almost no teeth, and blind. Eye problems and

teeth problems are rampant in hoarding cases.Why is that? Because the nutrition, and the lack

of sanitation, is so bad that their teeth literally fall

out of their mouths. Their jaws literally rot out.

Lets stop a moment here and stop getting

clinical and get real about what were talking

about. Were talking about mammals. They feel

just the same way as we do. The empirical

research referred to earlier that weve done is that

a dog feels tooth pain just like you or I. These

dogs had their teeth rot out of their mouths. You

know how quickly you go to the dentist when

youve got a little toothache and you cant even

see it. Theyve been suffering for six months, nine months, years, and never gotten

any treatment. The 550 dogs at this facility had never seen a veterinarian. So again,

its really important to bring home to all of us, and especially to the outside world, to

judges, that mammals as well as birds feel the same way we do. They may speak a

different language about that feeling but its there, and the science is there. We use

veterinarians on a regular basis in cases to demonstrate to judges this is not somecrazy animal loving, anthropocentric human saying Dusty just doesnt feel good.

This is a veterinarian who can say This pain is exactly the same and its worse for

animals. We understand if were in pain we may get out of it. Many of you may

appreciate that your dog thinks now is forever - like when you go away for 12 hours,

you come home and he goes crazy; you go away for two minutes, you come home and

he goes crazy.

They live in this kind of filthy environment, absolutely deprived of everything.

Almost all the hoarding situations are the same. Some of them are much worse, withcannibalism and dead animals around, and I should say I apologise for the graphic


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nature but I dont really apologise because I want you to see the reality. But what I

should tell you is, Im not showing you the bad pictures, believe it or not.

This is really the most graphic picture

Ive got to show you about hoarding. In

that 550 dog facility, there were ten

boxes like this. In each box, there were

somewhere between four and eight dogs.

This is not a trick. The other two sides of

this box are the same as what youre

looking at. The tops were in some cases

nailed shut. Occasionally every two

weeks they threw some food in. That

was it. Life in a dark box for these

animals. Thats the kind of situations we see on a regular basis. Hoarding is not an

erratic situation, it is epidemic in America and, I think, around the world. Its

definitely the number one threat to companion animals in America. We have a

reported 700 cases a year. Thats just whats reported. Thats like saying how many

reports have there been of marijuana smoking this year, and you multiply by how

many are not seen.

So it is a major problem. Its not limited to companion animals. We had a 700 to

800 exotic animal hoarding situation which included chimpanzees, monkeys, all sorts

of cats. Not to mention again the sanitation, they estimated that there were over200,000 rats in this particular facility, and they werent being kept at the hoarding

facility.

Mountain lions an American

icon. So when they discovered there

were 125 mountain lions somewhere in

the Black Hills of South Dakota, they

decided Hey, lets kill them. Lets

have a hunt. Well be real careful, and

well make sure we dont kill them all,and well also make sure that theres

plenty of restraints on whats

happening, and besides you really

never see a mountain lion. So we

sued the State of South Dakota and tried to stop the hunt.


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Again, we lost, despite the fact that the

testimony from the other side was that

the hunting would probably and could

likely cause the extinction of the

mountain lions despite that, the judgesaid that the hunt could go on, and one

of the big defences was Well never

see a mountain lion, youll never kill

them. This is 24 hours after we lost.

This mountain lion had a cub near her,

who was then picked up and taken to a

research facility.

Experimentation on animals is constant, and we all know

that, and we all hate to look at these pictures and again

I apologise, but this is a big issue in animal law. The

Animal Welfare Act in America does very little to protectthese animals, other than very minimum restraints on

exactly how theyre housed. I have been involved in

several cases which do our best to provide for these

animals when theyre not in research. Whatever you

think about research and I understand the controversy,

and I understand the desire to cure diseases is this

okay?


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Another big issue in every population isdomestic animals, and too many of them. InAmerica we euthanize four to five milliondomestic animals every single year. This is adog being lowered into a cage, which will then

be pushed into the gas chamber, where they willbe euthanized. Now, dont gasp right awaybecause gassing is legal in 43 states in America,and is an approved method of euthanasia inmany areas. If done correctly and properly, its

almost as good as euthanasia by injection. But it just so happened the State ofGeorgia decided they didnt approve of it, because they felt it was too bad. Despitethat - and this reflects not so much just in the State of Georgia, but in the state ofhumanitys feelings about animals - the State of Georgia Department of Agriculture,the commissioner, one of the top officials in the state, had gone around to shelters,and said despite the law that said no gas chambers, You guys should buy a gas

chamber.We had documents. They werent even hiding it. It wasnt even really hard,

except suing the State of Georgia is not easy, by anybody especially a California

lawyer. Despite that, we got the right judge, and that judge ruled that the Department

of Agriculture had to stop their practices and so overnight we shut down the illegal

gas chambers in Georgia. This is the kind of success that really just makes your day,

makes your life. Overnight we stopped the suffering of some 10,000 animals in

Georgia - year by year by year, going forward forever, and the evidence was

unfortunately that in Georgia gas chamber euthanasia was not done correctly, and

animals were suffering in horrible ways.

Heres another one of those bubbles that gets

burst. Theres a cute little chimpanzee you see on TV

or in the movies, right? Well, he is cute, but to get

him to put those clothes on hes been beaten with bats

and sticks and chains, and kicked and abused in ways

that you cant even imagine. Every single

chimpanzee that shows up in a movie or television has

had that done to him. This is not the animal rights

activist talking, this is testimony from Jane Goodall,

who many of you have probably heard of; testimony

from Roger Fouts, probably the worlds leader in

captive chimpanzee training and maybe even more

important than the experts we know so well, its

testimony from inside the industry. Thats how we get exotic animals to perform for

us. Its not funny; its not cute. But we dont see that, and as Justice Kirby mentioned

and as Professor Sankoff mentioned, its what we dont know that we need to know

that I think will change us.


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You folks came here tonight to learn

about something, as brutal as it may be to

learn, and to walk out with that

knowledge, but that knowledge will

empower us to change. And as strangeas it may be, in the very small niche of

animal law that Ive developed this sub-

niche of chimpanzee law partly

because of this knowledge, but also

chimpanzees have been sort of separated out for us as humans, because as many of

you may know they are so close to us. They share 98.7 per cent of our DNA. I never

quite understand why were above them in the evolutionary scale, because they seem

to have it a lot better down, but

nevertheless there they are.

But theres that chimp, and heres Taya

who we rescued who had her head split

open by a lock, like a combination lock, by

her trainer and ended up in surgery.

So we do our best, and Ive done two

or three cases trying to get animals out of

entertainment. There are amazing exemptions for the use of animals in entertainment

in America, because theyre coupled with the exemptions for the use of animals inresearch, and chimpanzees were considered at one point in time as the primary

research specimen for AIDS research.

But setting aside the research issue, would any of you say I would like to see that

chimpanzee on TV, and its okay with me if he got beaten with a chain for me to see

that. I bet theres nobody wholl come forward and say yes.

Also because chimpanzees are so close to us, we have tried to establish some

personhood status, and I dont mean just the same as us. Were not advocating that

they can vote, or buy cars, or drive cars but something more than property, becausethere is such a connection. They understand us. They are so curious because they are

so intelligent.

They also apparently like tattoos, see the tattoos? But the point

is they have an intelligence that we

understand and that we can

recognize, because they look so

similar to us, and so we have

worked to their increased rights

the notion being not for me that


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chimpanzees are any more deserving of rights than chickens, or pigs, or cows, but just

that they can be if you will a keystone species. If we can get people to start

thinking that somebody other than us deserves some protection, then hopefully it will

be a slippery slope, and well be down the bottom of that slope with chickens in

enough time.

We are also their guardians. We have put them in entertainment; we have put

them in research; and now we have to take care of them. They cant go back to the

wild, if you didnt know that. They have to stay in cages for the rest of their lives, but

we can take on the task of taking care of them. And so we have entered several cases

and argued that we should be guardians - guardian ad litem for you lawyers - in a

particular case where we can represent the chimpanzee separate and apart from the

plaintiff and defendant, and in America thats actually been extended now to dogs in

certain cases. Im not sure if the Michael Vick case is as popular here as it was over

there, but Mr Vick was a football player who was involved in dog fighting, and as far

as I am concerned did more for us than most animal lawyers have done, because he

exposed that practice and in that case for the first time ever a Federal Court judge

appointed a guardian for the 40 dogs that were saved from his facility, in his

compound. And in the great State of Tennessee, a judge also in another case, in a

custody case, between the parents and the partner of a deceased man who were

arguing over a dog, granted guardianship to the dog.

So those are all things I do, and theyre all reasons why I go to work every day.

But what happened to me in 1992 when I had thatrevelation was about this. This picture just demonstrates

what Katrina was talking about before. Everybody else is

that little dot; everything weve talked about until now, and

the large percentage of animals in terms of numbers are

farmed animals. Not only that, they undoubtedly suffer the

worst cruelty. They suffer cruelty for the most part from the day theyre born to the

day they die, and whatever method that death is and however long or short that death

may be. Thats the state of the world. Its the state of the world here in Australia, and

in America. Animals are commodities; theyre pieces of meat; theyre products were

going to use and we dont consider them to be sentient beings but they are. So we

go down on the farm and we try to change whats going on there. But were not


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talking about this farm. Were not talking about what everybody either thinks is

happening or wants to think is happening. Were talking about the reality, but this is

reality if they were treated they way they should be. Its why we fight, if you will.

They have sentiency; they have intelligence;

they understand what theyre doing. They

appreciate the good things in life, like a good bath.

They like to go swimming. They know when

things smell good. They like the soft feel of hay,

like we like the soft feel of a bed.

Every one of these animals that were talking

about, every one of these animals that you eat, or whose products you eat, have family

lives if we let them have them. Their young stay with them; their young care about

them. When young calves are taken away from their mothers, so that we can drinktheir mothers milk, the mothers scream and cry for up

to seven days. Thats not anecdotal; thats scientific.

Thats reported. Theyre

socially cooperative, like

we are. They may not all

sit in a room like this, but

theyll all walk around on

the farm together. They wont bother each other. They

certainly wont kill each other. But thats not whats happening. Yes, there may befarms here in Australia and there are certainly farms in California that look like this,

but 99 per cent of the meat, milk and dairy that you get comes from places with a

stark contrast.

Im not sure how bad this looks to

you, but these animals never leave these

pens. They stay here until the day that

they are pork, or bacon, or ham. They

have not one shred of their natural lives

led. Industry says occasionally indefence, when theyre bold enough to say,

Well, they can still live and breathe and

excrete. Thats not enough as far as Im

concerned, and so we try to change that.


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We talked just a little bit, so Ill tell you a

little bit more about sows in production;

mothers in production. Again remember these

are mothers, just like any of you who have

been a mother, or any of you who have had amother so I think that covers everybody.

The sows are mothers for their entire lives,

much shorter than their lives would be, but

they start out as sows in gestation, gestation

crates, gestation meaning pregnancy.

As Justice Kirby described, those crates

are what youre looking at. Its shorter

and narrower than the pig herself, so for

her entire life she is pressed against

metal steel bars. Again, remember its

just like if you were pressed against

metal steel bars for your entire life and

could never move, and all you could do

was just stand up and lay down. Thats

the life for sows who raise the pigs who

become ham and pork.

In general, as I understand it, the pork industry then discards the sows. They dont

even use them for anything. Theyre just trash. Animals are not trash, but to the porkindustry they are, so once they become spent another industry term meaning they

can no longer produce the number of young in a pregnancy thats desired theyre

thrown out with the trash. Their young go on to come on our tables. Theres another

shot. Thats how they are. They cant move. Imagine living like that.

One other factor about the pigs. In addition to this confinement, which I submit

would be enough for anybody to say I dont want to be involved in this, there are

extremely cruel practices which are committed on them on a regular basis. Just some

examples, none of them with anesthesia, so just again the pain as it is. They are

castrated, their teeth are clipped, their tails are docked. Just imagine going up to your

dog with big shears and cutting off his tail. Think about how you think he might feel.

Youre right thats how he would feel. Or,

gentlemen, think about someone coming up

and castrating you without anesthesia. Thats

how the pigs feel.

When they are meat pigs, they are kept in

these facilities where they are constantly

pushed against each other, so youve all got


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your nice little chairs there. Think about if there were not chairs and I made you sit in

this little spot down here. Thats the way the pigs live, and not just for the 45 minutes

you have to listen to me but for their entire lives.

It doesnt get any better for chickens. Some argue it gets worse. As Justice Kirby

said, an A4 piece of paper. We call them 8 by 11 in America, but Im very familiar

with them too. Thats where they are their entire lives. They can never do any of the

natural behaviours that chickens are involved in. Thats where your eggs come from.

Tens of thousands of them are loaded onto trucks, tens of thousands on a regular basis

to be carted across America, and in the facilities there

they are. Dark houses where the light is controlled to

control the production. And of course you can only get

eggs from a female chicken, so if youre a male chick

I dont know, maybe its better, but thats where you go

the day youre born, into the trash. Sometimes youre

sent through a woodchipper; sometimes youre just put

in a dumpster to die with the rest of your brothers.

Veal calves. Youve probably heard of that because in the

80s that became a big cause celebre, and even in America we

stopped eating so much veal. Veal calves do not get out of

their crates. They are stuck in their crates, or theyre stuck in

stanchions, for their entire lives, thousands of them. So how

do we change it? We look to the

law, were lawyers. Thats what

we do. So how about federal

law? There should be some good

protection in America regarding

animal protection. There is not

one federal anti-cruelty law. People find that

shocking. I imagine youd find that shocking that

thats the case in Australia as well, because we think

somebody must be watching out. Most people say

to me, I know theres anti-cruelty laws, doesnt thattake care of it? No, it doesnt. Something I


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mentioned earlier called the Animal Welfare Act in America doesnt cover farmed

animals - sorry guys, youre out of luck - but people think the opposite. There are

actually two Federal laws in America that cover farmed animals. The first one is the

28 hour law. So imagine being in a truck like that, or like that, for 27 hours and 50

minutes without food, without stopping, without water. Thats what anybody can dolegally to an animal in America. After 28 hours they have to give them five hours of

rest. They are trucked across America.

But remember its been mentioned before in addition to all those farmed

animals in that circle, we can separate it out again. 90 per cent of the animals

9 billion every year in America, I guess 450,000,000 in Australia are chickens. In

America, the United States Department of Agriculture has declared that chickens

dont apply, or dont fit, within the 28 hour law. So theyre not protected at all, and it

took until 2006 for the USDA to say Well, trucks apply even though trucks are the

way these animals are trucked across they said only trains apply because the law

was written 100 years ago. Tens of thousands on a truck.

The other law in America that supposedly protects animals protects them at the

very, very end of their life, and I submit that is really a joke. I dont say that lightly,

but its the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. How do you humanely kill an animal?

Well, before you kill him it seems that you should render him unconscious, and that is

indeed the first requirement in this law. S1901A says animals can be shocked and

hung upside down. Thats the safe way to do it to make sure that we dont get any

diseases, if theyre unconscious. But then, because kosher slaughter and other ritualforms of slaughter require a conscious animal, they said the other way to do it is,

Well, dont render them unconscious. How can they both be humane? That was

challenged, and the courts said Congress decided that both ways were humane. So I

guess both ways were humane.

Additionally, since kosher slaughter was the issue, and thats a religious practice,

the challenge was under the United States First Amendment and you have similar

laws here that says you cant mix religion and law. But the court said no, because it

has a secular purpose, this humane purpose. Lo and behold last year, with an appeal

pending probably coming up this year, the USDA stood by its position that chickensdont have any coverage under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. So again,

remember how many? 90 per cent of the animals that are slaughtered in America are

covered by no laws, just about. So that line is live chickens about to be placed in

boiling water. Thats how they get to die. So we give up with the Feds, we go to the

state laws. What can we do there? As a matter of fact, weve got some pretty good

cruelty laws in America. Look at all those words, those are words from most of the

cruelty statutes in America. It looks like they apply to what Im talking about. Right?

Theyre certainly overloaded, theyre overdriven, its unjustifiable, the pain, theyre


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cruelly treated. Theres situations of neglect and omission I wont go through every

word but it all fits.

Right? Wrong. S35 states say Cruelty law is the law of the state but it doesnt

apply to either any farmed animal or standard farmed animal practices. All the

practices I have described to you, both the confinement and the unanaesthetised

castration et cetera, are standard practices and therefore they are exempt from the

cruelty laws.

So weve had to get creative, and weve done that. Weve challenged horse

slaughter, based on laws that say you cant slaughter a horse for human consumption

based on the cruelty behind that, and have had that upheld. We are currently in

litigation against the meat industry, which wants to take animals that are down and

this is what downed animals look like. They cant get up because they are too sick or

injured in the slaughterhouse yard to get up. This cow has had her neck broken afterher calf was taken away from her, and we have litigated that particular case both

because of the cruelty and because these are some of the diseases just a sample on

these two slides that you can get from animals who have been in big production or

even from eating the animals, and dont let anybody walk away saying I said you can

get swine flu from eating pork. But intensive confinement has caused the problems

that we are seeing today. That case is currently in litigation.

Youve got rights here in Australia like we do in America as taxpayers, as

citizens, so weve used whats called the taxpayer claim to challenge the

governments involvement with these practices, which we contend are cruel and

illegal. This practice in particular in 2008 we challenged what is called calf

ranching. Its just like veal calves, only calves who are dairy calves are taken from

their mothers from day one, sent to another place and kept in these stanchions for six

months, for a variety of reasons that are good business but certainly cruelty. And the

state subsidises this by giving breaks to those who are involved in this practice. So

we sued on that basis and, as often happens, we lost. But let me stress that a loss is

not a loss like it is in business, where you have to pay somebody, because the public

found out about this. People were alarmed and upset. Recently in California we

passed a law that will bar this kind of practice, and I have to believe its part andparcel because of that case.

Consumer protection you have here too, cases that say Youre lying to me about

the product Im getting. Either you say its humanely treated, or its cage free, or its

just that when I walk into the supermarket I expect that the animals Im eating were

not treated in violation of the law.


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17

This is the labeling case. This is

the PETA case also known as the

unhappy cows case. In that case the

California Milk Advisory Board, an

arm of the government entitled toadvertise to get people to buy

California dairy products, had the ads

which you see on top, which say

Great cheese comes from happy

cows, and happy cows come from

California. The idea being that, as a

consumer, you want to buy products

from happy cows, cows who are

treated humanely. Below is the way

the cows in California are really treated. 95 per cent of the cows in California never

see a blade of grass. They live in lots that are either mud in the winter or hard dirt in

the summer, and they have horrible diseases that are described in these exhibits from

our complaint. You can see the size of those udders.

So we sued, claiming that there was a misrepresentation which was admitted by

the California Milk Advisory Board, and as often happens in our cases we lost simply

on a procedural issue, which said that the California Milk Advisory Board was not a

person under the statute, not an appropriate organisation, because it was a government

subsidised organisation admittedly lying to the people as it advertised milk.

Heres the other

pig case. Consumer

protection cases

brought by

consumers or

animal protection

groups. So in this

particular case, we

have the Animal Legal Defense Fund

and three purchasers of pork suing over

this particular practice, the practice being

keeping the pigs confined that I have

described based on the fact that this

practice is illegal under the California law

I just mentioned, which says they need

adequate exercise, any animal that is

confined. According to industry, thats

adequate exercise in California. That


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18

case was settled, because the industry called up and said Okay, were going to pull

all the cows out of California and they did. Thats what we call a win.

There is also a connection between

Americans and Australians. Do you know where

we get our Adidas? Right there. Adidas are

made from kangaroo

skin. In California we

decided that we didnt

like the methods that

were used to kill

kangaroos, especially the joeys who were bashed and

decapitated, but in general it just didnt seem like a nice way of killing animals not

that we have any way to govern what

happens in Australia, but Californians

decided that was no good. So in order to

protect what for us are just some of the most

amazing animals in the world, from one of

the most amazing countries in the world, we

had this statute that said no kangaroos can be

brought in no kangaroo skins, no kangaroo

leather therefore Adidas would be out of

business in California. We won that case in the

California Supreme Courtand heres anotherone of the ways in which we lose, because this

is a movement of Davids - and the Davids are

Prof Sankoff and the people who work in the

field and Goliaths and the Goliaths are big

industries and big companies that often put

profit ahead of the interests of animals. So as I

said, we won at the California Supreme Court, but then Adidas went to the California

lawmakers and convinced them to repeal the law barring the import of kangaroo

skins, and so they were able to continue their business with no interruption at all. Sowe lost that battle, but we will continue to fight against cruelty.

We need people who know how to litigate to come to our assistance and in my

practice I have probably at any time 30 pro bono lawyers working for me of various

levels, who do this work because they are learning about the problems with animals.

But you also need some key players on your team, and dont get me wrong you

cant do anything without them.


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You have to have somebody watching the media at all

times. Somebody who can really look for those animal

related issues. Youve also got to get somebody who can

read the briefs and appreciate the points you are putting

forward, otherwise you may never be able to sell it to acourt, so youve got to find one of those experts too.

Most important, the factory farms are closed to us. They are especially closed to

people like me and Prof Sankoff, and Katrina and Brian. They dont let us in any

more, but youve got to figure out a way to get somebody in there, get the information

so you can file the law suits, so you need a private investigator, somebody they wont

know about. She is available; she flies only first class on Qantas; but any time you

want her, shes there.

There is a future for animal law, and there is a future for animals. In the 30 yearsor so that animal law has been going on in America, and in the short time in Australia,

the animal law movement has made incredible strides. Voiceless has done some

amazing things. I have never been in a room, in all of America, with this many

people in one place. I have to attribute that both to the heart of Australians and the

power of what Voiceless has done here. Thank you all.

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Bruce Wagman 5thMay09 Keynote Transcript (With Pictures) Updated 060709 FINAL