Category: Environment

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Critters

Animal welfare groups settle with Feld Entertainment

Last update

I’ve had a day to get over the shock at the settlement amount.

All of the statements by the animal welfare folk I posted links to make logical sense. And believe it or not, once I got over the shock at the amount of the settlement, I wasn’t necessarily against a settlement in the ESA attorney fee battle—though, I believed it was important to continue the fight in the RICO case. What I had expected was a settlement closer to the amount given in the original animal welfare attorney fee reply—about five million.

This amount would have been a loss for the groups, yes, but it wouldn’t have been such a PR bonanza for Feld. The larger amount, though…that’s going to cut deep, and not just in a monetary sense.

Regardless of what I’ve said today, I am not mad at the groups. I am profoundly disappointed, which, in some ways, is worse.

This settlement has ramifications beyond just the animal welfare groups and the fight for circus elephants. Corporations have started using RICO as a weapon against nonprofits, and what the corporations now see is that nonprofits won’t even stay around to fight a RICO case when one is brought. No matter the “logic” or the legal arguments—and, most likely, the insurance company demands—the harmful consequences of this settlement will have a disturbing and lasting effect.

I have said I won’t finish my original book, and this is true. That book is dead. That book was based on a heroic battle against all odds. I guess, in a way, it was a book of fiction because in our courts and in our philosophical equivalencies, there is no room for heroes.

But I am still going to write something about these cases. I have so much of the history, have spent so much time in research and among court documents. I am going to write something—I’m just not sure what, and I’m not sure when.

second update

Other statements:

From firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal the animal welfare attorneys in the original Endangered Species Act lawsuit.

From the Animal Welfare Institute.

From Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the US.

update The Humane Society of the United State has issued a statement. No donor money is going to Feld, the insurance companies that provide liability insurance for the animal welfare groups are most likely paying the costs.

Does this statement make this settlement better?

No.

earlier After all the years following this court case, what I didn’t expect was for the animal welfare groups to basically capitulate to Feld Entertainment.

They agreed to a $15.7 million dollar settlement. Combined with the previous $9.3 million settlement by the ASPCA and Feld Entertainment actually made a profit on this court case.

And oh, how Feld is crowing about it today.

“After winning 14 years of litigation, Feld Entertainment has been vindicated. This case was a colossal abuse of the justice system in which the animal rights groups and their lawyers apparently believed the ends justified the means. It also marks the first time in U.S. history where a defendant in an Endangered Species Act case was found entitled to recover attorneys’ fees against the plaintiffs due to the Court’s finding of frivolous, vexatious and unreasonable litigation,” said Feld Entertainment’s legal counsel in this matter, John Simpson, a partner with Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington, D.C., office. “The total settlement amounts represent recovery of 100 percent of the legal fees Feld Entertainment incurred in defending against the ESA lawsuit.”

Justice was not served in this case, or with this payment. It’s difficult to see how we can trust any of these animal welfare groups to stay the course with any new litigation or other effort after this settlement.

I had originally planned on writing about this case. I have close to three years of research into these two legal cases. Thousands of dollars of PACER fees, too.

But what good is telling the story when it ends with, “…and the animal welfare groups, tails between their legs, slunk off into the sunset”?

And what of the battle for the circus elephants? Though this settlement doesn’t change the facts—that the life for circus elephants is miserable—how can we continue this fight, when every time we open our mouths, this settlement will get shoved into our faces?

I guess we’ll see what the future holds. I do know, Justice was not served in this case.

Categories
Critters

Elephants escape Shrine circus in St. Louis and damage cars

I have spent considerable time building a list of negative incidents associated with circus elephants in the United States since 1800. Thanks to Google’s newspaper archive, I’m discovering several more to add to what is already a large list.

Of course, sometimes the incidents happen in real time.

Three circus elephants got loose and damaged two cars in the parking lot of the Family Arena on Saturday afternoon before being corralled by trainers, according to the circus’ sponsor.

Dennis Kelley, president of the Moolah Shriners of Eastern Missouri, which has been sponsoring the Moolah Shrine Circus for decades, said the incident happened during a performance about 5 p.m. He said no people were in the parking lot when the elephants somehow escaped from the back of the arena in St. Charles. The elephants roamed an area of the parking lot where only circus and Shriners employees’ cars were parked.

Two cars were damaged, he said.

Circus elephants damage cars during brief escape in Family Arena parking lot

According to Fox News, four vehicles were damaged.

And now the story has been picked up by the Washington Post, which noted that the venue’s loading door was also damaged.

Yes, I think we can assume the USDA is quickly coming to investigate the Royal Hannaford’s elephant handling. The Royal Hannaford is the actual circus contracted by the Shriners, and this is not the Royal Hannaford’s first incident.

KMOV notes the elephants were from the children’s rides. “Officials confirmed these are the elephants children can ride, however, no children were on the elephants when they got loose.”

Elephants have hurt handlers, children, and adults when used for rides. It would be safer to send your kids out into a busy street to play.

CNN has video of the elephants in the lot, and eye witness accounts. Note that this wasn’t a simple case of elephants just wandering out of their enclosure—evidently they panicked during a performance. This was a potentially extremely dangerous situation, which the circus is attempting to downplay. I expect severe repercussions from the USDA.

CNN story

Circuses haven’t been good for elephants, and forcing them to perform in circuses hasn’t always been that great for people, either.

PDF of the Elephant Incident List

Categories
Critters Environment

Go Vegan!

In comments to a story at Food Safety News, (Report: ‘Bycatch’ Blamed for Nine Dirty Ocean Fisheries Off U.S. Shores), about the distressing amount of bycatch associated with several fisheries, a commenter to the story wrote:

Even if bycatch could be ended, which it won’t be, fishing would still remain a horrific agony for the billions of fish who are intentionally caught. Science has shown fish to be sentient: able to suffer terror and pain. All for a food that presents such hazards to human consumers as concentrated mercury, dioxins, PCBs and other toxins, cholesterol, saturated fat, etc.

There is a bounty of humane and far more healthful and environmentally responsible food choices. This includes the many marvelous vegan seafood options that are convenient, affordable and delicious. Recipes, products and more can be found on the Vegan Seafood Resources page of Fish Feel.

I noted the response was irrelevant to the story. “Not so!” was the reply.

My response:

While we’re waiting for the utopian world where people sit side by side with lions and tigers, and all only eat fruit that gently falls out of the tree on its own, we need to face the problems associated with our food supply today.

I have a hint for you: the world is not going to become vegan overnight. I doubt it will become vegan in the next several decades–if ever.

So we can either ignore all problems unless the solution is premised on “Go Vegan!”, or we can look to do better, one step at a time.

Doing better in regards to seafood means a) eliminating bycatch, c) ensuring a healthy ocean environment, and c) preventing overfishing. This particular story is related to the issue of eliminating bycatch.

While it is true “Going vegan” is a solution…it’s not going to happen. It isn’t. Oh, maybe for a small percentage of people, but not the vast majority of humans. Not today. Not this moment.

So, according to you, there is no solution other than Go Vegan. One then presumes your argument is let 65% of the bycatch die for no reason. Let sharks and sea turtles and other marine life just die for no reason, because if people aren’t willing to go vegan, we don’t care.

Because, “Go vegan!” is all that matters

I know several vegetarians and vegans who understand that, though going vegan is a solution, it can’t be the only solution we offer. If “Go Vegan!” is the only solution we’re willing to contemplate, we’re condemning domestic livestock to a miserable life, millions of sea creatures to an unnecessary death, and other wildlife to predation by humans who see them only as “target” or “nuisance”.

Categories
Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

Ringling Brothers Parent Company going after advocacy group donor lists

Feld Entertainment, Inc (FEI), owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus, is attempting to coerce confidential donor lists from the animal welfare groups it has battled with for 13+ years in the DC federal courts. FEI’s lawyers are doing so in an attempt to prove that the animal welfare organizations it’s suing—the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Welfare Institute, Fund for Animals, Born Free USA, and the Wildlife Advocacy Project—engaged in “donor fraud” in their solicitation of funds to continue their battle to help circus elephants.

Specifically, FEI’s discovery request demands the following:

27. All documents that refer, reflect or relate to donations (whether financial or in kind) that were designated or otherwise earmarked by the donor for use in connection with the ESA Action or that were designated or otherwise earmarked by the donor to support work or any other form of activity concerning Tom Rider, FEI or FEI’s elephants.

28. All documents, not otherwise covered by Request No. 27, that refer, reflect or relate to donations (whether financial or in kind) that were made as a result of the ESA Action, Tom Rider, FEI or FEI’s elephants.

29. All documents sufficient to identify each and every person or entity who made any of the donations described in Request Nos. 27 and 28.

Considering that any donation to any of the agencies in the last 15 years could have come about, at least in part, because of the agencies’ actions in regards to circus elephants, and we’re basically looking at giving FEI access to every person who has donated to one of these animal welfare groups. Even if the court narrows the request to only those donations specifically designated for the struggle to free Ringling Brothers circus elephants, we’re still looking at exposing a significant number of donors to direct inclusion in a complicated, intimidating legal action.

Donors’ freedom of association rights, guaranteed under the First Amendment, allow us to support organizations and causes without fear of repercussion or reprisal. An important aspect to this is being able to privately provide financial support to advocacy groups, as long as state and federal laws are met.

The only possible reason for demanding these lists is so that FEI’s lawyers can, we presume, contact donors directly in an attempt to find “co-plaintiffs” for its lawsuit. FEI assures us it would not do so to “harass” the people, according to its definition of “harass”, but we can easily imagine the shock people would experience receiving a letter from FEI’s lawyers related to this lawsuit. Depending on how the letter is worded, many of these people may feel that if they don’t join with Feld, they’ll find themselves lumped into the lawsuit on the other side. This is the worst case scenario demonstrating why it’s essential for these donor lists to be kept private.

From the animal welfare group’s request for a protective order against this demand:

Subjecting individuals to the stress of depositions, the cost of retaining counsel, and the risk of crushing RICO liability, for their simple act of contributing to a nonprofit organization, is incompatible with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association. Furthermore, FEI’s history with regard to animal welfare and animal rights supporters raises real concerns that the harassment to which donors could be subjected would not stop at being embroiled in this litigation.

As an excuse for its actions, the FEI lawyers note that several donors to the organizations are already a matter of public record. However, the lawyers dance around the fact that the donors who have been listed publicly are typically either organizational donors who must indicate their donations in their own public tax forms or individual or organizations donating over a certain amount (usually $5,000), requiring public disclosure.

FEI doesn’t want these people and organizations, though. It wants the names of the little guy, like you and me. FEI’s lawyers can’t intimidate organizations and wealthier donors, both of whom have easy access to legal advice. But you and I? Look around you; look at your friends, family, and co-workers…how would most of these folk react to receiving an intimidating communication from a high priced and powerful law firm? How would you?

There are also serious consequences to the animal welfare organizations. All of the organizations involved in the lawsuit have posted privacy policies. These policies are necessary if they hope to get decent scores from the charity rating services, such as Charity Navigator and the BBB. If the animal welfare organizations are forced into giving their donor lists over to an entity their supporters consider an adversary, such action will, most likely, impact negatively on their rating score. Charity Navigator and the BBB may be sympathetic to the fact that the animal welfare groups have been coerced into giving over their lists, but charity ratings services are focused on providing service to donors, and they’ll have to respond accordingly. Lower charity ratings can, and do, impact on donations.

More importantly, people are going to hesitate before donating to any organization or effort that will end up involving them in the middle of long, drawn out, and incredibly acrimonious legal action.

What’re FEI’s lawyers take on the issue of donor privacy? A laughable suggestion that if only the court would grant its request to have everything in the case covered under a blanket protective order, the donors First Amendment rights won’t be an issue, because the donor lists wouldn’t be made public. I call this suggestion “laughable” because FEI’s lawyers again dance around—on tippy toes, like little Brooks Brothers-suited ballarinas—the fact that the one organization the donors loath the most is the one who would get their contact information and donor activity. Not only get this information but also use it to contact them in hopes of dragging them into a frightening legal morass.

FEI’s lawyers claim they need this information because the bad ass animal welfare lawyers aren’t allowing them to proceed with their action unless there is more than one plaintiff:

Defendants have placed FEI between the proverbial “rock and a hard place.” They claim that FEI must allege more than one scheme and victim to state a RICO “pattern,” but then argue that the First Amendment blocks any and all discovery as to the second scheme and additional victims alleged in the First Amended Complaint.

Though the lawyers for the animal welfare groups are very capable, they’re not faster than a speeding bullet, nor can they jump Feld Entertainment’s legal slush fund in a single bound. I believe it is actually the Judge, applying his legal understanding and training, in combination with precedent and the underlying law, that is forcing FEI into the proverbial “rock and hard place”. This case was fragile from the very beginning—allowing the loss of First Amendment protections and exposing hundreds or even thousands of people to legal intimidation, in a desperate attempt to make it less so, is unconscionable.

The request is made even more absurd by the fact that this case has been covered in the news for many years. People in the animal welfare movement, especially among those fighting for the welfare of circus elephants, are aware of this case. This story, itself, will be linked in several Facebook groups devoted to elephants, generally, and circus elephants, specifically. This, in addition to a Facebook page devoted to the court cases. No one has come forward, no one has joined with Feld. No one.

Hopefully, the Judge will consider the wide dissemination of this information and will determine there is no need to give FEI these donor lists…and the donors First Amendment rights will be preserved.

Categories
Environment

IPCC Climate Report

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its long awaited climate change report. An executive summary was released on Friday, and the complete but unedited report will be available on Monday.

Grist has an excellent collection of links to writings about the report, including a sprinkling from the usual skeptical sources. You really need to look no further than Fox News in order to find some of the loudest denials.

In other news this week, the GOP attempted to attach riders to gut new EPA controls on coal power plants as part of a ‘deal’ to raise the debt ceiling, while the federal government kicked off the process to auction oil rights in the Arctic. Ah well, at least the US government isn’t likely to board protest ships and keep the crew jailed for months.