Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation Is Ventilation Shutdown Legal? Private Citizens Fighting Factory Farm Cruelty
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.
ABOUT OUR GUESTS
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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