August 26, 1999

by Steven Boynton
Mr. Boynton is a practicing attorney in Washington, DC and President of the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources
 

In the context of turning the "asylum over to the inmates," the announcement that law schools, including Harvard, are offering courses on animal rights and law firms are going to specialize in "animal rights law," raises a multitude of very serious legal and practical issues, not the least of which is what will be the future of reasoned wildlife and marine resource management be in this country. It must be conceded, that beyond the instruction of the Judo-Christian tradition that God has granted man "dominion over the fish in the sea, ...fowl of the air, and...every living thing...upon the earth," [Genesis 2:28], the concept that animals have civil, natural or political rights must, of necessity, be "determined" by what man rationally believes and determines those "rights" entail. 

Certainly, the legally protected welfare of wild, domestic and farm animals, is an acknowledged responsibility of man in today's society. Local, federal and state laws recognized this accountability and should be enforced. But to legally "grant" those same species the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is to subscribed human attributes to animals that do not exist in fact, religion or reasoned philosophy. Animals in the wild face a life of disease, starvation, predation, and death that are beyond modern human comprehension. In short, there is not an old folks home for opossum. 

As to domestic animals, several years ago a woman in California had in her will that if she passed away before her pet dog, upon her death the dog should be put down as it would be in distress when she was gone. A law suit was instituted on the dog's behalf and it won on the ground that he had a "right" to life, regardless of his owner's reasons or wishes! While this trial was going on, literally thousands of unwanted dogs and cats were appropriately dispatched by animal shelters throughout the nation. Based on the reasoning in the California case, did not those animals have the same legal right? And, to follow that reasoning to a "logical" conclusion, are not, then, all animals entitled to that legal "right" - cows, pigs, chickens, catfish, elk, geese and "every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth?" Genesis, 2:26. Nonsense! 

In our current litigious society, are we to see animal rights law suits on behalf of Charlie the Tuna, Chicken Little, and Babe the pig? Although certainly unreasonable in concept, given the California case and the passion in the current public debate and animal rights legal education it is certainly not without possibility. 

As to utilization of animal products or for medical research (that has provided cures for a multitude of diseases), we are too well aware that a well financed vocal minority of this country decry the "use" of animals in any fashion. In addition, they oppose any management of wildlife and marine resources that includes the consumptive use of mammals, birds or fish, regardless of the wildlife management concerns. What "rights" will these animals fall legally heir to in the future? 

In satisfying the demands of urban, industrial and agricultural needs of human populations, we have paved over, filed in, drained, cleared and built on land that was once wildlife and marine resource habitat. Consequently, the remaining land and waters occupied by wildlife and marine resources must be properly managed that, most definitely, includes the taking of animals and fish to achieve population levels appropriate to that habitat. By any measurement, today this nation's renewable wildlife and marine resource populations are stable and healthy due to this management that includes hunting, fishing and trapping. 

In 1628 Sir Edward Coke observed that "[r]reason is the life of the law." Legal and political "rights" are man made and man given. One would sincerely hope legal education, statutory and case laws granting or considering those rights will be based on reason and not on the inadvisable philosophy of well intentioned but a misguided few. � 

Sincerely, 

Steven Boynton