Best Lawyers Near You in Lexington, Kentucky for Animal Law

Animal law practitioners provide their clients - such as exhibitors, breeders, dealers, retailers, trade associations, animal rights and anti-animal rights activists, land owners, and research facilities - with legal, political, lobbying and public relations support in connection with litigation, legislative enactments and proposed regulations. Some of the myriad types of matters with which they may deal include: the taking of endangered species; the sale, trade or exchange of animals; hunting; animal breeding; veterinarian malpractice; animal cruelty; medical research and scientific experimentation using animals; and compliance with animal-related statutes, regulations, ordinances, and international treaties and agreements.

On the federal level, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), are just a few of numerous animal-related statutes enacted by Congress. The AWA is the only federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibit. The ESA is the federal law that protects and helps recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. The MMPA protects all marine mammals, including cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), sirenians (manatees and dugongs), sea otters, and polar bears. The AWA is enforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture while the ESA and MMPA are enforced by both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS), depending upon the animals involved. State statutes and local ordinances enhance and complement these and other federal laws and typically are enforced by agencies or other legal bodies that govern fish and game and products therefrom.  

 

On the international side, one of the most important agreements signed by more than 180 countries is CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Its purpose is to control international trade in order to safeguard specimens of wild animals and plants against human threats to their survival.  

 

Although the animal law field is relatively new, its scope and complexity continue to expand in leaps and bounds given creative lawsuits brought by animal rights activists, as well as new and pervasive legislation that they push. Lawyers practicing in this area increasingly are required to analyze and sort through difficult Constitutional, statutory, and common law issues, especially in matters relating to the treatment and ownership of animals.