Episodes

  • The Case of the Overlooked Law: Challenging Animal Confinement Through Forgotten Legislation

    The Case of the Overlooked Law: Challenging Animal Confinement Through Forgotten Legislation
    Oct 31 2025
    Attorneys Will Lowrey (Animal Partisan) and Jessica Blome (Greenfire Law) join Mariann to discuss their battle to use California’s century-old animal protection laws to help dairy calves confined in tiny hutches. Despite having clear evidence that a dairy farm was violating Penal Code Section 597t by denying calves adequate exercise, they encountered a frustrating maze of procedural obstacles that prevented them…
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    49 mins
  • The Case of Banning the Truth in a Public Park | First Amendment, Animal Agriculture & Free Speech

    The Case of Banning the Truth in a Public Park | First Amendment, Animal Agriculture & Free Speech
    Sep 26 2025
    In this thought-provoking episode of the Animal Law Podcast, we dive into a First Amendment case that cuts straight to the heart of animal advocacy: can the government prevent activists from showing the public what actually happens to animals in industrial agriculture? Mariann speaks with Sara Berinhout of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and John Greil of the University…
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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Animal Law Breakthrough: Court Recognizes Dogs as Family Members with Christopher Berry

    Animal Law Breakthrough: Court Recognizes Dogs as Family Members with Christopher Berry
    Aug 29 2025
    This episode of the Animal Law Podcast features Christopher Berry, Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, discussing a groundbreaking court case that recognizes companion animals as family members in certain legal contexts. Mariann and Christopher explore how this New York decision challenges decades of precedent that treated beloved pets as mere property rather than family, potentially opening new doors for…
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Challenging “Alligator Alcatraz”: The Legal Fight to Protect the Everglades with Elise Bennett

    Challenging “Alligator Alcatraz”: The Legal Fight to Protect the Everglades with Elise Bennett
    Jul 25 2025
    In this compelling episode, Mariann Sullivan speaks with Elise Bennett, Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, about the lawsuit challenging the controversial immigration detention facility in Florida’s Everglades. Bennett details how this hastily constructed center in Big Cypress National Preserve threatens endangered species, water quality, and the integrity of a crucial ecosystem that has received billions in restoration funding…
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    55 mins
  • Redefining Democracy: How Constitutional Law Could Embrace All Sentient Life

    Redefining Democracy: How Constitutional Law Could Embrace All Sentient Life
    Jun 27 2025
    In a groundbreaking episode of The Animal Law Podcast, we explored radical new concepts that could fundamentally transform how constitutional law treats animals. Host Mariann Sullivan welcomed Cambridge University’s Raffael Fasel and Queen Mary University’s John Adenitire to discuss their book “Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism” – a work that challenges centuries of legal tradition by proposing constitutional frameworks…
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Is Ventilation Shutdown Legal? Private Citizens Fighting Factory Farm Cruelty

    Is Ventilation Shutdown Legal? Private Citizens Fighting Factory Farm Cruelty
    May 23 2025
    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…
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    51 mins
  • Can an S.P.C.A. Prevent Cruelty to Cows? with Alene Anello

    Can an S.P.C.A. Prevent Cruelty to Cows? with Alene Anello
    Apr 30 2025
    Alene Anello of Legal Impact for Chickens joins us once again, this time to talk, not about chickens, but about cows. Of course, the laws affecting farmed animals are often the same regardless of species and Legal Impact for Chickens thinks it would be great to see some of California’s rather good laws protecting farmed animals actually enforced. For that reason,…
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    44 mins
  • The Case of the Cows, the Gas, and the Money with Kelsey Eberly and Skye Walker

    The Case of the Cows, the Gas, and the Money with Kelsey Eberly and Skye Walker
    Mar 26 2025
    FarmSTAND attorneys Kelsey Eberly and Skye Walker join us on this episode to discuss an absolutely infuriating case, Blumm v Northwest Natural Gas Company. They explain how an increasing number of dairy farms are more in the business of selling the methane being produced by their manure piles, or, as they call them, “lagoons,” than selling milk. Now, in Oregon, natural…
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    51 mins