Animal News You Can Use: Lots of progress!

You already know that last week a federal appeals court upheld California’s right to ban the sale of foie gras from force-fed birds. Well, this week a different federal appeals court issued an important ruling affirming Chicago’s right to bar pet stores from selling puppy mill dogs. (And California’s now poised to enact a truly historic law on the topic, too.) Wayne Pacelle comments on this trend in federal rulings in his blog today.

You’ll also recall that last week Santa Fe banned wild animal circuses. This week Portland (Maine) did the same, further putting the writing on the wall for this archaic industry.

Will factory farming one day seem as archaic as animal circuses are seeming today? Not without effectively reducing meat consumption, something the Open Philanthropy Project’s Lewis Bollard has an insightful new look at this week. I also discuss this and issues surrounding clean meat (real animal meat, grown without animals) in Part 2 of a podcast interview with comedian David Huntsberger and a new interview on Maria’s Mutts podcast, too.

Speaking of clean meat, start-up Finless Foods recently held the first-ever tasting of clean fish, an event at which I was honored to partake. And while on the topic of marine life, here’s your cool story of the week: Humanity’s not alone in city-building.

Paul