Habeas corpus for animals? Why not?

[Are_grits_groceries]

It is not uncommon for a law professor to have a client on death row. Mine is a sea lion. He goes by C657, an identity branded into his flesh by the Army Corps of Engineers. C657 got onto the wrong side of the law by, allegedly, eating salmon at the base of the Bonneville Dam spillway in the Pacific Northwest. That, the National Marine Fisheries Service says, is a federal offense, punishable by rifle fire. We lost in the lower court, which ruled that sea lions had no standing. His case is before an Oregon appeals court.

C657's case involves much more than the fate of a single sea lion, and not merely because six similarly situated sea lions were shot in March when a stay of execution expired. The larger principle is the right of nonhumans to sue in their own names, with lawyers as their guardians. I believe the facts of C657's case illustrate the merits of permitting some such suits.
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Back to C657. The claim that his rights are being violated is not a figment of wild-eyed lawyers. With the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Congress in 1972 established a national policy of far-reaching safeguards for individual marine mammals. The charges against C657 arise from what was intended to be a narrow exception. An amendment permits the killing of "individually identifiable pinnipeds" that are having "a significant negative impact on the decline" of salmon stocks.

No one denies that some sea lions, including C657, have figured out that the Bonneville Dam is an ideal spot for lolling about and intercepting salmon heading up the Columbia River. Sea lions have found favorite spots to lie in wait for thousands of years; it is part of the natural order. But to pin the decline of salmon on pinnipeds is simply ludicrous.

First, the National Marine Fisheries Service blames sea lions for eating, in the aggregate, no more than 4 percent of the run in the "worst" years. The take of fishermen, both commercial and sports, and native tribes dwarfs that. The mortality from hydropower projects and land-use changes is far larger still. If conservation of a healthy salmon run requires reduced "budgets," let it come from, say, sports fishers. The sea lions, here first, have the priority.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR2010061105310.html

Nature is wrong and humans are always right. Meh!

[Chulanowa]

1. Same thing is done in Canada

The seal hunt is "justified" by arguing that seals gobble up all the cod.

It's ludicrous, and it's insane.

[Mimosa]

2. Sometimes I just want to opt out.

what a mean world where animals are regarded as competitors for foodstuffs.

Since I was 14 I saw this coming. I decided not to have children so I wouldn't add to the competition.

[flvegan]

3. You got my attention. In a big way.