Full Title Name:  Combating Animal Cruelty with Environmental Law Tactics

Many individuals and citizen groups view federal and state anti-cruelty statutes as inadequate in protecting animals and in providing sufficient remedies. Unlike animal cruelty statutes like the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), many of the federal environmental statutes provide citizen suit provisions or otherwise allow interested parties to sue for enforcement. Citizen suit provisions in environmental statutes increase accessibility of the courts to the public. There are many instances where citizens groups have filed federal environmental citizen suits against federal agencies and private facilities that would be considered by many to be actively involved in or to have facilitated acts of animal cruelty. Animal protectionists have attempted and continue to attempt to further protection of animals by filing or supporting suits under environmental law against federal agencies and private facilitators of animal cruelty.