How To Find Information About Animal Laws In Tennessee

For those of you interested in knowing more about animal laws in Tennessee, check out the Michie site for Tennessee laws. Title 43 and Title 44 concern agriculture/horticulture and animals. Most of the laws applying to livestock and to pets are in these sections. That's where you can get the straight version of Tennessee laws. If you go to some other sites I'm afraid you will get an animal rights interpretation of animal law, and that includes the UT web site on animal law. They have a link to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the most hard core animal rights groups in the country. ALDF is the group behind the push for an animal abuser registry here in Tennessee and elsewhere. The Animal Law Coalition site also tends to be AR-leaning in its interpretation of animal laws.

And, what is wrong with an animal abuser registry, you may be wondering? Well, for one thing, it's good way to ruin the lives of youthful offenders. Do you really want to put a young teenager on an animal abuse registry? Kids sometimes do stupid things that they regret for the rest of their lives. It's not a true indication of who they are when they are adults. Even if someone's name is removed from such a registry 10 years later, there is no way to remove all of the places where their name has been posted on the Internet as an animal abuser. Should someone really have to pay for some crimes for the rest of their lives? I don't think so, and neither do many other people.

Secondly, there is every indication that these offender registries don't actually work, judging by the lack of success with sex offender registries.

HSUS, ALDF, and AR supporters have been pushing the animal abuse registry bill in Tennessee for the last several years. So far it hasn't gotten very far. Let's keep it that way.