This week, the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund hosted a screening of Earthlings, a 95 minute documentary narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. The film is an in-depth examination of factory farming and mankind’s dependence on animals for food, clothing, entertainment and use in experimentation. Using hidden cameras and other footage, the film chronicles the day-to-day practices of industries that rely on animals for profit – industries such as the leather and fur trades, the sports and entertainment industries and the medical and scientific professions. The film also focuses on animal abuse in pet stores, puppy mills and animal shelters. See the trailer.
In this conversation, Jared Goodman, President of the BLS Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, and SALDF member Kathleen Christatos, Class of 2010, discuss the film and the work they do as the local chapter representing the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Episode 019 – Conversation with Jared Goodman, Class of 2009.mp3
Readers interested in learning more about the subject can check out books from the BLS Library collection including Peter Singer’s In Defense of Animals: the Second Wave, Call # HV4711 .I6 2006.
The BLS Library has a fairly extensive collection of related material such as the seminal, philosophical 1983 treatise The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan, Call # HV4708 .R43 1983 and Steven M. Wise’s Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Call # HV4708 .W57 2000.