The Wisconsin statute is easy to understand:
951.08 Instigating fights between animals.
(1) No person may intentionally instigate, promote, aid or abet as a principal, agent or employee, or participate in the earnings from, or intentionally maintain or allow any place to be used for a cockfight, dog fight, bullfight or other fight between the same or different kinds of animals or between an animal and a person. This section does not prohibit events or exhibitions commonly featured at rodeos or bloodless bullfights.
951.08 (2) No person may own, possess, keep or train any animal with the intent that the animal be engaged in an exhibition of fighting.
951.08 (3) No person may intentionally be a spectator at a cockfight, dog fight, bullfight or other fight between the same or different kinds of animals or between an animal and a person.
951.18 Penalties.
951.18 (2) Any person who violates s. 951.08 (2m) or (3) is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. Any person who violates s. 951.08 (1) or (2) is guilty of a Class I felony for the first violation and is guilty of a Class H felony for the 2nd or subsequent violation.
Fights between mice have been instigated at the UW-Madison for over a decade. Mice have been kept for this purpose. Mice have been trained through multiple fights with other mice known to be winners or losers. Researchers have earned money from instigating the fights and have paid others in their labs from those earnings. Other university staff and probably students have been spectators at the fights.
Fights between mice are not genteel affairs. Wounding and even death are common results. A BBC video of a fight between mice is available here.
Coming on the heels of the university’s legal problems surrounding the illegal sheep decompression deaths, this new complaint makes clear that the university has a long history of disdain for or ignorance of Wisconsin State laws against cruelty to animals.
The university has now slipped a measure into the state budget bill by way of the University System Omnibus Motion. Item 27:
Liability Protections for Scientific Researchers: Specify that current law provisions prohibiting crimes against animals would not apply to persons engaged in bona fide scientific research at an educational or research institution or persons who are authorized or otherwise regulated under federal law to utilize animals for these purposes.
What you can (MUST) do:
Contact your state legislators today. Ask them to request a formal Report on Item 27 of the University System Omnibus Motion passed in the Joint Finance Committee as part of the state budget bill.
Don't know your legislators? Click here. It's easy.
Telll them that the language of item 27 is confusing. Are all persons engaged in research at the university exempt from all the state’s anti-cruelty laws all the time wherever they are? Will the university be able to stage dog fights if item 27 becomes law? Tell them that the state has an obligation to regulate the use of animals and protect them from cruelty, especially at the state university.
You can read the complaint here.
http://www.allanimals.org/fighting_mice.html
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