{"id":685655,"date":"2010-03-08T15:25:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T20:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/discoblog\/?p=7225"},"modified":"2010-03-08T15:25:20","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T20:25:20","slug":"swiss-cows-won%e2%80%99t-lawyer-up-voters-nix-state-funded-lawyers-for-animals-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/685655","title":{"rendered":"Swiss Cows Won\u2019t Lawyer Up: Voters Nix State-Funded Lawyers for Animals | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7229\" title=\"Swiss_Cow\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/discoblog\/files\/2010\/03\/Swiss_Cow.jpg?resize=220%2C165\" alt=\"Swiss_Cow\" width=\"220\" height=\"165\" align=\"left\"\/>Between the beautiful scenery and legally mandated good treatment, animals have it pretty good in Switzerland. They could have had it even better, but over the weekend the country&#8217;s people decided that the country&#8217;s animals didn&#8217;t need their own state-funded lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, Switzerland is so animal-friendly that this question actually came to a vote. The courts in Zurich already have a representative, Antoine Goetschel, who is responsible for taking up the cases of cats and horses and sheep. And this weekend the Swiss voted on a referendum that would have expanded this system to cover the entire nation. However, 70 percent of people voted no.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that worries over costs to taxpayers, as well as the objections from farmers, convinced the Swiss that their existing animal rights laws were good enough. From <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/europe\/8554012.stm\">BBC News<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Switzerland already has some of the strictest animal welfare legislation in the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Pigs, budgies, goldfish and other social animals cannot be kept alone; horses and cows must have regular exercise outside in summer and winter; and dog owners have to take training courses to learn how to care for their pets.<\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s not forget that the Alpine nation <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122359549477921201.html\">recently mandated<\/a> that researchers who want to work with genetically engineered plants must first explain to an ethics panel why the work won&#8217;t destroy the plants&#8217; dignity.<\/p>\n<p>Related Content:<br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2009\/12\/08\/university-fearing-animal-rights-violence-axes-baboon-study\/\">University, Fearing Animal Rights Violence, Axes Baboon Study<\/a><br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2009\/04\/16\/after-a-firebombing-pro-test-rallies-in-support-of-animal-research\/\">After a Firebombing, &#8220;Pro-Test&#8221; Rallies in Support of Animal Research<\/a><br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2008\/06\/27\/great-apes-have-the-right-to-life-and-liberty-spain-says\/\">Great Apes Have the Right to Life and Liberty, Spain Say<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Image: Wikimedia Commons \/ <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/38535119@N00\">Chris Hartford<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sd08gN1XzIU4aSx2gdDXk0LYR-w\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sd08gN1XzIU4aSx2gdDXk0LYR-w\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sd08gN1XzIU4aSx2gdDXk0LYR-w\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/sd08gN1XzIU4aSx2gdDXk0LYR-w\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/DiscoverMag\/~4\/01RF3kbBThM\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between the beautiful scenery and legally mandated good treatment, animals have it pretty good in Switzerland. They could have had it even better, but over the weekend the country&#8217;s people decided that the country&#8217;s animals didn&#8217;t need their own state-funded lawyers. Yes, Switzerland is so animal-friendly that this question actually came to a vote. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2SmX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}