News

In these pages, including a personal letter from Faculty Director Kristen Stilt, we detail an enormous amount of work produced with urgency, energy, and purpose this year in our rigorous, supportive ALPP community. Our visiting fellows came from all over the world to focus on their own research, writing, and publication projects, culminating in groundbreaking publications in major scientific publications such as Nature; in multiple law reviews; and publications in top literary magazines. We also introduced hundreds of students to Animal Law through classes, reading groups, writing groups, and events. You will read in this report of these events and community endeavors, and from many students expressing new-found career aspirations in the field of Animal Law.

In this issue of our Year-in-Review, we highlight particularly the completion of our multi-year, internationally collaborative Live Animal Markets Project, led by Ann Linder, Associate Director of Research and Policy. The report, Animal Markets and Zoonotic Disease Risk: A Global Synthesis of a 15-Country Study, is one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of zoonotic risk, offering an in-depth analysis of potential risks posed by animal markets and their supply chains across 15 countries and six continents, incorporating scientific findings, field observations, data, interviews, local and regional regulatory analysis, and other research to describe and analyze what is known about the zoonotic risks posed by animal markets and other related forms of animal industries. Beginning in 2020, the report was researched and written in collaboration with NYU’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. The U.S. case study was independently published in July of 2023 and exclusively featured in The New York Times; the global report was published in June of 2024 and exclusively featured in USA Today. Both continue to be cited and reported widely in the media around the world.

The pages that follow showcase much of what we accomplished last year. Our successes and impact have been made possible by our extended community—those of you who come to our events, who share our publications and reports, and who support us financially. We hope you recognize your own contributions to our work as you review these pages.  So much of our work is remarkable precisely how much more there is that we want to do, that we must do, and that with your support, we will do. Thank you, in particular, to the Brooks Institute, the Hadley Family Foundation, the Humane America Animal Foundation, Vegan Grants, and Virginia Coleman.