[Portland Tribune]

Can chimps sue? No, but someday soon they might achieve legal 'personhood'
...
Lewis & Clark Law School professor Pamela Frasch doesn't think her
views are radical, and maybe they aren't, anymore.

It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days without finding at least
one story having to do with animal welfare. An exotic animal collector
in Ohio lets loose lions and tigers, forcing police to hunt them down
and kill them. Sea lions are shot and captured in order to save the
salmon they eat. Animal rights protests at circuses, cat hoarders
taken to jail, wolves both protected and hunted -- signs are everywhere
that the relationship between people and animals is shifting.

Portland is close to ground zero in this emerging cultural clash since
Lewis & Clark's recent announcement that it will become the first law
school in the world to offer an advanced degree in animal law.

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full story:
http://portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=132208716415324600