Like all statees, Florida has legislation to prevent cruelty to animals
Gandhi said that the way to judge the moral progress of a nation was to look at the way that it treated its animals. Animal cruelty laws are legal regulations designed to prevent unnecessary and inhumane treatment of animals, be they wild, domestic or agricultural. Like all the other states in the U.S., Florida has its own cruelty to animals legislation.
General Misdemeanor
A person is guilty of a misdemeanor in the third degree if they unnecessarily overload, overdrive, torment, deprive of necessary sustenance or shelter, or unnecessarily mutilate, or kill any animal, or cause the same to be done. They are also guilty if they carry any animal in or upon any vehicle in a cruel or inhumane manner.
General Felony
A person in the state of Florida is guilty of a third-degree felony if they intentionally commit an act against any animal which results in the cruel death, or excessive or repeated infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering, or causes the same to be done by someone else.
Fighting
There is also legislation concerning the use of animals in "baiting", to attack with violence, to provoke, or to harass an animal with one or more other animals for the purpose of training that animal for fights with other animals. Using animals for fighting, owning an establishment that is used for animal baiting or promoting and charging for an event which involves baiting are all felonies of the third degree. Attending a baiting event or betting on one are defined as first-degree misdemeanors.
Confinement and Abandonment
A person in Florida is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree if they confine any animal in any place and fail to supply the animal during that confinement with a sufficient quantity of good and wholesome food and water, if they keep any animal in any enclosure without wholesome exercise and change of air, or abandon to die any animal that is maimed, sick, infirm, or diseased
Slaughter
The Florida legislature requires that all slaughter of livestock and the handling and transportation of livestock in connection with slaughter be done in accordance with the regulations contained in the Federal Humane Slaughter Act of 1958. However, ritual slaughter performed within legitimate religious practices is exempted from this provision.
Debate
There remains some debate about how the wording of the Florida animal cruelty statutes should be applied, particularly with regard to how far the terms of the legislation extend, and whether there are different standards for domestic pets and for agricultural animals. In 2009 the "Palm Beach Post" reported on the vagueness of the laws, saying that the wording on the statute book did not sufficiently define "humane". For instance, under the terms of the legislation, stepping on a cockroach could be considered cruel. Furthermore, they highlight discrimination among species, where two men were prosecuted for pouring detergent into a pond and killing fish, but no action was taken against a farmer who let thousands of chickens starve to death.
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