Malum in se is Latin for "wrong in itself"; the act is illegal due to its very nature. Crimes in this category are typically crimes against other people: robbery, rape, murder.
Malum prohibitum means an act is prohibited. It's not inherently immoral or hurtful, and included offenses such as speeding or insider trading.
Animals are typically thought of as objects-property available for our use and/or pleasure. At one point in our history, women and children were also treated as chattel (property). In 1866, in response to blatant mistreatment of horses, dogs, and cats, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded in New York. Legislators passed this country's first anti-cruelty-to-animals law.
Eight years after the ASPCA was established, 10-year-old Mary Ellen McCormack was found tied to a bed, beaten and neglected by her foster parents. No laws existed to protect children (child abuse/neglect was considered a private family matter), so the founder of the ASPCA, Henry Bergh, and a group of concerned citizens, organized the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Mistreatment of children remained a dirty little secret until 1962, when Dr. Henry Kempe described Battered Child Syndrome and pushed for mandatory reporting by physicians of suspected cases of child abuse.
Today, we are ever alert for signs of child abuse and neglect. Animals, on the other hand, are still often mistreated. The lines are vague: Is fishing cruel? What about leaving a dog outside in winter? Slaughtering cattle for food? Deer hunting? Animal testing? Farming fur animals?
Animals have no legal rights, but they do deserve legal protection from abuse and neglect. Every state has anti-cruelty statutes, though few treat these offenses as seriously as a violent crime against a human.
In Texas, for instance, "a person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly tortures or seriously overworks an animal; fails unreasonably to provide necessary food, care, or shelter for an animal in his custody; abandons unreasonably an animal in his custody; transports or confines an animal in a cruel manner; kills, injures, or administers poison to an animal, other than cattle, horses, sheep, swine, or goats, belonging to another without legal authority or the owner's effective consent; causes one animal to fight with another; uses a live animal as a lure in dog race training or in dog coursing on a racetrack; or trips a horse."*
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