Winter 2014

Volume
63
Number
1
Winter 2014 AWI Quarterly Cover - Photo by Michio Hoshino/Minden Pictures
About the Cover

A harp seal mother and pup haul out on ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada. Every year, nearly a million seals from 15 or more species are slaughtered around the globe. Canada, Greenland, Namibia, Russia and Norway are the primary seal hunters—for fur, meat, and oil to put in animal feed and omega-3 supplements. Some seals are also culled simply because they are viewed as competition to commercial fisheries. In 2010, Canada and Norway filed a challenge to a 2009 EU regulation that bans the trade in seal products within the European Union, with exemptions for subsistence hunts and regulated culls. In November 2013, the WTO panel issued its ruling—allowing the ban to stand but with qualifications that may or may not ultimately undermine it. The panel’s decision­ and its ramifications for the welfare of seals—and other animals subject to international trade—is discussed in the article on page 10.

Photo by Michio Hoshino/Minden Pictures

Table of Contents

Animals in Laboratories

The number of remaining “Class B” random source dog and cat dealers selling animals for experimentation in the United States has just been reduced to five.
Just months after Harvard stunned the research community by announcing the closure of the half-century-old New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC)—as reported in the Summer 2013 AWI Quarterly—USDA announced that it had fined Harvard Medical...

Companion Animals

Evidence is accumulating that dogs work wonders when paired with members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic brain injury (TBI), or another mental health issue arising from their military experiences.

Farmed Animals

An undercover investigator, Taylor Radig, put herself at significant personal risk in order to expose animal cruelty at the Quanah Cattle Company, a calf-raising facility in Kersey, Colorado. The investigator filmed appalling images of young...
AWI’s Good Husbandry Grants—administered through AWI’s Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) farm certification program—were initiated in 2008 to support individual projects on farms and ranches across North America that have a clear and positive impact on...
The Food and Drug Administration claims to want to reduce non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. Currently, farmed animals are administered antibiotics through feed or drinking water to make them quickly gain weight and...
In 2008 an undercover investigation showing heinous animal cruelty led to the largest beef recall in US history. The meat recalled came from Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Co. in Chino, California.
Approval is being rescinded for three of four arsenic-based drugs that had been used in animal feed. Of the 101 drug products derived from these four drugs, 98 will have their approval withdrawn by the...
An outbreak of aggressive feather pecking and cannibalism in a flock of laying hens involved in a government-backed trial could derail plans to ban beak trimming in the UK as of 2016.
AWI and Farm Sanctuary, working with the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, have petitioned the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop regulations governing the handling of chickens, turkeys and other...

Marine Life

In December, Earthjustice filed suit in Hawai’i federal court on behalf of AWI, challenging approval by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of a five-year plan by the US Navy for testing and training activities...
On January 17, hundreds of bottlenose dolphins were herded to shore in Taiji, Japan—one of many dolphin drives that take place there during dolphin hunting season, which generally runs from September through March.
Stefan Austermühle, German biologist and executive director of Peruvian NGO Mundo Azul (Blue World), wrote in the fall 2003 edition of the AWI Quarterly of his organization’s battle against illegal dolphins hunts for human consumption...
Green sea turtles ( Chelonia mydas ) have made a huge comeback in Florida, where most of their nests are located in the United States. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there...
Two Tennessee men pleaded guilty in early January to selling tusks from over 100 narwhals over a 10-year period. The sales, conducted over the Internet and directly to known collectors, reaped more than $1.5 million...
A host of musicians who had been slated to appear at SeaWorld Orlando as part of a concert series at the park have changed their tune—electing to bow out rather than take bows before a...
The Society for Marine Mammalogy’s 20th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals—the world’s largest gathering of marine mammal scientists—was held in Dunedin, New Zealand, the week of December 9, 2013.
At the end of 2013, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) first-ever consideration of an animal welfare issue resulted in a landmark, if mixed, decision by a dispute settlement panel. The panel ruled that although the...

Terrestrial Wildlife

The Christine Stevens Wildlife Award is a grant program—named in honor of the organization’s late founder and president for over 50 years—created to stimulate and support efforts to devise new, non-lethal techniques and strategies for...
As the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decides whether to remove federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves across the continental United States, the disturbing fate of populations that have already been...
OvoControl, which contains the compound nicarbazin, is an oral contraceptive for birds that has proven to be a safe and effective contraceptive agent for geese. Nevertheless, state and federal agencies have, by and large, aligned...
On Santa Catalina Island, scientists have advanced the science of immunocontraception as a safe and effective tool to humanely manage the island’s bison.
The Southern Weekly , one of China's most influential newspapers, published a front-page story about the widespread massacre of elephants for ivory, and of ivory consumption in China as the primary driver of the crisis.
There were stuffed tigers standing at the entrance of the 13,000-square-foot warehouse. Large plastic trash bags filled with thousands upon thousands of dead, dried seahorses sat slumped in the aisle.
Even clean energy can take its toll on animals if caution is thrown to the wind. According to an analysis by Mark Hayes of the University of Colorado, published in the December 2013 issue of...
On November 14 at the National Wildlife Property Repository in Denver, the US Fish and Wildlife Service pulverized six tons of elephant ivory that had been seized by its agents from smugglers, traders and tourists...
For caribou herds to persist, they must maintain access to productive calving grounds (areas that herds visit annually to give birth to their young).
In December, AWI and its allies petitioned the Obama administration to reform USDA's Wildlife Services program, which kills nearly 1.5 million animals each year without regard for sound science or animal welfare.
According to a study by behavioral ecologists at the University of Sussex, UK, and published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, elephants who lost family members to traumatic culling operations decades ago appear to suffer...

Government Affairs

Reps. Jim Moran (D-VA) and John Campbell (R-CA), co-chairs of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus and two of the strongest advocates in Congress for animal protection legislation, have announced plans to retire at the close...
In January, Congress approved a massive $1.1 trillion annual spending bill to fund the federal government that included language prohibiting USDA from spending funds to inspect horse slaughter facilities.

Reviews

Opening Doors: Carole Noon and Her Dream to Save the Chimps begins with a journey. In 2001, 10 chimpanzees are being cajoled into traveling cages within a trailer truck, bound for a new and decidedly...