Press Releases

Conservation and animal protection organizations rallied outside the Mexican Embassy today to call on the Mexican government to take drastic action to save the few remaining vaquita porpoises left on the planet. According to scientific...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the Humane Education Network (HEN) announced the winners of the 2019 A Voice for Animals contest. The annual contest offers monetary awards to high school students age 14–18 for...

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee today approved an “in danger” designation for an area of Mexico that is the last-remaining home of the critically endangered vaquita porpoise and a fish called the totoaba. An international...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is relieved to hear that no whales will be killed by Icelandic whalers this summer. In a June television news interview, Ólafur Ólafsson, a whaling vessel captain, said that the...

Japan faces international criticism and risks legal challenges as it launches a government-subsidized commercial whaling program to kill 383 whales this year with no international oversight.

Celebrities and animal conservation and welfare NGOs from across the globe are calling for an “international whaling intervention” to be staged at the G20 summit in Osaka as summit host Japan prepares to launch a...

The US House of Representatives passed HR 3055, an appropriations “minibus” that covers the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and the Interior, as well as other departments and agencies.

Sens. Bob Menendez, (D-NJ), Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-RI), and Susan Collins, (R-ME), introduced legislation today to permanently end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption in the United States and abroad.

S-203, the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, has received Royal Assent, making the historic legislation, which ends the public display of captive cetaceans, official Canadian law. After nearly four years of debate...

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, led a bipartisan letter signed by 30 members of Congress to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt criticizing the Bureau of Land Management's proposed surgical sterilization...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) supports the reintroduction of the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (TEAPSPA). Sponsored by Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and David Schweikert (R-AZ), this bill would amend the...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) endorses the Child and Animal Abuse Detection and Reporting Act of 2019, introduced today by Representatives Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH) and John Katko (R-NY). This legislation would amend the Child...

Despite multiple lawsuits, federal injunctions and overwhelming public opposition, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced last night that it is again moving ahead with barbaric experiments on captive wild mares. It will be the...

Today, 64 members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and US Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen objecting to the Forest Service’s impending plan to sell federally protected...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the US House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee for approving H.R. 1568, the SAVE Right Whales Act during their first committee markup of the 116th Congress. H.R. 1568 now...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is grateful for today’s reintroduction of the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies Act (CECIL Act), named after the lion killed in 2015 by an American...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is alarmed that the federal government has proposed allowing the Makah tribe of Washington to kill gray whales again.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the 111 members of the US House of Representatives who recently signed a bipartisan letter in support of defunding federal inspections of horse slaughter facilities. Blocking the US Department...

The Animal Welfare Institute commends today’s announcement by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Mathematics that the red wolf is a “distinct species.” As detailed in the National Academies’ report, “Evaluating the Taxonomic Status...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) strongly opposes President Trump’s nomination of former oil and gas lobbyist David Bernhardt to be the next secretary of the interior.