Press Releases

Today’s statement by Virgin that it intends to continue to work with aquariums that confine whales and dolphins (cetaceans) in captivity for public entertainment has disappointed wildlife experts from leading animal welfare and conservation charities...

Our children are less likely to see monarch butterflies, bumble bees, and a host of other once-common wildlife species due to farm pesticides, declining ocean health, climate change, and dirty energy production, according to a...

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey officially announced a historic change in the identification and reporting of animal cruelty crime statistics. The FBI will now report animal cruelty crimes as a separate...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and WDC—Whale and Dolphin Conservation are calling on the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) to help protect whales from hunting in Iceland.

A formal diplomatic protest, known as a démarche, was today delivered to the Icelandic government in Reykjavik. The top-level protest registered countries’ “strong opposition” to Iceland’s continued whaling, particularly of endangered fin whales.

A new report today calls for the international community and vested commercial interests to take tough action to end Iceland’s ongoing slaughter of endangered fin whales. Slayed in Iceland: The commercial hunting and international trade...

A new poll commissioned by leading anti-whaling organizations, Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Humane Society International (HSI), International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), OceanCare, Pro Wildlife, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC)...

Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and WildEarth Guardians (Guardians), represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), notified the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Wildlife Services program of their intent to sue over...

Two dozen conservation and animal-welfare groups sent a letter today urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service to complete its plan to protect the northern long-eared bat, a species found primarily in the eastern and...

The proposed expansions of the orca enclosures, while a small improvement from the existing tanks, are nonetheless inadequate to meet the welfare needs of these animals due to their size, intelligence, means of communication, and...

Today the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a positive 60-day finding on a petition to designate the Sakhalin Bay-Amur River beluga whale population in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, as depleted under the US Marine...

On July 10, the Senate failed to secure the required 60 votes for passage of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act. This bill, opposed by the Animal Welfare Institute and countless other animal protection and conservation groups...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is taking part next week in the 77th Annual Conference of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) to call attention to how youth and family violence...

One day after a broad coalition of national animal and conservation groups urged the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to terminate its contract with the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, the board assented to...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), and the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress hosted a ceremony this afternoon at the Library’s famed Thomas Jefferson Building to introduce...

Conservation groups are calling on the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and its member governments to condemn Iceland’s commercial whale hunt following confirmation that the Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf has killed yet another endangered fin...

On the eve of inter-governmental meetings in Brussels and Geneva in June and July to debate the fate of elephants, a group of conservation organisations requests all EU governments to urgently halt all commerce in...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the House Appropriations Committee for including an amendment in the Fiscal Year 2015 Agriculture Appropriations bill to defund federally required inspections of horse slaughter facilities in the United States—a...

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) have released results of a poll they commissioned on the American public’s attitudes toward keeping orcas (also known as killer whales) in captivity for...

The Animal Welfare Institute commends the Senate Appropriations Committee for approving the Fiscal Year 2015 Agriculture Appropriations bill, which included an amendment defunding federally required inspections of horse slaughter facilities in the United States. The...