Spring 2023

Volume
72
Number
1
Spring 2023 Cover - Photo by Donald M. Jones/Minden Pictures
About the Cover

A mother and baby common loon. In 2011, Dr. Mark Pokras of Tufts University received a Christine Stevens Wildlife Award from AWI for a study testing the use of digital image software to identify individual common loons. The award program, launched in 2006, provides grants to researchers seeking to develop innovative strategies and tools to humanely resolve human-wildlife conflicts and conduct wildlife research in a way that causes minimal disturbance to the animals being studied. Click here to learn more about the award program and some of the research it has supported over the years.

Table of Contents

Animals in Laboratories

In a February Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Charles River Laboratories (CRL) disclosed that the US Department of Justice and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating CRL’s conduct regarding several shipments of nonhuman...
A new study published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences has shown that bluestreak cleaner wrasse ( Labroides dimidiatus ) recognize themselves in photographs (Kohda et al., 2023). The fish first showed...
AWI’s Laboratory Animal Refinement and Enrichment Forum (LAREF) is an online discussion forum where individuals working with animals in research share their ideas and experiences related to improving the welfare of animals under their care...

Farmed Animals

Last fall, the American Veterinary Medical Association accepted comments on its policy governing the common cattle industry practices of dehorning and castration. Veterinary consultant Dr. Gwendy Reyes-Illg submitted comments on behalf of AWI that encouraged...
In January, AWI submitted a petition for policy change in response to the US Department of Agriculture’s consistent failure to respond to animal welfare violations at custom-exempt slaughter facilities , resulting in animals being beaten...
Food poisoning. We’ve all experienced it. A few hours after enjoying a meal, you suddenly find yourself vomiting—or worse. Each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, foodborne illnesses send an estimated 128,000 Americans...
The 118 th Congress is gearing up to tackle the Farm Bill, a massive omnibus bill that must be reauthorized every five years or so and is a key driver of food and agriculture policy...
s of February, the 2022-23 outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) had affected 770 poultry flocks and led to the “depopulation” (mass killing and disposal) of 59 million farmed birds in the United States...

Humane Education

The annual “A Voice for Animals” contest is open now through May 21. As in past years, AWI has partnered with the Humane Education Network to offer students around the world an opportunity to explore...

Marine Life

There were high hopes at the beginning of 2022 that fin whaling in Iceland had ended for good. No whaling had been conducted since 2019, and Iceland’s fisheries minister signaled in February 2022 that the...
AWI has long been involved with the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (Cartagena Convention), a regional agreement signed in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1983. The treaty...
In March 2022, the US Department of Agriculture issued an exhibitor’s license under the Animal Welfare Act to the new owners of Miami Seaquarium that omits the Whale Stadium and its residents—the orca Tokitae (Toki)...
In 2002, a subspecies of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin was identified in the coastal waters of western Taiwan: Sousa chinensis taiwanensis , now known as the Taiwanese white dolphin (TWD). Their skin, gray at birth, loses...
The millions of lines tied to the pots and traps used by lobster and crab fisheries in the western North Atlantic region continue to pose a considerable entanglement risk to the critically endangered North Atlantic...
In December, Louisiana finally received permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with a massive project to divert Mississippi River water to Barataria Bay in an unprecedented effort to slow land loss in...

Terrestrial Wildlife

Last summer, AWI launched a partnership with the American Bird Conservancy and Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project to save Hawaiian honeycreepers from extinction due to avian malaria , a disease transmitted by non-native mosquitoes. Thus...
Does the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) protect wildlife? Yes, according to a study in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (Heid & Márquez-Ramos, 2023)—so long...
The National Park Service is seeking to remove the entire herd of wild horses from Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). According to a preliminary plan released in December, the NPS is proposing the “active capture...
Scientists are finding more creative—and less invasive—ways to identify dangerous pathogens in wild and domestic animals. According to a report published in Science , portable air samplers, ropes, and electrostatic dust-collecting cloths are among the...
It was a simple gesture. In 2006, a single donor to the Animal Welfare Institute offered a $10,000 grant to support the development of new tools and strategies to prevent, reduce, or mitigate human-wildlife conflicts...

Government Affairs

Two animal welfare bills championed by AWI were among the first introduced in the 118 th Congress. HR 208, the Pet Safety and Protection Act (PSPA), was introduced by long-time sponsor Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)...
After 20-plus years and multiple lawsuits, the protections afforded by the Animal Welfare Act will apply to birds in the pet trade and in exhibitions. The final rule is long and complicated, but our initial...
Two of the 117 th Congress’s final pieces of legislation that made it into law included many provisions affecting animals—both positively and negatively. The National Defense Authorization Act included provisions banning the domestic sale of...
An outpouring of opposition helped defeat a bill in the Virginia General Assembly that would have impeded the confiscation of animals found suffering in inhumane conditions at poorly run zoos. HB 2331 would have required...

In Remembrance

Along with so many in the marine animal protection community, AWI is grieving the loss late last year of three outstanding advocates. Each of these professionals played a role in helping to shape the careers...

Reviews

Part narrative, part reference source, Leila Philip’s Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America provides incredible information about beavers—from their physiology and behaviors to their entwined history with humankind in the United States and the...
Bethany Brookshire begins her engrossing book, Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, with an eastern gray squirrel named “[expletive] Kevin” who is decimating her tomato plant. It is an illuminating anecdote, since Brookshire—an award-winning science...
Dan Flores’ Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America presents the story of extirpation in the United States—or more precisely, of humanity’s insatiable thirst for animals (and animal habitat).