AWI has been working closely with Representative Ted Lieu’s (D-CA) office on the Lead Endangers Animals Daily (LEAD) Act, which was introduced on July 9. Rep.
At a press conference on Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced that he will introduce the Orca Responsibility and Care Advancement (ORCA) Act. This landmark legislation would phase out the captivity of orcas so that their display ends with this generation. Specifically, it would prohibit the breeding, the taking (wild capture), and the import or export of orcas for the purposes of public display.
The 3Rs (replacement, reduction, refinement) are a set of principles that provide an internationally accepted framework toward achieving more humane scientific research by minimizing animal distress.
A shocking new report released today reveals that more than 100,000 dolphins, small whales and porpoises (small cetaceans) are slaughtered globally in hunts each year—many to be used as fishing bait. Most of these hunts are unregulated, illegal, and unsustainable, with potentially wide-ranging adverse impacts on small cetacean populations.
The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) released a report in early 2017 that scored restaurants, producers, and grocery stores on their commitment to farm animal welfare.
In response to the Hallmark-Westland slaughter plant exposé, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assessed what had transpired at Hallmark, if it could have been prevented, and whether simil
Amid reports of COVID-19 outbreaks at the largest meat processors in the United States, a new analysis of government documents by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has found that, over a three-year span, JBS USA and Smithfield Foods had the worst animal welfare records among livestock slaughter plants.
Scientists announced today that only 10 vaquita porpoises likely remain in the world and that the animal's extinction is virtually assured without bold and immediate action. The vaquita, the world's smallest and most endangered cetacean, is found only in Mexico's northern Gulf of California.
Scientists announced this week that only an estimated 30 vaquita porpoises remain in the world. In a new report, the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) recognizes that the extinction of the vaquita—the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise, found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California—is imminent unless Mexico permanently bans gillnet fishing, removes illegal nets from the water and increases enforcement efforts.
Wildlife trafficking and the unsustainable wildlife and plant trade is a multibillion-dollar industry and a major threat to species in the United States and worldwide, according to a new report released today that highlights 10 species imperiled by this burgeoning trade.
A report issued today by conservation groups finds that 11 nations have at least some fisheries that fail to meet US standards for preventing whale and dolphin bycatch.
In a letter sent today to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) urged the agency to protect poultry from mistreatment, citing more than 50 recent situations in which birds were knowingly neglected or abandoned during transport or at the slaughterhouse. Many of these incidents appear to violate state animal cruelty laws.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) wishes to recognize US Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) with its "Profiles in Compassion" award for his uncompromising leadership on animal welfare issues throughout his 14 terms in the US Congress.
The annual appropriations process for fiscal year 2010 will begin in October, offering an avenue to improve animal welfare by directing Congress to spend - or not spend - money in certain ways.
When necessary, AWI requests enforcement against or prosecution of parties that violate or fail to enforce existing laws or policies. These requests are made at the federal, state, and local level.
Tilikum, the 12,000-pound male orca at SeaWorld Orlando who was featured in the documentary Blackfish in 2013, was probably born in 1980, give or take a year. Ever since he killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, in 2010, he’s been beating the odds by surviving.
The objective of toxicology and pharmacology studies is to detect change or variation from normal and to interpret the significance of such change, with the intention of assessing risk to man.
The Florida breeding facility that has masqueraded as a sanctuary and received 31 macaws seized in Virginia (AWI Quarterly, Winter 2009), is liquidating and auctioning off all its birds and exotic cats.
What happens to animals in research, after they are no longer needed for a study? In some cases, the research protocol does not call for euthanasia of the animals. Thus, rather than needlessly killing them, institutions are slowly beginning to find ways to provide these animals a life and a home after research.
The abysmal animal welfare record of the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is well documented: three stipulated penalty fines from 2007, 2010, and 2013 totaling $58,633 and a pending complaint filed by the USDA on March 9, 2015.
The USDA reached an astonishingly weak settlement on December 2, 2016, with SNBL USA, an animal dealer and registered research facility—despite allegations of egregious violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) by the company dating back to 2002. (See AWI Quarterly, winter 2016.) The settlement includes the following provisions:
AWI is pleased to learn the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) was recently awarded a $150,000 grant through the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) to study the impacts of environmental enrichment o
A firestorm has rained down on Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc. (SCBT)—long one of the world’s largest antibody producers—following a February 19, 2016, Nature article entitled “Thousands of goats and rabbits vanish from major biotech lab.”
