The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), has filed suit against the US Navy over its plans to build a $100 million Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR) 50 miles east of the Jacksonville, Florida coast. The plans involve the construction of a 500 square nautical mile range and the operation of over 400 Navy war game exercises every year.
When the U.s. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the country’s first national standards for organic production and established the National Organic Program (NOP) in 2000, provisions dealing with the treatment of the animals being raised were all but absent. From the beginning, the organic regulations required that animals be given freedom of movement and access to the outdoors, fresh air and direct sunlight.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced a proposed rule to ban the import and export of threatened Banggai cardinalfish, following a 2021 petition from conservation groups.
Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Cetacean Society International, and Earth Island Institute filed a petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to designate the Sakhalin Bay-Amur River stock of beluga whales in the Sea of Okhotsk as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Subject to intense levels of historical hunting, these belugas have yet to recover and face serious ongoing threats, most notably from annual live captures for public display.
The Philadelphia Police Department's Mounted Patrol Unit was joined at its headquarters by US Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and The Humane Society of the United States to garner public support for federal legislation to stop the inhumane killing of American horses for human consumption.
US Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) are urging the US Department of Agriculture to fulfill its obligation to protect the public from misleading food labels, citing a recent Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) report indicating that 85% of analyzed animal welfare claims on meat and poultry products lacked adequate substantiation.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 4366) signed into law Saturday includes several important victories for animals, but falls short in a number of key areas, such as enforcement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Horse Protection Act (HPA).
At the request of the Soliciter General, the Supreme Court will review a case from the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, PA, which overturned a conviction involving so-called “crush videos” and called the law
In a settlement filed in court Friday, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) agreed to determine whether Mexico has failed to stop illegal fishing and trade of totoaba that is driving the vaquita porpoise’s extinction.
In March of this year, as noted on page 2, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the Makah Tribe’s proposed hunt of gray whales—the first step toward issuing a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to allow the hunt under US law. In its comments to NMFS, AWI asserts that the DEIS is inadequate, and that the MMPA waiver should not be granted.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has unfortunately approved a request by the United States for an aboriginal subsistence whaling (ASW) quota for the Makah Tribe of Northwest Washington State.
Thirty members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to the US Department of Agriculture in February with pointed questions about the department’s effort to counter the widespread use of ventilation shutdown plus heat (VSD+) to kill tens of million
In July, the US Department of Agriculture proposed a rule that, if finalized, would bring us closer to ending the egregiously inhumane practice of soring Tennessee Walking horses, racking horses, and other gaited breeds.
The US Department of Agriculture recently requested comments on a proposed rulemaking under the Packers and Stockyards Act, which governs how meat and poultry companies buy and source animals for slaughter.
Over three years ago, 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield and his dog, Kasey, stumbled upon an M-44 “cyanide bomb” while playing near the family’s backyard outside Pocatello, Idaho. The spring-activated device sprays sodium cyanide.
Loganton, Pennsylvania, a tiny one-square-mile Amish farming community, is home to 468 residents and 15 USDA-licensed guinea pig breeders. While this may suggest the community has a fondness for these animals, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) record of some of these breeders tells a very different story. The suffering of guinea pigs at these facilities exemplifies the USDA’s most recent failure to uphold the basic tenets of the AWA.
Millions of animals are exported from the United States annually—over 7.5 million animals in January 2015 alone. Most are shipped in aircrafts, but many are transported overseas in ocean vessels. These trips may last weeks and animals can suffer greatly from inadequate ventilation, loud noises, motion sickness, and heat stress—all of which increase susceptibility to illness and disease.
The Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture recently announced a formal agreement to jointly regulate cell-cultured meat and poultry products.
The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today that it will soon take steps to improve its label approval program for meat and poultry products to avoid misleading consumers.
When the Biden administration issued an executive order on promoting competition in the American economy in July 2021, AWI responded by urging the US Department of Agriculture to address deceptive label claims as part of its effort to facilitate f
The Horse Protection Act (HPA) was passed in 1970 to clamp down on the practice of soring (intentionally injuring horses’ legs and hooves) to create a more high-stepping gait for walking horse shows.
International transport of farm animals by sea vessel is a major animal welfare issue, particularly for long-distance journeys, such as those taken by cattle and sheep from Europe and Australia to the Middle East and North Africa.
The USDA has amended regulations designed to reduce the suffering of horses transported for slaughter so as to include horses who are first transported to intermediate collection points.
At a slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania last year, an employee made three attempts to render a pig unconscious with a rifle, with the animal vocalizing after each shot to the head.
