COVID-19 has shut down, at least temporarily, dozens of pig, chicken, and turkey slaughter plants in the United States, leaving millions of farm animals with nowhere to go.
Cage furnishings have considerable potential as environmental enrichment for captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and can be used to promote species-typical behavior patterns (Brent et al. 1991; Chamove 1989; Howell et al. 1997; Schwandt 1996; Suarez and Forter 1995; Traylor-Holzer and Fritz 1985; Wolper 1995). The purpose of current study was to test a new type of cage furnishing designed to encourage locomotor activity in captive chimpanzees.
Nearly 80 veterinarians from across the United States delivered a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt today condemning the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed surgical sterilization experiments on wild horses from the Warm Springs Herd Management Area in Oregon.
Thirty-one states either mandate or encourage veterinarians to report animal abuse, and most of these provide vets with immunity from civil (and sometimes criminal) liability for good-faith reporting. Moreover, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has a very firm policy calling for such reporting, regardless of state law.
Animals are often the main characters in children’s books, capturing younger readers’ attention and delivering life lessons in an entertaining and easily digestible format. Veto, The Governor’s Cat, by former Georgia governor Nathan Deal, is no exception; it touches on universal themes of friendship, loss, and life changes. The story centers on Veto, the cat who shared a home with the governor and his late wife, Sandra Dunagan Deal.
As of next year, the United States will be required to prohibit seafood imports from countries that fail to meet US standards for protecting marine mammals—a major victory for wildlife conservation and welfare.
In the last Quarterly, we discussed the Bureau of Land Management’s plan to conduct mass surgical sterilization experiments on wild horses from the Warm Springs Herd Management Area in Oregon.
The City Council of Calabasas, California, voted unanimously on Wednesday to prohibit any city funds from being spent on coyote trapping and to instead adopt a coyote management plan that shifts the focus from killing to coexistence.
Project Coyote and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) declared a victory for wildlife, after the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) voted unanimously today to ban coyote and fox pens statewide. Penning involves sending packs of domestic dogs into a fenced-off enclosure to chase to exhaustion and often tear apart a captive coyote or fox.
June 23 was a momentous day for coyotes and foxes in Florida, as the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) voted unanimously to enact a ban on coyote and fox "penning."
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the House of Representatives for unanimously passing H.R. 306, the Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act, introduced by Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC). This bill will provide for a new management plan for the free-roaming Corolla wild horses in and around the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
The day after California’s law banning the production and sale of foie gras took effect on July 1, 2012, producers and restaurateurs sued to overturn it. They sought—but were denied—an injunction against the law as the case was being adjudicated.
This summer, the Vietnamese government agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the nonprofit Animals Asia to finally end bear bile farming in the country.
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. Days after Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) launched a campaign on February 25, 2014, calling on Virgin Holidays to stop the sale of trips to places like SeaWorld, Sir Richard Branson announced that he was going to ask his supply chain (including marine parks) to take a pledge to no longer source cetaceans from the wild to stock captive facilities.
Virgin Holidays has pledged $300,000 to support the creation of North America’s first dolphin sanctuary and the move of seven captive dolphins at the National Aquarium in Baltimore to the facility.
In 2014, AWI was invited by Virgin Holidays—one of the world’s biggest tourism companies—to take part in a stakeholder process through which Virgin intended to fine tune its policy on swim-with-dolphin attractions.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring for creating the nation's first Attorney General's "Animal Law" unit, which will serve as a resource for local law enforcement and state agencies on issues involving animal welfare and animal fighting or abuse. Michelle Welch, an assistant attorney general and a 2011 winner of AWI’s Albert Schweitzer Medal, has been selected as the leader of the team.
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.
Stepping in where the US Department of Agriculture failed to act, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s Animal Law Unit moved to enforce state cruelty laws and end the abuse of animals by an exhibitor in Winchester, Virginia, that is licensed under the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Virginia passed a law in April banning new coyote/fox penning operations in the state. The law makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor (punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500) for any person “to erect, maintain, or operate an enclosure for the purpose of pursuing, hunting, or killing or attempting to pursue, hunt, or kill any fox or coyote with a dog.”
In March and April, AWI marine animal program director Susan Millward and consultant Courtney Vail participated in the ninth meeting of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife in the Wider Caribbean (SPAW).
