After a two-year delay, the Council of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) voted unanimously yesterday to investigate Mexico’s failure to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. Mexico has not enforced its own fishing and wildlife trade laws, and that failure is causing the near-extinction of the vaquita.
Recently, the Agricultural Advisory Board of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food adopted best management practices for the state’s animal agriculture industries.
A case currently on appeal in federal courts could have serious implications for the scope of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The case involves the Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens), a species listed as threatened under the ESA.
A committee of experts—convened at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to review whether it is “necessary” for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to continue using dogs in biomedical research to fulfill its missio
After many years of resisting the clear trend of history regarding the captive display of cetaceans, the Vancouver Aquarium has finally conceded: On January 18, the aquarium’s management announced that it would no longer display cetaceans once the
Katherine Rundell’s Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures offers a brisk and enjoyable examination of a wide range of species, all remarkable in their own right—and all at risk of being lost forever.
In Vaquita: Science, Politics and Crime in the Sea of Cortez, author Brooke Bessesen elucidates the complex story of the vaquita. With more than 30 years’ experience in animal rescue and marine fieldwork, Bessesen writes with both authority and heart, bringing the reader into the center of the storm that has been the decades-long effort to save the vaquita. She thoroughly researched her subject, even embedding herself for weeks on end in the Gulf’s local communities.
Conservation organizations announced today that Trader Joe’s has declared it will stop buying shrimp from Mexico. The popular grocery store chain’s decision follows pressure from organizations behind the Boycott Mexican Shrimp campaign, launched earlier this year in an effort to save the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise, from decades of decline due to entanglement in shrimp fishing gear.
Identified only 50 years ago, the critically endangered vaquita is endemic to Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. Reaching a maximum length of about four feet, the porpoise is gray, with dark stripes running from its flippers to the middle of its lower lip. As recently as 20 years ago, there were approximately 600 vaquitas swimming in the Gulf.
In early July, in response to a 2015 petition from AWI and the Center for Biological Diversity, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) approved an “in danger” designation for Mexico’s Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California World Heritage site.
Two years ago, scientists estimated that only 100 vaquita porpoises remained in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. In April 2015, as vaquitas continued to die due to entanglement in fishing gear, the Mexican government proposed a two-year ban on gillnets in the Gulf.
Scientists have announced that fewer than 60 vaquita porpoises likely remain on Earth, down from 245 in 2008. The vaquita is the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise, found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California. Without permanent and fully enforced protections, the species could be effectively extinct within six years.
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.
