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).
The sequence in which 14 laboratory rhesus macaques left their home enclosure during a routine catching procedure was recorded on 30 occasions during 6 weeks. The animals were trained to voluntarily exit one by one and enter a transport cage for weighing and/or treatment. Mean weekly exit orders cross-correlated significantly, and individuals retained their exit positions with remarkable consistency throughout the study period.
“I slowly became conscious of the animals’ point of view and recognized that much of what I was doing as a scientist did not square with my own moral standards.” The reader hasn’t gotten far in Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals before encountering this stunning revelation.
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Scientists have reported that trampling by other walruses in a stampede likely caused the deaths of 131 walruses found on a beach in Alaska’s North Slope in August.
Long-finned pilot whales have been hunted for human consumption in the Faroe Islands (a small Danish territory located between Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic) since the first human settlement of the islands.
This story and others related to the impacts of military sonar on marine mammals are recounted in engaging detail by Joshua Horwitz in his upcoming book, War of the Whales, to be published by Simon and Schuster in July 2014. Josh focuses on two “characters” in the book: Ken Balcomb, a killer whale biologist in Washington state, and Joel. Ken has also studied beaked whales in the Bahamas and, through an astonishing set of coincidences, ended up embroiled in the struggle to protect whales from the growing cacophony of sonar, pile driving, shipping, and seismic exploration for oil and gas that is cluttering up their acoustic space below the waves.
The Watamu Marine Association (WMA) was established in 2007 in Kenya in order to bring together members from the community, tourism, and environmental sectors in the coastal resort town of Watamu to promote community development and empowerment, and to advocate for the protection and preservation of Watamu Marine National Park and Reserve.
It is not uncommon that malfunctioning in watering valves or leaks of water bottles result in the accumulation of water in rodent cages (especially during holidays and on weekends), a circumstance that can have serious implications for the animals trapped in such quasi-flooded living quarters. In your own experience, what's a practicable and reliable solution to this problem?
Wildlife has lost yet another champion. Wayne Lotter, 51, a vigorous leader in efforts to suppress wildlife crime, was murdered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 16.
With We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility, Dr. Michael Moore proves definitively that he is no ivory tower scientist. He speaks with passion about his decades-long research on whales and his fascination with these intriguing animals. At the outset of the book, Moore issues readers a challenge, admitting that he is hoping to convince us that the welfare and very survival of the fewer than 340 remaining North Atlantic right whales are in our hands.
Ocelots may have a better chance at survival in the United States, thanks to a June 26 settlement AWI and the Center for Biological Diversity reached with the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and th
Whales, dolphins, and porpoises are categorized taxonomically in the order Cetacea. As mammals, cetaceans are warm-blooded, breathe air, give birth to live young, and nurse their offspring. They are also highly intelligent and social animals. There are over 80 extant species of cetaceans, categorized into two suborders: the toothed whales (odontocetes) and baleen whales (mysticetes). Sperm whales, orcas (killer whales), beaked whales, belugas, narwhals, porpoises, and dolphins are odontocetes, of which there are about 70 known species. Baleen whales are comprised of 14 species, including blue, fin, sei, Bryde’s, gray, right, bowhead, humpback, and minke whales.
Animal welfare and conservation groups are advising major seafood buyers attending the 2013 European Seafood Exposition and Seafood Processing Europe Convention in Brussels this week to be aware that there are whalers in their midst, and that the seafood they are considering purchasing may be “tainted by the blood of whales”.
Following a high-profile "Don't buy from Icelandic whalers” ad campaign on the Boston public transit system in March and April, animal protection and conservation organizations are now taking the message to the streets of New York City.
A mobile billboard—funded by a coalition of US animal protection and conservation organizations—will take the message “Don’t Buy From Icelandic Whalers” to the streets of Boston this week.
As the Seafood Expo North America opens at the Boston Convention Center (March 16–18) animal protection and conservation organizations are warning the tens of thousands of international participants—from suppliers of seafood products and services to buyers—to watch out for whalers.
Photographs (shown below) of an Icelandic whaling vessel dragging dead endangered fin whales to shore for processing were released today by Timothy Baker, an American whale-watching tourist.
Japan’s whaling underwent some dramatic changes in 2019, following that nation’s departure from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) after more than six decades of membership: Japan finally ended the pretense that it was conducting “research
