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Each year, from roughly September through April, more than a thousand dolphins are removed from the wild during the unspeakably cruel Taiji, Japan, dolphin drive hunts. Most are herded into the shallows and violently slaughtered for meat and blubber, as depicted in the Oscar-winning movie, The Cove. For others, the suffering lasts even longer—as they are sold into a life in captivity within aquariums in Japan, China and elsewhere.

Date created: September 18, 2015
Last updated: January 9, 2020
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee today approved an “in danger” designation for an area of Mexico that is the last-remaining home of the critically endangered vaquita porpoise and a fish called the totoaba. An international team of scientific experts recently concluded that only about 10 vaquitas remained alive in 2018.
Date created: July 2, 2019
Last updated: January 31, 2024
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) today gave Mexico one year to improve protections for the only remaining home of the critically endangered vaquita or face an “in danger” designation for the Gulf of California site.
Date created: July 5, 2017
Last updated: February 2, 2022

Mayor Cheye Calvo of Berwyn Heights, Md., was changing for a meeting last July after having returned home from walking his dogs, when SWAT team members of the Prince George’s County Police Department burst into his house without knocking and opene

Date created: January 16, 2020
Last updated: April 18, 2024

Some 20,000 gray whales roam the eastern Pacific from Alaska to Baja California. Less than 200 also ply the waters from the Sea of Okhotsk to southern Korea.

Date created: September 7, 2010
Last updated: January 9, 2020

On April 25, a World Trade Organization arbitrator ruled that Mexico can pursue retaliatory measures against the United States for the $163 million a year Mexico claims to lose because of US import restrictions on tuna not caught in accordance wit

Date created: June 26, 2017
Last updated: June 26, 2017

At the end of 2013, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) first-ever consideration of an animal welfare issue resulted in a landmark, if mixed, decision by a dispute settlement panel. The panel ruled that although the European Union’s ban on imports of seal products violated WTO anti-discrimination rules, it was nonetheless valid because it fulfilled the objective of addressing the European public’s moral concerns about seal welfare.

Date created: February 25, 2014
Last updated: January 10, 2020

A federal court has struck down Iowa’s “ag-gag” law. In 2012, the state created the crime of “agricultural production facility fraud” after several undercover investigations revealed worker cruelty to animals.

Date created: April 4, 2019
Last updated: April 4, 2019

In 2009, when Carter and Olivia Ries of Fayetteville, Georgia, were just 8 and 7 years old, they founded One More Generation (OMG) to educate children and adults about the plight of endangered species.

Date created: September 1, 2017
Last updated: September 1, 2017

In May, it was reported that Zimbabwe had captured and was planning to sell animals from Hwange National Park, including zebras, giraffes, hyenas, monkeys, birds, and two juvenile elephants to a North Korean zoo for $23,000.

Date created: September 7, 2010
Last updated: January 9, 2020

The Zimbabwe National Wildlife Authority, in March, auctioned off sport hunting packages for big game to local and foreign hunters. The packages include rights to kill elephants, lions, hippos and leopards.

Date created: May 4, 2011
Last updated: January 8, 2020
Zimbabwe is engaged in a heartless heist of baby elephants for sale abroad. Details have been very hard to obtain, and it would seem government officials, aware of the international public backlash, are seeking to keep as many of the details as possible under wraps. Initial accounts, dating back to November, suggested that approximately 30 young elephants had been captured and were being prepared for shipment to China, the United Arab Emirates, and France.
Date created: January 16, 2015
Last updated: February 2, 2022

The government of Zimbabwe has sold 24 elephant calves captured late last year in Hwange National Park to China. The young elephants—who were forcibly separated from their families—are headed to what has been described as a “free range setting” in Chimelong Safari Park in Guangdong Province.

Date created: September 18, 2015
Last updated: January 9, 2020

On January 11, AWI wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke requesting that his department halt its plan to eliminate certain protections for migratory birds.

Date created: March 23, 2018
Last updated: April 24, 2024

The American Rescue Plan Act, signed on March 11 in response to the COVID-19 crisis, contains funding to address public health risks resulting from the exploitation of animals.

Date created: March 25, 2021
Last updated: March 25, 2021