In February, the House Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).
Numerous lists of species that are likely to go extinct within the next few years have been published. Front and center on all of them is the tiny, critically endangered porpoise known as the vaquita.
The Canadian National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), a collaboration between the agriculture industry, animal welfare groups, government, and other interested parties, recently released its Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs.
The brutal annual slaughter of Canada’s harp seals may be gasping its last breaths this year.
In March, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report titled Evaluating the Taxonomic Status of the Mexican Gray Wolf and the Red Wolf.
Evidence is accumulating that dogs work wonders when paired with members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic brain injury (TBI), or another mental health issue arising from their military experiences.
On January 2, 2013, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2013 (H.R. 4310), which authorizes the Secretaries of the various military services to transfer back to Lackland Air Force Base or another location for adoption any Military Working Dog (MWD) who is to be retired and for whom “no suitable adoption is available at the military facility where the dog is located.”
The government of South Africa, one of the largest captive hunting regions on the globe, officially banned the canned hunting of lions in June.
Accredited zoos, aquariums, marine theme parks, and swim-with-dolphin operations—places that naturally concentrate large groups of people—were among the first tourism venues to close their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On January 23, in Utrecht, the Netherlands, an appeals court heard the arguments of the Free Morgan Foundation (FMF) for revoking the certificate (permit) that allowed the orca known as Morgan to be transferred from a Dutch aquarium to a zoo in Sp
On May 5, the Captive Primate Safety Act (CPSA) was reintroduced in Congress. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Reps.
The Captive Primate Safety Act (HR 8164/S 4206) was reintroduced in May by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), with AWI’s strong endorsement.
Almost two decades ago the US aquarium industry—facing mounting public distaste with the practice—ceased importing healthy wild-caught cetaceans for commercial display. Since then, people across the globe have come to realize that no aquarium can replicate the wild habitat these animals need and their importance in healthy marine ecosystems.
Rising acidity levels in seawater, resulting from the ocean absorbing increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide, are causing clownfish some serious problems.
Currently, there is no federal oversight of the use of invertebrates in research in the United States.
A LAREF Discussion
The Caribbean Environment Programme was established in 1981 as one of the United Nations’ “Regional Seas” programs, in recognition of the importance and value of the Wider Caribbean’s fragile and vulnerable coastal and marine ecosystems.
Few Americans have heard of the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services (WS) program. Even fewer are aware that their tax dollars subsidize the killing of millions of animals every year under this program; between 2004 and 2007, WS killed 8,378,412 animals (Keefover-Ring 2009).
Dr. Carole Carlson, a valiant advocate for the conservation of whales and their marine environment, died on March 24 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, of pancreatic cancer. She was 69.