The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) revealed today that the US Department of Agriculture filed a complaint earlier this year against Wild Wilderness, Inc., a notorious Arkansas tourist attraction operated by the Wilmoth family that exhibits domestic, wild and exotic animals. The complaint, filed on January 9, details repeated allegations of egregious Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations against the exhibitor.
Date created: March 9, 2017
Last updated: February 2, 2022
On the heels of the historic settlement between the US Department of Agriculture and Santa Cruz Biotechnology (SCBT), another huge commercial operation licensed as an animal dealer and registered as a research facility is under scrutiny, accused of numerous serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Date created: December 23, 2016
Last updated: January 15, 2020
Representative Peter DeFazio, (D-OR) is expected to introduce the Compound 1080 and M-44 Elimination Act this fall.
Date created: November 6, 2009
Last updated: April 18, 2024
Our project, supported by an AWI Refinement Research Award, focused on evaluating the safety of using compressed waste newspaper as a digging and enrichment substrate for naked mole-rats. These unique fossorial rodents, equipped with ever-growing incisors, create intricate burrows in substrates ranging from sand to hard clay and rock. However, in laboratory facilities, they are often housed on loose cob or chip bedding, creating a mismatch between their natural adaptation and the provided environment. This discrepancy prompted us to explore alternative materials to bridge this gap. Preliminary investigations involved processing newspapers into pulp and shaping them into large columns of compressed newspaper that our naked mole-rats excavated into spiraling tunnels, offering them the choice and control over engineering their own living space.
Date created: September 4, 2024
Last updated: September 13, 2024
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) recently held two meetings of the “Small Working Group on the Future of the IWC,” which was formed at the last annual meeting in Santiago, Chile.
Date created: January 16, 2020
Last updated: May 27, 2021
Endangered California condors in Arizona and Utah are showing a substantial decrease in toxic blood-lead levels—possibly the result of a drop in lead-based ammunition by hunters.
Date created: May 28, 2014
Last updated: January 9, 2020
The Wild Horse Symposium and 7th International Conference on Fertility Control in Wildlife was held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from August 29 to September 1. Researchers from around the world discussed recent scientific, regulatory, and practical developments in the use of contraceptives to manage wildlife populations in place of traditional lethal methods and as disease-managing tools.
Date created: December 4, 2012
Last updated: April 24, 2024
Whales and dolphins are complex social animals and are not well suited for a life in captivity. When confined, they are prevented from carrying out natural behaviors, which include roaming up to 100 miles per day, hunting live prey, and interacting with their pod mates—who also suffer when pod members are removed. When forced to interact with humans in a captive situation they have been known to behave aggressively.
Date created: September 23, 2011
Last updated: September 5, 2024
AWI extends our congratulations to Hailey Chui (California), Katja Erringer (Oregon), Sage Farrow (Colorado), Lien Ferry (Pennsylvania), Makenna Owens (Florida), Will Smith (Minnesota), Isabelle Sydow (Minnesota), and Chloe Quin (Illinois).
Date created: March 25, 2020
Last updated: August 26, 2020
Every year, AWI awards grants of up to US$10,000 to support research projects aimed at developing or testing new and creative ways to improve the welfare of animals in research.
Date created: April 19, 2022
Last updated: April 25, 2022
AWI advocates for improving the care, housing, and handling of animals in research facilities to spare them needless suffering. To help achieve this, we offer Refinement Grants of up to $10,000 to develop and test innovative methods of improving the welfare of animals in research. We congratulate this year’s AWI Refinement Grant recipients.
Date created: January 2, 2020
Last updated: January 22, 2020
Date created: March 25, 2020
Last updated: March 31, 2020
A dozen members of Congress introduced legislation today that would prohibit organizing, sponsoring, conducting, or participating in wildlife killing contests on more than 500 million acres of US public lands.
Date created: April 5, 2022
Last updated: April 20, 2022
Members of Congress and constitutional experts testified on May 26, 2010 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on the recent Supreme Court decision invalidating a law prohibiting interstate commerce in crush videos, dog fighting videos, and other depictions of extreme animal cruelty. (Crush videos portray scantily clad women in stilettos, or even their bare feet, literally crushing, stomping on, or impaling small, helpless animals to satisfy sadistic viewers with a bizarre sexual fetish.)
Date created: May 26, 2010
Last updated: February 2, 2022
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), along with leading Members of Congress, numerous wild horse advocacy organizations and the majority of Americans, is exceedingly frustrated with the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) gross mismanagement of America’s wild horses and burros. In a recent ad in the Washington, DC, newspaper, The Hill, AWI called on Congress to take swift and decisive action to prevent the BLM from “managing” our nation’s wild horses into extinction.
Date created: August 2, 2010
Last updated: May 2, 2022
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) applauds the passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (H.R. 1754/S. 4547) late Monday. This bill, approved by Congress as part of the fiscal year 2021 omnibus spending package, aims to reduce the fatalities and injuries that have plagued U.S. horseracing and end the reliance on performance-enhancing drugs to mask pain, inflammation, and other warning signs that often precede catastrophic breakdowns.
Date created: December 22, 2020
Last updated: February 2, 2022
In a long-awaited victory for sharks across the globe, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act passed the Senate last night.
Date created: December 16, 2022
Last updated: December 16, 2022
We are pleased to report that, after years of hard work and determination, AWI and allies have succeeded in securing House and Senate passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act (BCPSA)!
Date created: December 16, 2022
Last updated: April 17, 2024
In January, Congress approved a massive $1.1 trillion annual spending bill to fund the federal government that included language prohibiting USDA from spending funds to inspect horse slaughter facilities.
Date created: February 25, 2014
Last updated: April 24, 2024
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the US Congress for wisely reinstating the annual ban on the slaughtering of horses in its Fiscal Year 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act released late last night. The language, identical to what had been in effect every year since 2006—but removed last year—prevents the US Department of Agriculture from expending funds to place inspectors in horse slaughter facilitates; such inspectors are required by federal law for the plants to operate in interstate commerce.
Date created: January 14, 2014
Last updated: February 2, 2022
After years of monitoring records generated by US Department of Agriculture inspectors that document horrific mistreatment of birds inside poultry slaughter plants, AWI is lobbying Congress to require increased oversight of bird handling at slaugh
Date created: April 20, 2022
Last updated: April 17, 2024
On Saturday, Congress approved its Fiscal Year 2015 $1.1 trillion spending bill. Within the 1,603-page piece of legislation, which will fund the federal government through September 30, 2015, federal lawmakers included provisions that can be marked as both triumphs and setbacks for wild and domestic animals. The bill now makes its way to President Obama for his signature into law.
Date created: December 12, 2014
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Today, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee Conferees will meet to decide the fate of America’s federally protected wild horse and burro herds. At issue is an amendment inserted by Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT) in the House version of Interior appropriations legislation that would authorize the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to spend $15 million—nearly 20 percent of its Wild Horse and Burro Program budget—on a mass surgical sterilization program for entire herds.
Date created: September 13, 2018
Last updated: February 7, 2022
Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), joined by 46 public health scientists, veterinarians, animal welfare and conservation organizations, and other experts in their respective fields, delivered a letter to leaders of the Agriculture Committees in the US House of Representatives and Senate expressing strong opposition to a provision in the House Farm Bill (H.R. 8467) that would earmark taxpayer dollars for the mink industry to develop and expand into international markets.
Date created: July 25, 2024
Last updated: September 5, 2024
Congressional leaders are calling on the Bush Administration to stand up for whales at this month's annual International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile.
Date created: January 23, 2009
Last updated: February 3, 2022
