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.
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.
In a landmark move for America’s wild horses and burros, today US Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Jaun Ciscomani (R-AZ), David Schweikert (R-AZ), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) launched the Congressional Wild Horse Caucus. This is the first congressional caucus dedicated to supporting and safeguarding federally protected wild horses and burros across the United States.
The Wild Horse Caucus will serve as a bipartisan forum to advance humane, science-based solutions for managing wild horses and burros. According to its mission statement, the caucus “exists to support, protect, and preserve wild horses and burros in their natural habitat across the United States,” and will focus on “strategic collaboration to develop ideas to humanely and effectively manage wild horse and burro populations.”
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.)
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.
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.
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)!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Joining with a growing public chorus of outrage at a recent proposal by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and their Wild Horse Advisory board to euthanize up to 33,000 wild horses, several leaders in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the agency stressing their strong opposition to any such effort.
When Congress hustled out of town in September, it left a lot of unfinished business. Both the House Agriculture Committee and the full Senate had approved amendments to their farm bills that would prohibit attending or bringing a child to an animal fight.
A coalition of international animal protection and conservation organizations has urgently asked the Obama administration to impose economic sanctions against Icelandic companies with corporate ties to the commercial whaling industry.
More than 150 conservation groups have signed a letter to President Obama asking him to oppose all policy “riders” that would undermine the Endangered Species Act during negotiations on final spending legislation for Fiscal Year 2016.
Following the federally authorized gunshot death of a mother red wolf—a critically endangered species—in the Red Wolf Recovery Area of eastern North Carolina, conservation groups today demanded the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) ensure the survival of the world’s only wild red wolf population, including an unknown number of puppies mothered by this wolf.
Conservation groups are calling on the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and its member governments to condemn Iceland’s commercial whale hunt following confirmation that the Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf has killed yet another endangered fin whale.
A coalition of conservation and animal protection organizations confirmed today that more than 1,500 metric tons of products from endangered Icelandic fin whales were shipped to Japan in July 2016. The discovery comes just prior to the 17th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which starts in Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 24.
WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) have discovered that, in the latest desperate effort to prop up a dying industry, Hvalur hf, Iceland’s fin whaling company, has joined forces with Aquaship, a shipping company with a troubling record, to transport meat from endangered fin whales through Russian waters to Japan.
Conservation organizations launched an online campaign this week entitled “The Truth about Red Wolves,” aimed at building support for the dwindling population of the world’s only wild red wolves in North Carolina. The campaign is currently advertised on The Outer Banks Voice.
