A federal judge in November upheld the listing of Alaska’s Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), rejecting a bid by the state of Alaska to overturn it.
A recent study published in Current Biology by a group of international researchers shows that Caribbean reef fish populations have been steadily declining for more than a decade.
Blood sampling via venipuncture is probably the most common experimental procedure that laboratory rhesus monkeys are subjected to. The procedure is generally unsatisfactory because of the animals' resistance to it. Such resistance may jeopardize unbiased research and should therefore be avoided.
Ticos (as Costa Ricans call themselves) use a Latin phrase to define the noble intentions of their new wildlife regulations, adopted in 2017: in dubio pro natura—when in doubt, favor nature.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is pleased to add Country music artist Clay Canfield’s support to the organization’s ongoing efforts to protect America's wild horses. Clay is donating a percentage of proceeds from his song, Wild Horses, to AWI.
Research performed by AWI suggests that Country of Origin Labeling (“COOL”) may reduce the suffering of animals by curbing the long-distance transport of animals from Canada and Mexico.
Conservation groups late yesterday asked the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina to stop the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) from capturing and killing—and authorizing private landowners to capture and kill—members of the rapidly dwindling population of wild red wolves. The conservation groups—represented in court by the Southern Environmental Law Center—are the Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Red Wolf Coalition.
Earlier this month, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), and Project Coyote obtained a default ruling in our lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for waiving state permit requirements for controversial penning facilities like WCI Foxhound Training Preserve (WCI). The judge signed, without changes, our proposed judgment, which included a declaration that WCI’s possession of coyotes without a permit is unlawful.
After a long and winding process, a federal court has turned aside Georgia Aquarium’s attempt to import wild beluga whales from Russia. In June 2012, Georgia Aquarium applied for a Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) permit to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from the Sea of Okhotsk.
On November 5, AWI and co-plaintiffs won a significant victory in our ongoing litigation to protect red wolves, when a federal court agreed that the US Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Polic
The US District Court for the Northern District of California, on August 11, struck down a decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to allow wind energy developers to obtain 30-year permits to accidentally kill or injure (“take”) bald and golden eagles (see AWI Quarterly, winter 2014).
In June, a federal judge in Arizona struck down the Department of Justice’s longstanding “McKittrick Policy.” This policy advised the DOJ’s attorneys to prosecute individuals who killed threatened and endangered species in violation of the Endange
A federal court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s authorization of coyote hunting—including at night—in the five-county area of eastern North Carolina inhabited by the world’s only wild population of about 100 endangered red wolves. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sought the injunction in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on behalf of the Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Red Wolf Coalition.
A North Carolina court halted a temporary state rule that allowed spotlight hunting of coyotes at night in the five-county area of eastern North Carolina inhabited by the world’s only wild population of red wolves (Canis rufus) on Wednesday, November 21. The ruling came in response to a preliminary injunction motion and request for expedited hearing filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) in Wake County Superior Court on behalf of the Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Red Wolf Coalition.
A federal court in Virginia has taken the extraordinary step of granting the Department of Justice a temporary restraining order against a facility in Cumberland, Virginia, that breeds and sells beagles for experimentation.
In a victory for one of Earth’s most endangered marine mammals, a federal court sided with conservationists today and, for the third time, kept in place a four-month-old ban on the United States importing Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught with gillnets that drown vaquita porpoises.
Responding to a lawsuit filed by conservation groups, the US Court of International Trade today ordered the Trump administration to ban seafood imports from Mexico caught with gillnets that kill the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. As few as 15 vaquita remain, and almost half the population drowns in fishing gillnets each year. Absent immediate additional protection, the tiny porpoise could be extinct by 2021.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled in January that the US Fish and Wildlife Service must quickly draft and execute a plan to resume releasing captive red wolves into the wild to bolster the plunging population.
In April, a federal court ruled against an element of a 2019 US Department of Agriculture rule that removed limits on line speeds at pig slaughter facilities. Judge Joan Ericksen of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota ruled that the department failed to consider the effect increased speeds would have on worker health and safety.
In a much-needed win for gray wolves, a federal court recently scrapped a rule issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2020 that removed Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from wolves across most of the contiguous 48 states.
AWI, Project Coyote, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund obtained a default ruling in December declaring that the possession of coyotes by WCI Foxhound Training Preserve, a penning facility in Linton, Indiana, is unlawful.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled on Friday that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) must develop a plan by March 1 to resume its longstanding and successful practice of releasing captive red wolves into the Red Wolf Recovery Area in North Carolina. The case was brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Animal Welfare Institute, the Red Wolf Coalition, and Defenders of Wildlife. The court order temporarily prohibits the federal agency from implementing its recent policy change barring release of captive wolves into the wild.
A federal judge ruled yesterday that the National Marine Fisheries Service acted illegally in approving US Navy testing and training activities in the Pacific Ocean that threaten widespread harm to whales, dolphins, other marine mammals and imperiled sea turtles.
