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.
Nearly one year after the groundbreaking lawsuit for elephant mistreatment brought against Ringling Bros.' parent company Feld Entertainment, Inc. (FEI) went to trial, the US District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that it lacks jurisdiction to address the claims of mistreatment brought by AWI and its co-plaintiffs due to a lack of sufficient standing.
Pity the plight of Corey Knowlton, who shot an endangered black rhino and then was incensed to find that Delta Air Lines wouldn’t ship the spoils of his hunt home to Texas for him. So what’s a poor (actually, quite wealthy) trophy hunter to do?
Today, a federal judge issued an order declaring that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in its rollback of protections for the world’s only wild population of red wolves, who live in eastern North Carolina. US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Chief Judge Terrence W. Boyle also made permanent the court’s September 29, 2016, order stopping the USFWS from capturing and killing red wolves and authorizing private landowners to do the same.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina today issued a preliminary injunction that orders the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to stop capturing and killing—and authorizing private landowners to capture and kill—members of the rapidly dwindling population of wild red wolves.
A federal district court will hear arguments Thursday on a lawsuit brought by wildlife conservation and animal welfare organizations against the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for allowing trappers in Maine to kill and seriously injure Canada lynx, a federally protected cat.
The California Superior Court ruled last week that Monterey County’s renewal of its contract with the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to kill predators and other native wildlife violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and voided the county’s 2016 work plan.
The California Superior Court issued an order yesterday denying Monterey County’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit, filed in June by animal protection and conservation organizations, that challenges the county’s contract renewal with the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. This notorious federal program has killed more than 3,000 coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and other animals in the county in the past six years, largely in the name of protecting livestock.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Whale & Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Cetacean Society International (CSI), and Earth Island Institute (EII) today filed their joint response to Georgia Aquarium, Inc., in the case of Georgia Aquarium, Inc. v. Pritzker—a lawsuit Georgia Aquarium filed to overturn a decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to deny the Aquarium’s application for a permit to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk for purposes of public display. Georgia Aquarium’s “motion on the merits” seeks to have a federal judge order NMFS to not only overturn the decision but also order the agency to grant the permit.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now confirmed four cases of humans infected with a variant of the coronavirus originating in farmed mink during an outbreak in Eaton County, Michigan, in late 2020 and early 2021—two mink farm emp
Maryland has placed a two-year moratorium on killing contests targeting cownose rays. The new law also directs the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to create a fishery management plan for the species by the end of 2018.
More than 40 scientists, veterinarians, and attorneys and a coalition of wildlife advocacy organizations including Project Coyote, Indiana Coyote Rescue (ICR), and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) have submitted a formal letter and data urging the Indiana Natural Resources Commission to support two formal petitions to prohibit the taking, killing and harassment of coyotes and red foxes for “penning” purposes and for use as live bait in the wild.
Few Americans know that almost every day of every year, somewhere in the United States coyotes are being slaughtered as part of a contest or bounty—where money or prizes are awarded for killing the largest, the most, or even pregnant coyotes.
