For 53 years, the captive orca Tokitae (a.k.a. Toki, Lolita, and Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut) lived in a tiny tank at Miami Seaquarium. She was a Southern Resident orca, a Pacific Northwest population listed as endangered in 2005.
In recent years, pro-horse slaughter organizations and individuals have consistently fought adoption of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, claiming that there is a huge "unwanted horse" population in the United States.
Sixty-seven animals from eight primate species were used to assess improved husbandry techniques. The presence of woodchips as a direct-contact litter decreased inactivity and fighting, and increased time spent on the ground. Placing food in the deep litter led to further behavioral improvement. The use of frozen foods improved food distribution and reduced fighting in most situations, especially when it was buried in the litter. With time, the litter became increasingly inhibitory to bacteria. The results suggest that inexpensive ways of increasing environmental complexity are effective in improving housing for primates.
In December 2014, the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued its latest broadside against the inadequacy of the USDA’s enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). This sharply critical OIG report is the fourth to be issued in 20 years. This latest report, like its predecessors, cites specific examples of enforcement deficiencies, poor oversight, inadequate penalties, lack of deterrence, and many examples of animals suffering and dying.
2011 was a grim year for rhinos. In November, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared Africa’s western black rhino officially extinct, and indicated that the northern white rhino is "possibly extinct," as well.
As the world is starting to open its eyes to the impacts of over-fishing and over-exploitation of the ocean’s resources, Juliet Eilperin has authored a superb chronology of humankind’s cultural association with sharks.
Conservation and animal protection organizations rallied outside the Mexican Embassy today to call on the Mexican government to take drastic action to save the few remaining vaquita porpoises left on the planet. According to scientific experts, between 6 and 22 of these marine mammals remain, with 10 being the most credible estimate of the population.
On Valentine’s Day, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is proud to name Denali, an American Staffordshire terrier mix with an unshakeable loving spirit, as the inaugural ambassador for the Safe Havens for Pets Program.
The urban coyotes of Denver were getting a bad reputation. An increasing number were moving into the city and human-inhabited areas of the surrounding county. Negative interactions between pets and coyotes were on the rise.
Late last week, the Department of the Interior reissued a legal opinion that weakens the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by no longer penalizing individuals and corporations for the incidental killing of birds protected under the law. This reinterpretation reverses a decades-long interpretation that the MBTA prohibits both intentional take and incidental killing stemming from an otherwise lawful activity.
Emergency events that impact animal agriculture operations can sometimes lead to the “depopulation” of entire herds or flocks of farmed animals. Depopulation involves the mass killing of animals in response to urgent circumstances.
Until recently, the winter whereabouts of the basking shark has stymied marine biologists. But according to a report published online in Current Biology, the mystery has finally been solved.
Americans overwhelmingly support comprehensive protections for marine mammals, according to a new poll commissioned by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Oceana and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As more details emerge about the deaths of two of the five beluga whales imported to Mystic Aquarium from Canada last year—and the ongoing illness of a third whale—the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is urging the three US agencies responsible for supervising the whales’ import to strengthen the monitoring of animal health during wildlife border crossings.
AWI has long been involved in the United Nations Caribbean Environment Programme, and specifically its Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW Protocol), which prohibits the taking of listed flora and fauna species. Sea turtles and orcas are listed species and are therefore protected.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) denounces the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its weak settlement agreement with SNBL USA—a subsidiary of Japan-based Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories that allegedly committed dozens of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations over the course of five years, including actions that led to the deaths of 38 nonhuman primates.
Clean water and healthy aquatic ecosystems are of immeasurable value to people and wildlife. But we need a full picture of what contaminants are circulating in our waterways and where they are originating to properly protect these ecosystems. This knowledge is currently lacking in many parts of the United States, including Montana.
The eastern hellbender is a large, aquatic salamander that historically occurred throughout much of the eastern United States. Research has suggested that once abundant hellbenders, which eat crayfish and live under rocks in cool, clear streams and rivers, have experienced sharp declines across their range.
At least 469,000 farm animals have perished in potentially preventable barn fires so far this year, according to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis of media reports.
Recent interest in the welfare of captive animals has led to the use of techniques to stimulate normal patterns of behaviour and maintain healthy, reproductively viable individuals.
Painstakingly, Montgomery, a geomorphologist and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, leads us on a verbal journey spanning millennia and the globe to give us a convincing lesson on the importance of soil and soil-dwelling organisms to life as we know it. Compelling and admirably thorough, Dirt details the rise and collapse of cultures that, failing to appreciate the complexity and fragility of the soil, exploited it without giving back.
