In the Summer 2011 AWI Quarterly, AWI reported on the Yasuni-ITT Initiative—whereby the Ecuadorian government sought US$3.6 billion in financial contributions from the international community in exchange for a commitment by Ecuador to forego oil drilling in Yasuni National Park.
Date created: August 21, 2014
Last updated: January 8, 2020
Environmental enrichment is designed to promote the behavioral health of understimulated nonhuman primates by providing them with species-appropriate conditions for the expression of species-typical behavioral dispositions (cf. USDA, 1991; CCAC, 1993). Housing nonhuman primates in permanent social isolation in barren cages raises self-evident ethical concerns.
Date created: May 24, 2016
Last updated: November 11, 2020
There is a growing awareness that non-human primates kept in zoos and laboratories deserve more species-appropriate stimulation because of their biological adaptation to a challenging environment. Numerous attempts have been made to effectively emulate the gathering and processing aspects of natural feeding. Whole natural food items, woodchips mixed with seeds, the puzzle ceiling and the puzzle feeder stocked with ordinary biscuits, cost little or nothing but induce sustained food gathering and/or food processing.
Date created: January 21, 2009
Last updated: June 9, 2021
Autoaggression and stereotypies in individually housed cynomolgus monkeys were compared in a standard primate cage and an enriched playpen environment. Stereotypy and autoaggression were markedly reduced in the playpen, but reappeared on return to the home cage. Some of the various activities available in the playpen but not others engaged the animals' attention.
Date created: April 11, 2016
Last updated: November 11, 2020
Once an animal has been removed from its natural habitat every effort should be made not only to simulate the natural environment but also to ensure that the animal displays ecologically valid behaviour (Forthman Quick, 1984). Neither natural settings nor natural behaviour can be duplicated in captivity; however, complex captive settings may discourage the development of abnormal behaviour, induce activity and facilitate normal social behaviour and reproduction (Clarke et al., 1982). Markowitz (1975-79,1982, cited in Forthman Quick, 1984) has agreed that captive animals should exert some form of control over their environment.
Date created: May 11, 2016
Last updated: November 11, 2020
For captive primates, environmental enrichment may improve psychological well-being, as indicated by changes in the frequency of species-typical and abnormal behaviours. The effects of enrichment on physical well-being have also been examined, but little attention has been devoted to the relationship between enrichment and animal health. We therefore studied the health records of 98 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to measure the effects that enrichment and social housing manipulations had on the number of veterinary treatments and days of therapy required by the monkeys.
Date created: May 11, 2016
Last updated: November 11, 2020
At the University of Notre Dame we have a system in place that allows the principle investigators to utilize our trained laboratory animal technicians and registered veterinary technicians to perform routine animal procedures such as blood sampling.
Date created: February 25, 2010
Last updated: May 22, 2020
The purpose of this study was to observe as many gorilla groups as possible and to compare their behaviour in different exhibits, social structures and visitor situation. Gorillas were studied in 15 zoos, they lived in 14 groups with male and female adults and immatures, 2 groups of adults without immatures, 3 adult pairs, 2 solitary silverbacks and several groups of immatures.
Date created: May 11, 2016
Last updated: November 11, 2020
In July, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jared Huffman (D-CA), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA) introduced the Strengthening Welfare in Marine Settings (SWIMS) Act (HR 8514/S 4740).
Date created: September 1, 2022
Last updated: April 17, 2024
In April, the Prohibit Wildlife Killing Contests Act (HR 7398) was introduced in the House by Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) to bar organizing, sponsoring, conducting, or participating in most types of wildlife killing contests on more than 500
Date created: June 14, 2022
Last updated: April 17, 2024
Today the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a positive 60-day finding on a petition to designate the Sakhalin Bay-Amur River beluga whale population in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, as depleted under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The petition was submitted by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Cetacean Society International (CSI), and the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of the Earth Island Institute, on April 23rd, 2014. The petition was submitted to seek additional protections for this beluga population, which is the principal target of an ongoing global trade in live whales for the captive display industry.
Date created: August 1, 2014
Last updated: February 2, 2022
In September 2021, AWI, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and VIVA Vaquita, petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to list the Atlantic humpback dolphin as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Date created: June 20, 2023
Last updated: June 26, 2023
In the former administration’s final days, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published a rule that weakens the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by no longer penalizing individuals and corporations for the “incidental” killing of birds protected und
Date created: March 25, 2021
Last updated: March 25, 2021
Recently, the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association teamed up with the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials—an organization that represents emergency response and planning officials across all levels of government—to produce and disseminate a series of informational videos focused on emergency planning.
Date created: June 9, 2021
Last updated: June 23, 2021
United Egg Producers (UEP), an industry group representing the interests of egg farmers throughout the United States, says it will seek to eliminate the culling of male chicks. Because male chicks cannot produce eggs—and other breeds are used to produce meat chickens—males of the egg-producing breeds have no economic value.
Date created: September 19, 2016
Last updated: January 15, 2020
While most news for imperiled species is quite dire this year, North America’s largest flying bird is bucking the trend. California condors came frighteningly close to extinction: in 1982, just 22 birds survived in the wild.
Date created: October 10, 2019
Last updated: January 23, 2020
Eight members of Congress were recognized yesterday by leading national conservation groups for their critical role in protecting the Endangered Species Act. The “Champions of the Endangered Species Act” reception featured former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and honored Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Udall (D-NM), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and House members Don Beyer (D-VA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Betty McCollum (D-MN), and Niki Tsongas (D-MA).
Date created: March 17, 2016
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Date created: October 30, 2023
Last updated: August 30, 2024
US Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) reintroduced the Ejiao Act Tuesday in the House of Representatives to ban the sale and trade of ejiao (donkey-hide gelatin) products in the United States.
Date created: October 26, 2023
Last updated: September 6, 2024
The Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has published a proposed change to transportation regulations in order to reduce accidents and paperwork burdens.
Date created: August 22, 2014
Last updated: January 8, 2020
Elephants were once a common sight throughout the Asian and African continents. Due to their prized tusks, however, they were hunted in massive numbers throughout the 19th century. Now, restrictions on ivory trade have allowed some populations to stabilize, although they remain severely depleted across the whole of their former ranges. They also face other threats from habitat destruction, continued poaching for ivory, meat and hides; trophy hunting; and removal because of conflicts with humans.
Date created: September 26, 2011
Last updated: April 2, 2021
"The elephants I grew to know and love at the circus were beaten daily with sharp bull hooks and chained like prisoners for hours on end."
Date created: June 8, 2009
Last updated: April 17, 2024
In the article beginning on page 6, we discuss the unrelenting slaughter of African elephants for their ivory. In the United States, import of African elephant ivory has been prohibited—via the African Elephant Conservation Act— since 1989, the same year that countries around the world enacted similar import bans. You can, however, import raw ivory into the United States from sport-hunted trophies.
Date created: February 19, 2013
Last updated: January 15, 2020
One hundred years ago, Côte d’Ivoire—a nation that takes its name from the once-flourishing ivory trade that ran through its ports—was home to between 3,000 and 5,000 forest elephants.
Date created: December 17, 2020
Last updated: December 17, 2020
In Elephants on the Edge, G.A. Bradshaw exposes how - through mass slaughter, poaching and capture - we have ravaged elephant populations, while drawing comparisons between the ways people and elephants respond to traumatic situations.
Date created: July 9, 2010
Last updated: April 24, 2024
