Perhaps the most abusive trade in wild animals is that which serves no other purpose than human entertainment. Countless wild animals are removed from the wild for entertainment purposes every year. In far too many instances, an individual’s entire family is killed in order to obtain one juvenile. The kidnapped individuals are then subjected to (an often mercifully truncated) life of confinement, boredom, distress and abuse.
Ordinary feeder-boxes for macaques were converted into food puzzles by remounting them onto the square mesh (22 X 22 mm) of the front of the cages, away from original access holes. Feeding a standard ration of bar-shaped biscuits (40 X 24 X 16 mm; Purina Monkey Chow #5038; 236 g per animal), 8 adult pair-housed male rhesus macaques spent, on average, 61.0 ± 15.6% of the first 30 min retrieving biscuits from food puzzles, but only 0.5 ± 0.1 % from feeder-boxes.
In May 2022, a federal court in Virginia took the extraordinary step of granting the US Department of Justice a temporary restraining order (an emergency procedure used to halt ongoing misconduct threatening irreparable harm) against a Cumberland,
Biomedical company Envigo made headlines in 2022 for atrocious conditions documented at its Virginia beagle-breeding facility, accumulating over 60 citations for noncompliance with the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) within one year.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is grateful that thousands of dogs will be rescued from abusive conditions following a settlement reached Thursday between the federal government and Envigo, a company that breeds and sells animals for laboratory experimentation.
To promote the well-being of previously single-caged adult (older than 5 years) rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and the quality of research done with them, the following environmental enhancement plan has been developed and implemented at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center.
This review supports the idea that enrichment is an attempt to ameliorate problems caused by containment, that the goals of enrichment are to alter behaviour so that it is within the range of the animals' normal behaviour, and that evaluation of the success of enrichment techniques is important.
Marmosets and tamarins are small (250-500 g) South American monkeys of the family Callitrichidae. They are forest living species with squirrel-like locomotion and, unlike typical monkeys, most of the digits have claws instead of nails. They live in small troops, most members of which are closely related; there is one breeding female and usually several other adult non-breeding females.
Today, a coalition of wild horse advocates, environmentalists, and academics filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming against the US Department of the Interior over a federal plan that would result in the largest-ever eradication of federally protected wild horses and elimination of 43% of designated wild horse habitat in the Red Desert area of Wyoming.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to approve ZonaStat-D to manage deer populations was all the buzz at the 8th International Conference on Wildlife Fertility Control, held in Washington, DC, in mid-July.
Despite significant public outcry and prolific evidence of the inherent dangers of the devices, the Environmental Protection Agency reauthorized the use of M-44 sodium cyanide bombs in early December
After significant public outrage regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reauthorize M-44 “cyanide bombs” to kill predators, the agency reversed course. One week after the initial announcement, the agency said it was withdrawing the interim reauthorization and would reevaluate the safety of the devices.
AWI seeks stronger protections against all forms of abuse, mistreatment, and neglect of equines, both wild and domestic. We campaign to end the slaughter of American horses and promote humane management techniques that allow wild equines to remain with their family bands on the range.
Equine rescue owners and horse enthusiasts from around the country gathered in Orlando on May 5-7 to expand their network and share best practices at the fifth annual conference of the Homes for Horses Coalition (HHC). The HHC is sponsored by the Animal Welfare Institute and The Humane Society of the US.
While all the talk coming out of Washington is about cutting spending, a few politicians are quietly trying to restore funding for the slaughter of horses for human consumption - which would also necessitate resurrecting an expensive federal inspection program that ended six years ago!
Today, a diverse group of equine industry and animal welfare organizations announced the “Final Stretch Alliance to End Horse Slaughter”—a collaborative effort to permanently ban the slaughter of American horses.
The House of Representatives passed two of AWI’s equine welfare priorities as part of the transportation and infrastructure package (HR 3684). One is an amendment banning the transport of equines to slaughter.
Equine welfare advocates from around the country gathered this week in Nashville to discuss horse rescue outreach at the fourth annual conference of the Homes for Horses Coalition. Sponsored by The Humane Society of the United States and the Animal Welfare Institute, the conference attracted more than 40 individuals representing 25 equine welfare organizations from 18 states.
Anson Wong, one of the world’s most infamous traders in illegal wildlife, has been jailed for attempting to smuggle a cache of snakes and a turtle into Indonesia from Malaysia.
Fish tanks are ubiquitous—found in doctor’s offices, Chinese restaurants, corporate headquarters, and in millions of homes throughout the world. Some studies report that they reduce anxiety, stress, and blood pressure, calm hyperactive children, and provide some relief for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
On October 16, 2015, Alice Ra’anan and Bill Yates of the American Physiological Society published a blog post for Speaking of Research entitled “Caveat Emptor,” with the subtitle “A current USDA case involving a major antibody producer underscores the need for the research community to demonstrate its commitment to high standards of animal welfare.”
