The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) welcomes today’s Associated Press (AP) report that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will phase out its elephant acts by 2018. All 43 of Ringling’s captive elephants will be retired to a central Florida property owned by Ringling’s parent company, Feld Entertainment. According to the AP, the decision was prompted by “growing public concern about how the animals are treated.”
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends the US House of Representatives and Senate Appropriations Committees for including monumental victories for animal welfare in the final Fiscal Year 2020 spending package.
To care about animal welfare is to care about the environment in which animals live. In Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Dr. Suzanne Simard puts it simply: “Mistreatment of one species is mistreatment of all.”
In 2018, a female Southern Resident orca off the coast of Washington captured hearts and minds around the world with her apparently grief-stricken reaction to the death of her newborn calf, who lived less than 30 minutes.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Technical Committee on Animal Housing—the body that oversees development and revisions of the Fire and Life Safety in Animal Housing Facilities Code (NFPA 150)—has taken a monumental step toward stre
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is an international nonprofit organization seeking to eliminate death, injury, and economic loss due to fire and related hazards.
Disasters like floods, roof collapses and fires are not uncommon occurrences on factory farms. And given the large numbers of animals confined on these operations, such emergencies can kill tens - even hundreds - of thousands of living beings in a matter of minutes.
In November 2012, the industry journal Lab Animal published an extraordinary profile of licensed veterinary technologist Santina Caruso, entitled “Working with animals is ‘in her blood.’” Why was this feature extraordinary?
A federal district court in Utah has ruled the state’s “ag-gag” law is unconstitutional. The law made it illegal for an individual to use false pretenses to gain access to or surveil an agricultural operation.
In exciting news, the bipartisan Congressional Wild Horse Caucus was established in May—the first caucus dedicated to preserving and protecting America’s cherished wild horses and burros. Led by Reps.
Two dozen conservation and animal-welfare groups sent a letter today urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service to complete its plan to protect the northern long-eared bat, a species found primarily in the eastern and midwestern United States. Opposition to the bat’s protection under the Endangered Species Act—from timber, mining and energy industries as well as several state natural-resource agency officials—prompted the Fish and Wildlife Service to postpone a final decision on protecting the bat until spring 2015.
Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) published a new regulation 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 codifies a 2017 policy reversing the agency’s decades-long interpretation that the MBTA prohibits the incidental killing of migratory birds. This regulation was published despite a federal district court ruling in August that the 2017 policy was an unlawful interpretation of the MBTA.
A coalition of animal welfare and conservation groups has launched a new online ad campaign to coincide with the 2015 Seafood Exposition Global and Seafood Processing Global convention in Brussels this week, advising consumers and major seafood buyers to be aware of fish “tainted by the blood of whales.”
Aquaculture refers to the farming of aquatic organisms, including finfish, crustaceans, mollusks, plants, and algae for human use. It has been practiced by cultures around the globe for millennia.
An investigation into a Maine salmon hatchery owned and operated by one of the largest seafood companies in the world, Cooke Aquaculture, has provided a behind-the-scenes look into the horrors of fish farming.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences has shown that bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) recognize themselves in photographs (Kohda et al., 2023).
The oceans are teeming with unique and awe-inspiring creatures. However, harmful and unsustainable fishing operations pose a serious threat to the ocean’s biodiversity.
Despite strong public opposition, and no documented demand, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appears to be drawing closer to approving the first food product from a genetically engineered (GE) animal.
Florida’s Everglades region has a rather big problem: Burmese pythons, one of the world’s largest snakes, are having a devastating effect on the ecosystem. As this non-native species—released into the wild accidentally or intentionally by pet owners—thrives and multiplies, it has proven nearly impossible for wildlife officials to rein in the population.
The legal standards of the housing, care, handling and treatment of nonhuman primates are formulated in the Animal Welfare Regulations [Regulations] which are enforced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, 2002). Many of these standards are progressive, but there are a flaws that make their translation into animal welfare benefits problematic.
