Across the United States, millions of dogs endure their entire lives confined outdoors by chains affixed to collars and staked to the ground or a fixed object. This is called "chaining" or "tethering." Typically, the animals are denied socialization with people and other animals and even basic veterinary care.
Animal cruelty involves gratuitously inflicting harm, injuring, or killing an animal. The cruelty can be intentional, such as kicking, burning, stabbing, beating, or shooting; or it can involve neglect, such as depriving an animal of water, shelter, food, and necessary medical treatment. Animal fighting, in which animals are trained or forced to attack each other in violent confrontations at the risk of grave injury or death, is another form of animal cruelty.
The various contributors to the seventeen chapters of Animal Cruelty: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding address all critical aspects of the subject: history, related legislation, special types of cruelty, its link to other types of violence and crime, theories used to explain animal cruelty, the role of the media, and emerging issues.
An undercover investigator, Taylor Radig, put herself at significant personal risk in order to expose animal cruelty at the Quanah Cattle Company, a calf-raising facility in Kersey, Colorado. The investigator filmed appalling images of young calves being kicked, dragged, thrown, and slammed as employees removed them from trucks.
Animal cruelty involves inflicting harm, injuring, or killing an animal. The cruelty can be intentional, such as beating, burning, or sexually abusing an animal; or it can involve neglect, such as failing to provide adequate food, water, shelter, or medical treatment. Another form of abuse is organized animal fighting, in which animals are trained or goaded to attack each other in violent confrontations at the risk of grave injury or death.
Award-winning journalist David Kirby's gripping new book, Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment, sets out to expose industrial agriculture as a cruel, polluting, disease transmitting, manure-soaked con game.
On February 7, 2014, President Obama signed H.R. 2642, the Agricultural Act of 2014 into law. The Farm Bill, as it is more commonly known, included language from H.R. 366 and S. 666, the Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act.
The federal government, in the last few years, has increased coverage of and penalties for animal fighting activities under the Animal Welfare Act, but it is still lacking in one area: the spectator.
As the world faces an unprecedented loss of biodiversity, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), joined by about 60 other animal protection and conservation organizations, helped secure significant progress for wildlife at the 19th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Panama City, Panama, last month.
The 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) took place in Geneva, Switzerland, in August. It began on a somber note, with expressions of condolences to the government and people of Sri Lanka, where the CoP was originally to be held in May, for the tragic loss of lives in the April terrorist attacks.
AWI works to foster the development and implementation of science-based housing and handling refinements that reduce pain and distress and provide opportunities for species-appropriate mental and physical stimulation and social interaction. We promote practices that replace animals with non-animal alternatives and minimize the number of animals used in research. We also endeavor to identify and address reports of animal abuse in laboratory settings and the supply chain.
In her new book, Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species, Laurel Neme, PhD, tells the true story of a group of scientists who are the backbone of efforts to combat wildlife crime.
Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed is the latest update to Peter Singer’s seminal 1975 book, Animal Liberation. While the facts and figures have been updated, the ultimate message has not changed significantly. Now, as then, Singer focuses on two principles: utilitarianism and equality. Utilitarianism provides that a moral action is one that minimizes suffering or leads to the greatest happiness. Equality requires not identical treatment of everyone, but rather equal consideration of everyone’s interests.
Animal Madness is a fascinating book, which I would recommend to anyone who has ever looked at an animal and wondered what they were thinking. Do the dog’s mournful eyes represent guilt or sadness, emotions that we thought were reserved only for humans?
There can't be a more remarkable sight than a mass migration of animals, be it across the plains of Africa, on a cloud-covered skyline, or along the wave-ridden ocean coasts.
Hurricane Ian caused massive destruction in Florida and killed over 120 people—making it the state’s deadliest storm in nearly a century. The storm also claimed the lives of unknown hundreds of farm animals.
Reps. Jim Moran (D-VA) and John Campbell (R-CA), co-chairs of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus and two of the strongest advocates in Congress for animal protection legislation, have announced plans to retire at the close of the 113th Congress later this year.
Animal protection and conservation organizations filed suit today challenging Mendocino County’s contract renewal with Wildlife Services, a notorious federal wildlife-killing program that killed close to 3 million animals in the US in 2014.
Sens. Bob Menendez, (D-NJ), Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-RI), and Susan Collins, (R-ME), introduced legislation today to permanently end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption in the United States and abroad.
Today, a coalition of animal protection organizations and a former Ringling Bros. employee asked a federal district court in Washington DC to immediately order a halt to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Ringling Bros.)'s cruel practice of shackling and confining endangered Asian elephants for days on end in a manner that prevents them from walking or even turning around in place.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and WDC—Whale and Dolphin Conservation are calling on the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) to help protect whales from hunting in Iceland.
Today, a coalition of animal protection groups submitted a rulemaking petition to the US Department of Agriculture to require pig slaughter plants to install cameras inside gondola cages used in carbon dioxide stunning systems.
A coalition of animal protection organizations have sent letters to more than 30 of the nation's largest chicken suppliers urging them not to consider a new slaughter method called "low-atmospheric pressure killing" (LAPK), or "vacuum stunning."
