The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) program charged with resolving wildlife conflicts—but that perversely is responsible for killing millions of animals each year in the United States—received carte blanche from the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) to continue its reckless war on America’s wildlife.
Butterball, a major turkey producer in the United States, is in court over insurance coverage of a $3.5 million cleanup of pollution at a Carthage, Missouri, site.
The World Organisation for Animal Health (known by its French initials, “OIE”), at its annual meeting in Paris in May, approved a new chapter on the welfare of pigs for inclusion in the organization’s Terrestrial Animal Health Code.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions in place to prevent its spread have had a profound impact on the environment, in positive and negative ways: Greenhouse gases have declined sharply amid reduced industrial output.
After a four-year wait, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its ruling on Australia’s challenge to Japan’s scientific whaling program in the Antarctic (known as JARPA II). The ruling, issued March 31 in The Hague, The Netherlands, by a vote of 12–4, concluded that JARPA II does not comply with Article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (the article authorizing whaling for scientific research).
Every year in South Korea, over two million dogs and thousands of cats are killed for food. Many are sadistically tortured prior to slaughter to “improve” the taste of the meat—dogs are hung, beaten, torched, and killed in a variety of other horrific manners, while cats are boiled alive. Though dogs of all shapes and sizes fall victim to the dog meat trade, those who suffer most are the “yellow dogs” imprisoned in squalid, cramped cages within the numerous dog farms scattered around the country.
According to the PEW Environmental Trust, the top 20 shark fishing nations account for 80% of the world’s annual total reported shark catch. The top 10 shark fishing nations, in order, are: Indonesia, India, Spain, Taiwan, Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, the United States, Japan, and Malaysia, with Thailand, France, Brazil, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Portugal, Nigeria, Iran, the United Kingdom, and South Korea following, comprising the top 20 fishing nations.
A key United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) body recommended a formal investigation today into Mexico’s failure to comply with its fishing and wildlife trade laws, which is causing the near-extinction of the vaquita porpoise.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has elected to take on the task of establishing an international technical specification for the raising of animals for food.
Some countries/jurisdictions have enacted full or partial bans on the practice of shark finning—slicing off the fins of the shark at sea (often while the shark is still alive) and discarding the carcass. Still other country/jurisdictions have taken the additional step of enacting complete or partial bans on shark fishing (such that, by inclusion, shark finning is also banned). Some airlines, hotels, and other companies have also refused to transport, serve or sell shark fin products.
Serbia, at the heart of former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, is one of the few places left in Europe where brown bears continue to be cruelly abused for profit and human amusement.
After hours of rancorous debate, the International Whaling Commission accepted a proposal from the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to kill four humpback whales a year for the next six years. The proposal was strongly opposed by a block of Latin American countries led by the Dominican Republic whose whale watching industry generates millions of dollars annually from the same humpbacks targeted by SVG. However, the proposal was eventually accepted by 48 votes to ten with two abstentions.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) report that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has firmly rejected a proposal by Greenland that would have put more whale meat on restaurant menus in tourist hotels. Thirty-four countries, including all the attending members of the European Union with the exception of Denmark, and all Latin American countries rightly opposed the draft proposal, which sought an increase in Greenland’s aboriginal subsistence whaling (ASW) quota.
Two journal articles authored by experts from the Animal Welfare Institute(AWI) were recently featured in the newly released issue of the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy (Volume 20, Issue 1, 2017).
A workshop held today at this week’s International Congress of the Society for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2017) revealed that the ecological services that cetaceans (whales and dolphins) provide to the planet may be the key to saving it.
This summer I was fortunate enough to fulfill one of my life’s dreams - a vacation in Africa! My family and I spent a week in Kenya. Though this was not a "working" vacation, I was privileged to witness firsthand some of the animals and habitats AWI has had a hand in protecting.
Of the various methods of population control inflicted on wildlife by animal damage control agents, wildlife managers, and trappers, strangling neck snares are among the most horrific tools in the toolbox. The primer Intolerable Cruelty: The truth behind killing neck snares and strychnine is a reminder—if one is needed—of how wretchedly inhumane these techniques can be.
For the second year in a row, researchers from the United States and Norway failed to measure a whale’s brain waves to determine how they might react to naval sonar and noise from oil and gas exploration.
Recent undercover investigations conducted by animal welfare organizations at Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Texas dairies have revealed horrendous conditions for cows on these farms.
As consumers hit supermarkets this month to prepare for holiday gatherings, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) today issued results from its investigation of approximately 90 brand-name poultry products. The results, presented in a report entitled USDA Gives Producers Free Reign over “Free Range” Product Labels, reveal that the approval process by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for “free range” labels on poultry products is flawed—deceiving shoppers.
Elon Musk and his biotech company Neuralink made headlines recently as multiple news organizations reported on requests for the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Musk’s claim that monkeys who perished in brain implant trials were a
When Isaac, a rhesus macaque, first arrived we were so worried about him. He cowered in the corner as he fear grimaced, and refused to eat or drink for several days. If anyone approached his cage, or if any other monkey even looked in his direction, he would engage in fear-based redirected behaviors, and would nervously attack the front of his cage, then quickly return to cower in the corner.
