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Following passage of the Shark Conservation Act (H.R. 81) in the US House of Representatives earlier this year, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced a Senate companion bill (S.

Date created: August 11, 2009
Last updated: April 18, 2024
The live capture of river otters is notoriously difficult, which explains the dearth of information about the ecology of the species. Traditional traps, including leghold and cage traps, can be used to capture otters for research, but they can result in injuries and stress to the animal. In addition, many traps set for otters can capture nontarget species.
Date created: September 3, 2020
Last updated: September 1, 2022

In April, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed into law SB 21, now allowing veterinarians to report incidents of animal abuse and mistreatment, including those involving farm animals covered under the state’s on-farm livestock and poultry care st

Date created: June 17, 2020
Last updated: June 17, 2020

Rangers reported that a pride of lions came prowling after nightfall, stalking among the brightly burning pyres at the ivory incineration site. Very unusual. Lions normally avoid fire—and this was a spectacularly large fire: 105 tons of ivory, and another 1.35 tons of rhinoceros horn, merging into a conflagration that could easily be seen even from the Ngong Hills.

Date created: July 6, 2016
Last updated: January 15, 2020

In March 2018, AWI and allies filed a lawsuit in the US Court of International Trade to force the Trump administration to uphold provisions in the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) that require the US government to ban seafood imports from forei

Date created: September 14, 2018
Last updated: September 19, 2018

As the 116th Congress gets underway, a number of bipartisan bills that benefit animals have already been introduced in the House of Representatives:

Date created: April 4, 2019
Last updated: April 4, 2019

Animal behavior expert Marc Bekoff, in partnership with Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots program and the Children, Youth and Environments Center at the University of Colorado Denver, has produced a colorful new online book in which young children express how they feel about animals and the natural world.

Date created: May 4, 2011
Last updated: April 24, 2024

Poultry company OK Foods announced it intends to begin killing chickens by decompression, using a technique referred to as "vacuum stunning" or "low-atmospheric pressure killing."

Date created: February 7, 2011
Last updated: January 10, 2020
Killing Games: Wildlife in the Crosshairs, a new film produced and distributed by Project Coyote (with some support from AWI), serves as an overview of wildlife killing contests: what they are, why they need to be prohibited, and how humanitarians can take action to try to stop them.
Date created: September 5, 2017
Last updated: April 24, 2024

A law passed in 2016—the 21st Century Cures Act—has given the research industry the opening that it has sought to reduce oversight of the treatment of animals.

Date created: July 2, 2018
Last updated: April 24, 2024
Kong® Toys are durable rubber objects with an irregular, oblong shape, manufactured by the Kong® Company, 300 S. Lamar Ct., Lakewood, CO, 80226. They cost approximately fourteen dollars each, and can be easily washed and sanitized. The potential of these toys as environmental enrichment for monkeys and chimpanzees has been tested at a small number of captive primate facilities.
Date created: May 13, 2016
Last updated: October 30, 2020

The international outpouring of support toward injured and orphaned animal victims of the Australian wildfires has been tremendous.

Date created: March 25, 2020
Last updated: April 7, 2020

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin’s round and beakless head is striking—reminding some of the iconic Pac-Man. But unlike the enduring video game character, this dolphin has been in steady decline since the 1970s.

Date created: May 4, 2012
Last updated: January 16, 2020

AWI is pleased to announce publication of It’s Okay to Cry: Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum, Volume V.

Date created: March 25, 2020
Last updated: April 13, 2020

“I feel like a chump.”

Date created: July 2, 2018
Last updated: July 6, 2018

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on many animals, and laboratory animals are no exception.

Date created: September 3, 2020
Last updated: September 3, 2020

The purpose of the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum (LAREF) is the exchange of experiences about ways to improve the conditions under which animals in laboratories are housed and handled.

Date created: June 27, 2011
Last updated: January 25, 2024

Video images taken by an undercover investigator with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA ) at the Professional Laboratory and Research Services (PLRS) facility in North Carolina documented laboratory workers throwing, hitting, kicking and otherwise abusing the animals.

Date created: October 3, 2011
Last updated: January 8, 2020
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) applauds California Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) for his introduction today of a bill (AB 2140) to end orca captivity in California. The Orca Welfare and Safety Act, as the bill is called, is the first of its kind in the United States and would prohibit the public display of orcas (a.k.a. killer whales) in the state and retire those currently in captivity in California to less stressful lives in sea pens.
Date created: March 7, 2014
Last updated: February 2, 2022

AWI’s Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum (LAREF) is an electronic discussion forum facilitating the factual exchange of experiences about ways to refine the conditions under which animals are housed and handled in research institu

Date created: December 17, 2020
Last updated: December 17, 2020
A coalition of environmental, social justice, and animal welfare groups announced a campaign today calling on Olive Garden and its parent company, Darden Restaurant Inc., the nation’s largest full-service restaurant employer, to do more to protect animals, the environment and workers by substantially improving their food sourcing and labor practices.
Date created: March 24, 2016
Last updated: February 2, 2022

The long history of brutal treatment of elephants in circuses is laid out in heart-wrenching detail in Last Chain on Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top. It is not a book for the faint of heart. More recent events are juxtaposed with the past, which began with the arrival in the United States of the first elephant—a baby, only 2 years old—hauled from India in 1796.

Date created: March 6, 2015
Last updated: April 24, 2024

On November 18, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it would retire all of its remaining chimpanzees used for research and relocate them to sanctuaries. In 2013, as a result of a report by the Institute of Medicine, the NIH had retired most of its chimpanzees (about 310), but maintained 50 for use in future research.

Date created: December 31, 2015
Last updated: January 9, 2020

On July 6, AWI cosponsored a “Save the Vaquita” rally at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC.

Date created: September 1, 2017
Last updated: September 1, 2017
The tide is turning in the West for captive marine mammals, yet live capture operations, traveling dolphin shows, polluted sea pens and needless deaths of animals continue to mar the captivity industry around the globe, especially in Asia, according to a report co-produced by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and World Animal Protection (WAP).
Date created: March 8, 2019
Last updated: February 7, 2022