In May, two research vessels embarked on a survey in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, searching for evidence of the world’s rarest marine mammal, the tiny vaquita porpoise.
Date created: September 4, 2024
Last updated: September 13, 2024
One of the latest signs of progress in the effort to convince law enforcement agencies to take animal cruelty seriously is the uptick in the creation of animal cruelty units in police departments and offices of district attorneys and attorneys gen
Date created: March 23, 2018
Last updated: March 23, 2018
John Thompson, a seasoned public safety leader who has brought the hidden atrocity of animal cruelty to the forefront of law enforcement, was honored Thursday with the Albert Schweitzer Medal. This prestigious award, established in 1951 by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), recognizes outstanding achievement in the advancement of animal welfare.
Date created: March 8, 2019
Last updated: January 31, 2024
Today, a coalition of more than 20 animal and environmental protection organizations gathered alongside scientists, agency officials, and legislators to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Date created: September 21, 2022
Last updated: September 23, 2022
Today, 58 lawmakers in both the House of Representatives and the Senate sent a bipartisan letter to the Department of the Interior condemning the Bureau of Land Management’s plan to perform unsafe and inhumane surgical sterilizations on federally protected wild horses in Utah.
Date created: November 19, 2020
Last updated: February 2, 2022
US Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife, was joined by 20 colleagues today on a letter urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to list American mink as an injurious species under the Lacey Act.
Date created: September 19, 2022
Last updated: January 9, 2024
Animal protection and conservation organizations filed a lawsuit today challenging Monterey County’s contract renewal with the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services—a notorious federal wildlife-killing program that has killed more than 3,000 coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and other animals in the county in the past six years.
Date created: June 1, 2016
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today for failing to follow federal law and ban shrimp and other seafood imported from Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California and harvested with gillnets that drown the vaquita porpoise.
Date created: March 21, 2018
Last updated: February 7, 2022
Conservationists sued the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services today over its wildlife-killing program in Northern California. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, seeks updated environmental analysis of the program’s killing of native wildlife such as coyotes, bobcats and foxes.
Date created: June 21, 2017
Last updated: February 2, 2022
A coalition of animal protection and conservation groups and a local Mendocino resident filed a lawsuit against Mendocino County today in the Superior Court of California, County of Mendocino, for violating the California Environmental Quality Act. The lawsuit challenges the county’s failure to conduct the legally-required environmental review of its $142,356 taxpayer-funded contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Wildlife Services. The contract authorizes Wildlife Services, a highly-controversial federal program, to kill hundreds of animals in the county every year, including coyotes, bears, and foxes, without assessing the ecological impact or considering alternatives.
Date created: November 26, 2014
Last updated: February 2, 2022
National non-profit organizations Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), Project Coyote, and Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) are filing a lawsuit today against the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and its director Robert Carter Jr. over the Department’s decision to waive state permit requirements for a controversial Greene County "penning" facility.
Date created: May 20, 2011
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Wildlife conservation and animal welfare organizations filed a lawsuit today against the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for allowing trappers in Maine to seriously injure and kill Canada lynx, a federally protected cat. Plaintiffs include the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine (WAM).
Date created: August 17, 2015
Last updated: January 31, 2024
The Animal Welfare Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity today filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that endangered ocelots aren’t inadvertently killed as part of the USDA’s long-running program to kill coyotes, bears, bobcats and other wildlife in Arizona and Texas.
Date created: October 4, 2016
Last updated: February 2, 2022
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine (WAM) filed suit against the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife (DIFW) today to stop the agency from continuing to violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by allowing trappers to use traps that injure and sometimes kill Canada lynx.
Date created: January 23, 2009
Last updated: February 3, 2022
In January, AWI and 11 other groups filed suit against the U.S. Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) over the Navy’s planned Undersea Warfare Training Range.
Date created: July 9, 2010
Last updated: April 24, 2024
Citing violations of the US Constitution and three federal laws, an alliance of wild horse protection and animal welfare advocates filed a lawsuit today in the US District Court in Portland against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The groups seek to enjoin the federal agency from proceeding with controversial and dangerous surgical experiments to remove the ovaries of wild mares at the BLM’s Wild Horse Corral Facility in Hines, Oregon.
Date created: September 21, 2018
Last updated: February 7, 2022
Conservation groups sued the U.S. Department of the Interior today in federal court to force a long overdue decision to sanction Mexico for allowing illegal fishing and trade that endanger the vaquita porpoise.
Date created: December 14, 2022
Last updated: December 14, 2022
Conservation and animal protection groups sued several federal officials and departments today in the US Court of International Trade over their failure to implement the import provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).
Date created: August 8, 2024
Last updated: August 8, 2024
A lawsuit filed in Hawai‘i federal court today challenges the National Marine Fisheries Service’s approval of a five-year plan by the US Navy for testing and training activities off Hawai‘i and Southern California. The Navy and Fisheries Service estimate this training will cause 9.6 million instances of harm to whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. The operations will include active sonar and explosives, which are known to cause permanent injuries and deaths to marine mammals.
Date created: December 16, 2013
Last updated: February 2, 2022
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) filed a lawsuit this week against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) related to the agencies’ refusal to enforce requirements for SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment (SeaWorld) to submit necropsy results of three SeaWorld orcas who died last year.
Date created: January 10, 2018
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to force a long overdue decision to sanction Mexico for its illegal fishing and trade that is causing the vaquita porpoise’s extinction.
Date created: June 10, 2020
Last updated: January 18, 2024
The Animal Welfare Institute and Wildlife Preserves, Inc. filed a lawsuit today against K. Christopher Soller, superintendent of Fire Island National Seashore (FINS), and the National Park Service (NPS). The complaint alleges that, by implementing a wildlife management plan that authorizes the killing of white-tailed deer on FINS, Soller and the NPS have broken federal law and violated property rights.
Date created: November 29, 2017
Last updated: February 7, 2022
Conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration today for failing to respond to their emergency request to ban certain seafood imports from Mexico’s Gulf of California in order to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise from extinction.
Date created: December 21, 2017
Last updated: February 7, 2022
AWI sued the US Department of Agriculture in November for failing to respond to a four-and-a-half-year-old rulemaking petition.
Date created: April 4, 2019
Last updated: April 17, 2024
The Animal Welfare Institute, the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF) are calling on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to end its practice of relicensing chronic violators of the minimum care standards set forth in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Date created: October 20, 2017
Last updated: January 17, 2024