Hundreds of veterinarians and veterinary students from across the country are urging the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) to revise its guidelines regarding methods of killing farmed animals during emergencies. The veterinary professionals and students are calling on the AVMA to do more to deter the use of particularly cruel killing methods such as inducing heat stroke in hens, suffocating pigs and cattle with water-based foam, and bludgeoning piglets.
More than 518,000 farm animals have perished in barn fires so far this year, pushing the death toll to more than 6.3 million since 2013, according to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis released today.
Sadly, there has been another mass stranding of Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) that coincides with naval activities involving sonar blasts. This one occurred over several days in early April in waters south of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. From first reports, the incident appears to have involved at least five single stranding events and seven animals.
In late August, AWI sent a letter to USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack about an incident in which 207 cattle (over 9%) onboard a shipment from Delaware to Qatar died from largely preventable conditions.
On October 8, 2021 an administrative law judge permanently revoked the dealer license of Dan Moulton, owner of Moulton Chinchilla Ranch (MCR), one of the nation’s primary suppliers of chinchillas for experimentation.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has suspended its “blue fish tick” eco-certification of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery following challenges from AWI and allies.
A host of musicians who had been slated to appear at SeaWorld Orlando as part of a concert series at the park have changed their tune—electing to bow out rather than take bows before a captive audience of orcas.
Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher is a visually breathtaking film that provides an intimate glimpse into the world of another species. When famed documentary filmmaker Craig Foster found himself unable to feel joy from any of his usual activities, he returned to his childhood home—a seaside bungalow near Cape Town, South Africa—and went free diving every day in an effort to “rejoin the natural world.”
An emerging black market for elephant skins is putting new pressure on elephant populations in Myanmar. Poaching has long been a problem in the country. But in the past, ivory was the draw and males the primary target.
An unusually large number of young bottlenose dolphins have stranded along shores of the Gulf of Mexico in recent months, and last April’s catastrophic blowout of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig is being eyed as the culprit.
Bats in the eastern US are now facing what could be their biggest challenge, with hundreds of thousands reported dead by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and many species heading toward extinction.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and a coalition of environmental and animal protection organizations strongly oppose Mystic Aquarium’s unprecedented request to import five captive-born beluga whales from Canada for scientific research.
Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, has long displayed beluga whales and conducted extensive research on them. However, the facility has now embroiled itself in a controversial request to import five captive-born belugas from Marineland in Ontario, Canada, a facility that has long been the target of protests for its overcrowded exhibit conditions.
Lobbyists and executives for Mystic Aquarium and Georgia Aquarium used back-door politics to try to win approval for a controversial permit application to import five captive-born beluga whales from Marineland in Canada, an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis of hundreds of documents has found.
The opposite is true – there are too few wild horses and burros on our public lands, and unless their numbers grow, the survival of these special animals is in jeopardy. During the 1800’s, it is estimated that there were more than two million wild horses and burros roaming the West.
It all happened so suddenly. I had just opened a fresh bale of alfalfa hay and was inspecting it carefully before putting it out for the unicorns. Alfalfa hay has excellent nutrition; rich in protein, calcium, and many vitamins. And since nutrition is closely linked to good health and reproductive success, it was very important to ensure that the unicorns had the best hay available. Alfalfa hay also has a marvelous aroma, which briefly distracted my attention.
If you ask the average American what they know of Australia, they might mention the Sydney Opera House, didgeridoos, boomerangs, the Great Barrier Reef, the Outback, and, of course, Australia’s iconic wildlife, including crocodiles, koalas, and ka
The Namibian government has granted an export permit allowing a game farm in the country to take five young elephants away from their families and sell them to a safari park in Dubai.
Naomi Rose, Marine Mammal Scientist for the Animal Welfare Institute, issued the following statement in response to today's hearing on AB 2140, regarding orca captivity: "We are pleased to see that the committee will further review this issue and help ensure SeaWorld finally comes to the table. The science is clear—holding killer whales in captivity is harmful to the whales and to the trainers. The interim study mandated by the committee will provide further evidence of the need for this bill. We look forward to participating in this effort and excited to return next session to pass this bill into law."
A scientific committee assembled by the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) National Research Council has completed a two-year study on the Wild Horse and Burro Program of the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
