Today, the Council of the District of Columbia voted unanimously to pass the Healthy Students Amendment Act of 2018, which codifies into law the District’s implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP). The program, a brainchild of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and the Center for Good Food Purchasing, prioritizes sustainability, local economies and animal welfare.
The Animal Welfare Approved standards prohibit cruel conditions and practices that other labels allow. The animals breathe fresh, clean air, instead of fumes from their own waste and grow naturally without pain and deformities caused by unnatural breeding for fast growth.
Governor Maggie Hassan is poised as we go to press to sign HB 1410, making New Hampshire the 27th state to allow courts to include pets in protection orders. What sets the New Hampshire bill apart from most other laws is that it covers livestock.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department today withdrew a proposed administrative rule that would have allowed bobcat hunting and trapping in the state for the first time since 1989.
by Chris Farmer, PhD, Hawai‘i Program Director, American Bird Conservancy, and Lisa “Cali” Crampton, PhD, Project Leader, Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) applaud today’s introduction of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Protection Act of 2022, which—if passed—would represent the most meaningful update to federal law governing wild equine management in more than 50 years.
A historic win for equine welfare was achieved in May when the US Department of Agriculture finalized long-awaited Horse Protection Act (HPA) regulations to protect Tennessee walking horses from the brutal practice of horse soring—whereby horses a
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has published its first-ever set of guidelines for the humane slaughter of mammals and birds. In it, the AVMA addresses several recommendations offered by AWI, including those questioning the humaneness of low-voltage electrical stunning of poultry.
A massive fire at Red Bird Egg Farm in Pilesgrove, NJ, Monday night killed an estimated 280,000 egg-laying hens, marking one of the most devastating barn fires in the United States this year.
This summer, New Jersey and New York, two states that represent key ports of entry into the United States for consumer goods (and wildlife trafficking), passed laws to help stem the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn.
The New Jersey legislature passed Nosey’s Law (S1093) to ban the use of wild and exotic animals for entertainment in traveling animal acts. If, as expected, the bill is signed by Gov.
After a years-long effort by animal advocates, dog fighting is now an offense under New Jersey’s racketeering statute. The new law (S 736) creates two new crimes: “dog fighting,” which has also been added to the list of offenses under the state’s anti-racketeering law, and “leader of a dog fighting network.”
New Jersey has been free of steel-jaw leghold traps since 1985—one year after the state legislature banned the possession, use, manufacture, sale, importation, or transport of all leghold traps. AWI and other animal advocates had worked for years to educate residents on the dangers and suffering associated with these traps, including that the traps can break animals’ bones and that some animals held in the vise-like grip chew off the trapped limbs to escape on three legs.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the Humane Farming Association commend today’s introduction of the Emergency and Disaster Preparedness for Farm Animals Act (H.R. 243) led by Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN).
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) unveiled a new publication entitled “Representing Domestic Violence Survivors with Pets in Ohio: A Manual for Domestic Violence Attorneys & Advocates Helping Survivors Obtain Protection Orders.” The manual is designed to enable attorneys and advocates in Ohio to better assist pet-owning domestic violence survivors. It offers a step-by-step approach to simplify the inclusion of pets in protection orders, allowing survivors to take control of their lives and escape abuse along with their pets.
A number of procedures have been developed and implemented in recent years that widen the range of methodological options for conducting experiments with nonhuman primates by obviating the need for chronic surgical implantation of catheters. Blood pressure (BP) measurement In animal studies, and in nonhuman primates in particular. has been conducted almost exclusively through the use of chronic indwelling catheters connected to external transducers. In such a system. a heparinized fluid-filled catheter is surgically inserted during anesthesia into a large artery or directly into the ventricle and tunneled subcutaneously to an exit site. The catheter is then protected from the awake animal either through the use of restraint chairs or, more recently, by use of harness-tether or harness-telemetry systems.
On February 23, the Silver City, NM town council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the state to ban steel-jaw leghold traps, strangling snares and other painful body-gripping traps on public lands.
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross and the oldest wild bird known to science, has just become a mom again. In February, Wisdom and her mate, Gooo (so named because he was banded with the identification number 6,000), hatched what could be Wisdom’s 40th chick at their nest within the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, part of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and the Animal Defense League of Arizona (ADLA) this week launched a digital campaign aimed at discouraging the public from buying tickets to attractions that exploit captive dolphins. Through the campaign, the organizations are specifically targeting potential customers of Dolphinaris, an entertainment facility that opened last year near Scottsdale, Arizona,and offers swim-with-dolphin activities.
Seventy-seven percent of Americans are opposed to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) proposed surgical sterilization experiments on wild horses, according to a newly released survey.
Eighty-eight percent of American consumers believe that claims such as “humanely raised” or “sustainably farmed” on meat and poultry products should be based on meaningful, measurable standards, according to a newly released survey.
Since the Biden administration took the reins in January, animal welfare and organic farming advocates have resumed their push to reinstate the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) rule under the US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program. In April, 40 former members of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB)—the federal advisory board established to provide recommendations to the USDA regarding organic production—sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack expressing concern about the integrity of the National Organic Standards and urging the department to move forward with a number of NOSB recommendations that have been proposed but not implemented, including the OLPP rule.
The Taiwanese government must act quickly to ban gill and trammel nets and stop development from further degrading the habitat of the critically endangered Taiwanese white dolphin, according to a new recovery plan drafted by an international team of marine mammal and policy experts.
Whether they are thoroughbreds running full tilt around an outdoor track or walking horses stepping gracefully across an arena, horses bred for competition undergo extensive training and conditioning.
Today, in the wake of the latest Faroe Islands drive hunt on Friday that killed 42 more pilot whales, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and six other leading animal welfare and marine conservation organizations released a new report presenting evidence to challenge claims that the annual drive hunts are humane, sustainable, and integral to local culture.
