There is an increasing tendency in animal research to ask the question, "Why not?"
Date created: October 3, 2011
Last updated: January 8, 2020
A bill introduced Friday by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) seeks to ban the use of wildlife-killing M-44 devices, commonly known as “cyanide bombs,” on federal public lands. These deadly devices—spring-loaded capsules armed with cyanide spray—have injured people and inhumanely killed thousands of animals every year.
Date created: August 9, 2021
Last updated: January 18, 2024
Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), introduced the Targeted Use of Sanctions for Killing Elephants in their Range (TUSKER) Act on September 11, a bill to impose trade sanctions on countries that facilitate ivory trafficking.
Date created: December 10, 2014
Last updated: April 24, 2024
On July 30, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) introduced the Polar Bear Cub Survival Act (HR 7876). Polar bears are one of many species facing ongoing threats from the oil and gas industry.
Date created: September 3, 2020
Last updated: April 17, 2024
AWI has been working closely with Representative Ted Lieu’s (D-CA) office on the Lead Endangers Animals Daily (LEAD) Act, which was introduced on July 9. Rep.
Date created: September 3, 2020
Last updated: April 17, 2024
At a press conference on Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced that he will introduce the Orca Responsibility and Care Advancement (ORCA) Act. This landmark legislation would phase out the captivity of orcas so that their display ends with this generation. Specifically, it would prohibit the breeding, the taking (wild capture), and the import or export of orcas for the purposes of public display.
Date created: November 6, 2015
Last updated: February 2, 2022
A shocking new report released today reveals that more than 100,000 dolphins, small whales and porpoises (small cetaceans) are slaughtered globally in hunts each year—many to be used as fishing bait. Most of these hunts are unregulated, illegal, and unsustainable, with potentially wide-ranging adverse impacts on small cetacean populations.
Date created: August 7, 2018
Last updated: February 7, 2022
The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) released a report in early 2017 that scored restaurants, producers, and grocery stores on their commitment to farm animal welfare.
Date created: June 26, 2017
Last updated: June 26, 2017
In response to the Hallmark-Westland slaughter plant exposé, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assessed what had transpired at Hallmark, if it could have been prevented, and whether similar pr
Date created: July 16, 2013
Last updated: January 17, 2024
Amid reports of COVID-19 outbreaks at the largest meat processors in the United States, a new analysis of government documents by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has found that, over a three-year span, JBS USA and Smithfield Foods had the worst animal welfare records among livestock slaughter plants.
Date created: April 29, 2020
Last updated: January 18, 2024
Scientists announced today that only 10 vaquita porpoises likely remain in the world and that the animal's extinction is virtually assured without bold and immediate action. The vaquita, the world's smallest and most endangered cetacean, is found only in Mexico's northern Gulf of California.
Date created: March 13, 2019
Last updated: February 7, 2022
Scientists announced this week that only an estimated 30 vaquita porpoises remain in the world. In a new report, the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA) recognizes that the extinction of the vaquita—the world’s smallest and most endangered porpoise, found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California—is imminent unless Mexico permanently bans gillnet fishing, removes illegal nets from the water and increases enforcement efforts.
Date created: February 2, 2017
Last updated: February 2, 2022
Wildlife trafficking and the unsustainable wildlife and plant trade is a multibillion-dollar industry and a major threat to species in the United States and worldwide, according to a new report released today that highlights 10 species imperiled by this burgeoning trade.
Date created: December 18, 2020
Last updated: February 2, 2022
A report issued today by conservation groups finds that 11 nations have at least some fisheries that fail to meet US standards for preventing whale and dolphin bycatch.
Date created: November 30, 2023
Last updated: November 30, 2023
In a letter sent today to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) urged the agency to protect poultry from mistreatment, citing more than 50 recent situations in which birds were knowingly neglected or abandoned during transport or at the slaughterhouse. Many of these incidents appear to violate state animal cruelty laws.
Date created: August 9, 2018
Last updated: February 7, 2022
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) wishes to recognize US Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) with its "Profiles in Compassion" award for his uncompromising leadership on animal welfare issues throughout his 14 terms in the US Congress.
Date created: January 23, 2009
Last updated: February 3, 2022
The annual appropriations process for fiscal year 2010 will begin in October, offering an avenue to improve animal welfare by directing Congress to spend - or not spend - money in certain ways.
Date created: August 11, 2009
Last updated: January 17, 2020
When necessary, AWI requests enforcement against or prosecution of parties that violate or fail to enforce existing laws or policies. These requests are made at the federal, state, and local level.
Date created: February 28, 2022
Last updated: August 2, 2024
Tilikum, the 12,000-pound male orca at SeaWorld Orlando who was featured in the documentary Blackfish in 2013, was probably born in 1980, give or take a year. Ever since he killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, in 2010, he’s been beating the odds by surviving.
Date created: March 22, 2017
Last updated: January 15, 2020
The objective of toxicology and pharmacology studies is to detect change or variation from normal and to interpret the significance of such change, with the intention of assessing risk to man.
Date created: May 9, 2016
Last updated: October 30, 2020
Date created: August 29, 2024
Last updated: August 30, 2024
The Florida breeding facility that has masqueraded as a sanctuary and received 31 macaws seized in Virginia (AWI Quarterly, Winter 2009), is liquidating and auctioning off all its birds and exotic cats.
Date created: November 5, 2009
Last updated: January 17, 2020
What happens to animals in research, after they are no longer needed for a study? In some cases, the research protocol does not call for euthanasia of the animals. Thus, rather than needlessly killing them, institutions are slowly beginning to find ways to provide these animals a life and a home after research.
Date created: March 6, 2015
Last updated: April 24, 2024
The abysmal animal welfare record of the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is well documented: three stipulated penalty fines from 2007, 2010, and 2013 totaling $58,633 and a pending complaint filed by the USDA on March 9, 2015.
Date created: September 16, 2016
Last updated: January 15, 2020
The USDA reached an astonishingly weak settlement on December 2, 2016, with SNBL USA, an animal dealer and registered research facility—despite allegations of egregious violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) by the company dating back to 2002. (See AWI Quarterly, winter 2016.) The settlement includes the following provisions:
Date created: March 17, 2017
Last updated: October 11, 2019
