AWI Quarterly Articles | Government/Legal

It only took 20 years, two lawsuits, and prodding from Congress for the US Department of Agriculture to finally propose regulations to extend Animal Welfare Act (AWA) protections to birds not bred for use in...

Two AWI-supported state bills recently became law and another is on the cusp. In March, Governor Eric Holcomb of Indiana signed HB 1248 into law, prohibiting public contact with lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, jaguars...

Program oversight With nearly half the fiscal year over, Congress finally finished work on the fiscal year 2022 spending bills. The good news is that they contain several important provisions aimed at improving animal welfare...

On January 1, Hawaii became the first US state to make shark fishing illegal. The law bans anyone from knowingly capturing, entangling, or killing any shark species in the state’s marine waters. There are certain...

This is part two of a two-part series. In our previous issue, we described the devastating impacts that a warming planet is having on wildlife and its habitat. Here, we examine initiatives the Biden administration...

The Horse Protection Act (HPA) was passed in 1970 to clamp down on the practice of soring (intentionally injuring horses’ legs and hooves) to create a more high-stepping gait for walking horse shows. Weak enforcement...

Congress has made little progress on finalizing fiscal year 2022 spending bills—an unfortunate circumstance given that many of them include important provisions that would benefit animals. The House agriculture appropriations bill provides funds to assist...

As part of its coronavirus relief package, Congress gave the US Department of Agriculture $300 million to monitor susceptible wild and domestic animals for the presence of COVID-19. Over the summer, the department proposed a...

In October, Representative Alma Adams (D-NC) reintroduced the Public Safety and Wildlife Protection Act. A longstanding AWI priority, this bill would prohibit the import and export of, as well as interstate commerce in, two of...

For years, US Department of Agriculture inspectors dutifully documented suffering: Chinchillas with eyes swollen, weeping, and sealed shut; a thin, unresponsive chinchilla, missing part of her leg, brutally “euthanized” by breaking her neck; another with...