Murchison, TEXAS—A group of exotic wild animals who spent their lives at a deplorable roadside zoo in Canada are now receiving proper care and living their happily-ever-after at the 1,400-acre Black Beauty Ranch, a sanctuary that is part of the Humane Society of the United States. The animals...

Just as a historic freeze sent temperatures plummeting in Texas in February, overwhelming the state’s power grid, breaking pipes and leaving roads slick with ice, a strange call came into the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office near San Antonio. Someone said they heard an animal crying outside their...

India leaps into his pool, pouncing on a purple plastic egg—his favorite toy, according to his caregivers. After a few minutes, the tiger ambles over to his watering tub. Instead of taking a drink, he plops in and closes his eyes in contentment. Although he’s young—roughly 10 months old on this June...

BOSTON—Today the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development heard testimony on bills prohibiting the use of elephants, big cats, primates, giraffes and bears in traveling exhibits and shows (H.3245 and S.2197/S.2189). This critical, bipartisan legislation serves to...

Black Beauty Ranch—which is the world-renowned sanctuary for rescued animals operated by the Humane Society of the United States—becomes another beacon of light for humane treatment of animals in the growing network of the Trust’s Humane Stewardship Alliance lands. With over 1,400 acres in Murchison...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the Big Cat Public Safety Act (H.R. 263) by a vote of 278 to 134. The bill would prohibit keeping tigers, lions and other big cat species as pets, and ban direct public contact like cub petting. Sponsored and championed by Rep. Michael Quigley...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate just passed the Big Cat Public Safety Act (H.R. 263, Senate companion bill S. 1210) by unanimous consent. This follows the bill’s passage by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 29. The legislation prohibits keeping tigers, lions and other big cat species as pets, and...

The first time Tim Harrison rescued privately owned big cats was back in 1982. A public safety officer at the time, Harrison and other responders found a male lion pacing around a small enclosure, a lion cub who appeared severely ill, bears, snakes and other animals on an Ohio property. It was rare...

Danielle Tepper had always loved dolphins. When she went on vacation to Hawai'i, she knew she had to see them firsthand. Tepper—now a senior editor at the Humane Society of the United States—wanted to do it ethically, so she avoided captive dolphin attractions. Instead, she booked an excursion to...

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Buy a house with a two-acre property, let our energetic herding dog have the run of the place and spend blissful summer days digging side by side in the dirt with her. And it was blissful, watching Mattie carve out her napping spots behind the ferns and tall...

On summer evenings, my husband and I head to the darkest spot of our property to look for the light—in the form of fireflies rising from meadow grasses and twinkling their way into the trees. As the tulip poplars behind this spectacular display settle in for slumber, white yucca flowers open their...

Black Beauty Ranch offers a fresh start to the domestic and exotic animals who roam its 1,400 acres. Whether they were rescued from roadside zoos, research laboratories or the exotic pet trade, some struggle to acclimate to life as wild animals. While providing the necessities that support their...

INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana’s law prohibiting direct public contact with big cats and bears goes into effect on July 1. Implementation of this law brings much needed protection for some of the animals who have been subjected to public handling and forced to live in abysmal facilities in the state...

Somewhere toward the end of the last ice age, we formed an alliance with wolves: Maybe the ancestors of dogs got food scraps while our own ancestors gained protection from predators and other humans. These social species eventually collaborated on a vast scale, possibly even hunting woolly mammoths...

Black Beauty Ranch’s most famous unofficial resident lurks out of sight in the mud at the bottom of a horse pasture pond. He weighs perhaps 150 pounds, with a spiked shell like a plated dinosaur’s and a massive jaw. To catch food, he lies in wait, opening his mouth wide to reveal a worm-like...

Goblin might not have lasted much longer at Tim’s Reptiles and Exotics in Pulaski County, Kentucky. The sulcata tortoise was one of about 150 animals rescued in September from nightmarish conditions at the pet store when local police arrested the store operator on 19 counts of animal cruelty...

We’re delighted to welcome the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey’s Pinelands region to the Humane Stewardship Alliance. With 767 acres of swamps, bogs, forests, fields and lakes, this new HSA member’s land supports an impressive array of woodland warblers and other songbirds, several owl...

One of the Humane Stewardship Alliance’s newest members—Nirvana Ridge Wildlife Refuge—is a 170-acre property in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here, Karen Lamb, Refuge founder and a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, provides safe habitat for wildlife and essential care for orphaned, sick...

WARNING: This page contains graphic content. When rescuers slowly creaked the rusty door open, the dilapidated building appeared to be empty. Windowless and dark, the sheet-metal structure held no noise, only air thick with spiderwebs, dust and the burning smell of ammonia. Then a head with small...