In our recent USA Today opinion piece, we wrote about the cascade of events that sparked passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act late last year. Among other factors, the pandemic-era Netflix sensation Tiger King laid bare the cruelties of the cub petting industry so devastating to animals, making...
The COVID relief package Congress just passed includes a number of provisions that will improve surveillance and inspection of trades where animals often endure acute suffering and that also tend to be hotbeds for disease spread. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 is primarily designed to provide...
Nordstrom, one of the country’s largest luxury fashion retailers, will stop selling products made with fur and exotic animal skins at all of its U.S. locations by the end of next year. Nordstrom joins a growing number of retailers like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s that have announced fur-free policies...
Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized critical trade protections for African elephants. Serious threats such as poaching, habitat encroachment and climate change continue to imperil this endangered species; African elephants have suffered a severe population decline over the last 100 years. The new rule under the Endangered Species Act seeks to increase scrutiny over trade in live elephants, like those imported for zoos and captive settings, and their parts, including trophies imported from trophy hunting expeditions.
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted the world to acknowledge the pressing need to change our relationship with animals. From the wildlife markets implicated in the origin of the novel coronavirus to the slaughterhouses that have become clusters for its spread, we now know only too well that our...
California has once again topped our 2018 Humane State rankings list, after overwhelmingly passing the strongest farm animal protection law in the world, and by enacting a law that bans the sale of cosmetics tested on animals -- the first U.S. state to do so. Oregon, which has some of the strongest...
Today, on World Lion Day, we celebrate lions as an iconic wild cat species, and we recommit to our campaigns to halt their exploitation and destruction in the United States and abroad. We are giving it all we’ve got. In the wild, of course, this iconic species is among the most imperiled of all with...
Costa Rica’s gorgeous biodiversity has made it a haven for wildlife tourism. But in the age of social media, the impact on the wild animals themselves has not always been a positive one. In a 2017 study, Costa Rica was identified as one of the world’s top 10 countries where tourists take selfies in...
When Humane Society of the United States investigators go out to take a close look at facilities that keep captive birds—roadside zoos, animal markets and others—they almost always return with the same dispiriting reports of dismal treatment and living conditions. Owls and hawks tightly chained to...
We recently celebrated progress toward protecting wolves, bears, coyotes, cougars, foxes, bobcats and other native carnivores living on the vast U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service advanced a rule that would protect them from lethal and flawed “predator control” programs. Until the rule is finalized, however, their lives still hang in the balance, waiting for a decision that could mean the difference between life and death. Such is the power that public policy has over the lives of animals. And it’s just one decision that we’re urging the Biden administration to make before election season stalls critical activity to finalize protections for so many species.
Update (3/6/20201): The Senate has just passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and it includes almost all of the provisions we supported and pushed for that would benefit animals. The House and Senate will next work on a compromise version of the two packages, following which the bill heads to...
