By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Our vision is to create a more humane world in which humans and animals live in harmony and no animal suffers from the actions of people. For wild animals, in our era of intense pressures from climate change and the loss of biodiversity and habitat, this means keeping wild animals wild, defending the ones kept in captivity from further harm, and supporting human communities to prevent conflicts that could cost animals their lives.
This year, we achieved some incredible progress for wild animals and raised awareness of their plight, whether they are living in the wilderness, confined to a cage or found in unnatural or unusual situations where they need urgent help.
Here are just a few of the ways we helped the world become a more humane place for wildlife in 2025:
Australia
Earlier this year, ten whales—including three calves —off Australia's coast entangled within days of each other made headlines once again exposed the indiscriminate cruelty of shark culling nets to the world. Humane World for Animals Australia has been advocating for the removal of these cruel nets for years. Responding to our campaign, local councils in Queensland have voted to remove shark culling nets during whale migration seasons putting pressure on the Queensland state government to end the program In New South Wales, under pressure from our team to remove the nets altogether, the shark net season was shortened by one month so that fewer turtles, dolphins, sharks and rays will be killed. We’re continuing our work in 2026 to protect whales and other marine species from any further entanglements.
Meanwhile, on land, we’ve been working to protect wombats from persecution as “pests” when they tear apart fences seeking to move freely across landscapes. As with any negative encounter with wildlife, there are humane solutions. That’s why we are working with Australian landholders to trial special wombat gates designed to let the animals safely pass through.
The dingo has also long been considered a “pest,” but that’s starting to change with help from Humane World for Animals. We supported the state of Victoria in ending its bounty on dingoes that incentivizes their killing, while the state of South Australia recognized the dingo as a native animal, accepting their unique place in Australia’s natural heritage and the ecological benefits they provide. Dingoes are still widely persecuted, but these are signs of promising progress.
Every country can play a role in protecting wild animals in other parts of the world by banning the import of hunting trophies, and this year the Australian government committed to banning the import of trophies from 20 additional species including giraffe, hippo, zebra and bears (black, brown and polar), adding to existing bans on African elephant, African lion and rhino trophies. We are now working with the government to ensure implementation of this commitment in 2026.
Canada
When a roadside zoo in Quebec went bankrupt earlier this year, the lives of seven African lions hung in the balance. It’s a problem we see far too often—captive wild animals at the mercy of business owners with no plan for their care if something goes wrong. Too often, their fate is euthanasia simply because organizations with the resources and qualifications to care for these wild animals aren’t brought in.
Not this time. We rescued these lions, and with Canada's only Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries-certified sanctuary, we built temporary housing facilities for the lions while we found them permanent placement at sanctuaries in the United States. They are safe and sound now.
Europe
Humane World for Animals Europe helped to reestablish a cross-party wild animal welfare interest group in the European Parliament named “MEPs for Wildlife” focused on supporting the implementation of the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking. We celebrated this achievement by launching our co-authored report “Stolen Wildlife” at an event at the European Parliament in Brussels to highlight the urgency of the plight of wild animals impacted by illegal trade.
In France, lawmakers voted to support our proposed National Budget Amendment, which would see a tax levied on French companies organizing trophy hunting trips to hold French commercial operators accountable for exacerbating pressures on global wildlife and biodiversity.
In Poland, we trained more than 600 police officers and prosecutors on wildlife protection issues and co-developed a handbook on wildlife law enforcement for authorities which has been incorporated into the internal police portal for training and educational materials. The bill banning the import of hunting trophies from African elephants, African lions, giraffes and Southern white rhinos into Poland has been submitted to the Parliament, launching the parliamentary process. This is the result of years of campaigning to stop the import of hunting trophies from endangered and threatened species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) into Poland.
And in Iceland, we partnered with Whale Friends to urge international tourists visiting the country to take the For The Love of Iceland pledge not to eat whale meat. Most Icelanders don’t eat whale, so the vast majority of whale meat in Iceland is eaten by tourists who therefore hold enormous power to save these magnificent mammals by making ethical choices during their travels there.
India
Snake persecution in India is a conservation and welfare issue that sees many thousands of snakes needlessly killed or relocated every year, largely out of people’s fear of snakebites. An estimated 58,000 people die from venomous snakebites in India every year, and up to 200,000 experience life-debilitating morbidity. In 2025, Humane World for Animals India and the Liana Trust successfully trained 100% of Mysore district’s Community Health Officers to be first responders to snakebite incidents, including preparedness and first aid. By equipping these officers with the knowledge they need and helping communities understand how to thrive alongside these wild neighbors, this workshop not only saves human lives but also helps reduce the killing of snakes out of fear.
Latin America
Latin America is home to incredible biodiversity. But with that fortune comes unique struggles around negative interactions with humans and wildlife and illegal trade in wild animals. In Costa Rica, we worked to increase the penalties for wildlife crimes and to better integrate wildlife offenses, such as illegal trade, into the broader legal framework around organized crime. We also trained law enforcement officials to be able to better identify and respond to wildlife trafficking incidents at national and international levels.
Our teams also provided wildlife coexistence trainings and educational programs to organizations, wildlife and law enforcement officers, firefighters, municipalities, government entities, school children, community members and more in Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador. In El Salvador, Humane World for Animals Costa Rica, through a partnership with the Ministry of Environment wildlife clinic, helped 2,500 birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians who needed care because they had come into negative interactions with humans or pets, needed rehabilitation or had been kept as pets or illegally trafficked. Thanks to our partnership with ARCAS Rescue Center in Guatemala, we completed five release events for 117 rehabilitated wild animals including crocodiles, tortoises, parrots, raptors, owls, monkeys, raccoons, anteaters and opossums who had been saved from the pet trade and other negative interactions.
South Africa
Elephants are highly emotional and intelligent animals who bond closely with their families, and so when an elephant is killed it is devastating for the herd. Elephants also need to roam, covering many miles of ground per day. Wherever human development has splintered habitats or degraded their food or water resources , elephants and people can come into conflict. When they do, the elephant invariably loses, often killed as a so-called ‘problem animal’. In 2024, an astonishing nine members of one of South Africa’s smallest free-roaming elephant herds (numbering only 37 elephants in total) were killed because of such negative interactions. We knew something more had to be done.
The spirit of our work is to prevent animal suffering by preventing conflict in the first place. Humane World for Animals South Africa has been working with the wildlife management authority to protect this herd since 2020, first by treating the females with immunocontraceptives to prevent local overpopulation within their specific range, collaring herd members and bulls for monitoring and human-elephant coexistence, deploying additional humane mitigation methods and partnering with Elephants Alive to train elephant monitors to act as elephant shepherds, and notifying ground response teams of elephant positions close to human developments. This year, this elephant herd received life-saving protections thanks to a groundbreaking partnership between Humane World for Animals South Africa, Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and Loziba Wildlife Reserve. In November 2025, together with our partners Global Supplies, we helped to shepherd the remaining 28 elephants into the Loziba Wildlife Reserve, where they are now safer.
Like many scavenger species, vultures tend to be underappreciated for how vital they are for healthy ecosystems, helping to clean up the environment by eating animal carcasses and therefore reduce the spread of disease. Vultures are among the most threatened birds on the planet, due to human-related threats such as habitat loss, deliberate poisoning and poaching. So, we are working with our partner Vulpro to help restore vulture populations in South Africa. Earlier this year, we participated in a heartwarming release of vultures back to the wild, and we also funded a breeding enclosure for endangered lappet-faced vultures and a hatchling enclosure for critically endangered white-backed vultures.
United Kingdom
In the UK, we raised attention to wildlife in public spaces and halls of power. Our trophy hunting photography exhibition, Still Life, opened at Mall Galleries in London, featuring 35 photographs by wildlife photojournalist Britta Jaschinski depicting wild animals killed for their parts and bodies. The photo exhibition then moved to the House of Commons, where it was attended by over 35 Members of Parliament. Baroness Hayman, minister for animal welfare and biosecurity, spoke at the event and reiterated the UK government’s commitment to ban hunting trophy imports.
We also urged the House of Commons to strengthen wildlife laws across Britain through the launch of our joint Act for Wildlife report and campaign with the RSPCA. Our report provides evidence and recommendations to policymakers on UK wildlife law reform.
We also kept people accountable for failing to uphold commitments to wildlife by documenting and highlighting violations and ongoing inhumane practices: Our investigation showed that glue traps are still sold widely across England, despite the national ban we secured in 2024, and that people are being told by some shopkeepers to drown animals stuck to glue traps.
United States
Across the U.S., as more animal control officials are trained in humane, nonlethal management and handling methods, the country is becoming a safer place for wildlife. This year, our Wild Neighbors team trained over 1,500 animal care and control professionals and wildlife responders from 600 different agencies/organizations.
Our team defeated 57 proposed bills in multiple states that would have eliminated and/or weakened protections for wildlife. These included attempts to open new hunting seasons on black bears, mountain lions and wolves, delist gray wolves at the state level; open year-round hunting of mountain lions, and allow or expand the cruel practice of hounding--hunting wildlife with packs of dogs. We also stopped measures that would have enshrined widely despised practices like trapping, baiting and hounding in state constitutions.
Washington became the 12th U.S. state to enact restrictions on the use of some wild animals in circuses and other traveling shows and exhibitions; nearly 200 localities nationwide have restricted the use of wild animals in traveling acts.
At the federal level, we protected wild horses from the slaughter pipeline by maintaining current funding and safeguards for wild horse and burro management in both the House and Senate annual federal funding bills for the Department of the Interior despite the Administration’s budget request to eliminate such safeguards. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to give seven additional species of pangolins—the world’s most trafficked mammal—the highest level of protection under the Endangered Species Act. We and our partner organizations petitioned and fought for these pangolins to be listed for a decade.
Some long fights continue, but wins emerged in their course: In August, for example, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke the law when it decided not to protect gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains under the Endangered Species Act. The ruling came in a lawsuit that we and our allies filed last year. Although the government has appealed the decision, we will continue to fight alongside our allies to do everything we can to ensure wolves get the protections they need.
Viet Nam
Fewer than 200 critically endangered wild Asian elephants remain in the fragmented forest habitats of Viet Nam. Humane World for Animals Viet Nam has worked relentlessly to secure a future in which these elephants can thrive alongside people—not just survive. To that end, our team has helped establish Viet Nam as an emerging hub for evidence-based, regionally relevant elephant conservation leadership. As a mark of this, we hosted the 12th Asian Elephant Specialist Group meeting in Dong Nai.
Our team also worked to reduce demand for rhino horn by engaging audiences in educational programs across multiple media platforms. We worked with Vietnam Airlines to air an in-flight commercial on over 85,000 flights, reaching over 17.5 million passengers, to raise awareness of the suffering rhino poaching causes animals and how they can be responsible tourists to reduce demand. Through a parallel influencer initiative, trusted figures from healthcare, business and law helped spread the message to over 600,000 online users, earning the video more than 10 million impressions on top business media outlets. By the end of 2025, survey findings revealed a significant drop in self-reported rhino horn use and a 70% decrease in social exposure to rhino horn since 2020.
At Humane World for Animals, we often say that it’s not enough to save the day; we also have to change the world. To that end, we also participated in the global treaty on wildlife trade as 2025 was coming to a close. Representatives from 185 regions came together at the 20th CITES convening, which took place in Uzbekistan. Together with other advocacy organizations, we were able to beat back proposals to reduce protections for white and black African rhino species, as well as giraffes.
Defending wildlife and creating global systemic protection that values wild animals everywhere they live is essential for creating permanent change. Many wild species facing threats from climate change, the pet trade, trafficking and other pressures received CITES protections from international trade or had their protection status strengthened, such as endangered whale sharks and critically endangered gulper sharks, manta rays and devil rays, two species of critically endangered African vultures, Galápagos land iguanas and marine iguanas, Hoffmann’s two-toed and Linné’s two-toed sloth and two Australian endemic gecko species.
In addition to all this progress, our animal sanctuaries, Black Beauty Ranch in Texas and Second Chance Chimpanzee Refuge in Liberia, are devoted to caring for so many wild animals who have been saved from cruelty and need lifelong care. Every single day those animals enjoy their lives, rather than languishing in situations where they suffer, is a win.
Changing the world for wildlife is exactly what we are determined to do, and that means changing how people see and relate to wild animals. We are immensely proud to be working together to bring our vision of a humane world to life.
Kitty Block is president and CEO of Humane World for Animals.
