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Preliminary Victories and Setbacks on Federal Animal Welfare Issues
During the last 24 hours on Capitol Hill, there have been some major debates on animal protection—with some preliminary victories and setbacks. Here’s my report from Washington:
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Lawmakers Speak Out on Animal Protection
The Hill newspaper today published its annual special edition on animal welfare, which demonstrates again the importance of animal issues to lawmakers and their constituents. This special edition provides a great overview of important animal welfare policies now being debated in the U.S.
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Momentum Builds for Hen Welfare Legislation
I wrote a round-up in March of some of the nation’s largest newspapers that have published editorials endorsi
Elections /
Wag the Dog: Canine Issues the Presidential Candidates Should be Talking About
The presidential campaign is in full swing, and animal lovers have surely noticed there is more talk about dogs than in previous elections: Mitt Romney’s family vacation in the 1980s in which Seamus, the Irish setter, became sick during a 12-hour trip on the roof of a station wagon; and Barack Obama’s writing that, as a child, living with his stepfather in Indonesia, he once ate
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Pork Industry Needs to Clean Up Its Act
[Please note: Includes graphic descriptions of animal abuse.]
If you follow the issue of farm animal welfare closely, you are probably aware of the “flat-earth” types out there in Big Ag beyond the fringes of reality. If you point out to them the cruelty of certain factory farming practices, like the lifetime of misery spent by breeding pigs in tiny crates, the flat-earthers are ready with knee-jerk denials. If you show them video proof of animals being mistreated, they brush off the pictures as somehow “edited” and that, really, there is nothing wrong.
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Maryland Court Unleashes Canine Profiling
Dog lovers across the country are barking mad over last week’s Maryland Court of Appeals decision declaring that all pit bull-type dogs are “inherently dangerous.” The misguided and overreaching ruling treats all pit bulls and pit bull mixes as a category, rather than individual animals.
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NRA Poster Boy Pleads Guilty to Poaching—Again
Ted Nugent, the NRA’s longest-serving board member and a featured speaker at the NRA’s recent convention in St. Louis a couple weeks ago, has pleaded guilty in federal court for transporting an illegally killed black bear in Alaska. He reportedly shot a bear with a bow and arrow, but failed to kill the animal. Four days later, he shot another bear in violation of the law.
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Senate Subcommittee Hears Bill to End Chimp Research
Just following Earth Day and the release of the Disney Nature documentary Chimpanzee, which features chimpanzees in the wild where they belong, Congress considers the fate of the approximately 950 chimpanzees currently languishing in six U.S. laboratories.
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House Votes to Shoot Down Conservation Laws
The U.S Congress has a lower approval rating than polygamy and pornography, and sometimes it’s easy to understand why. When it comes to creating jobs, passing a budget, and meeting other important challenges for the American people, there is little more than gridlock and partisan bickering. But when it comes to bilking the American taxpayers to benefit special interests such as the trophy hunting lobby, there’s just no stopping them.
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Shoot Down Polar Bear Trophy Hunts and Other Radical Proposals
As early as next week, the U.S. House of Representatives may consider H.R. 4089, the so-called “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012,” a highly controversial omnibus bill that combines several radical hunting proposals into one awful package. Among other things, the legislation seeks to allow importation of polar bear trophies taken in sport hunts in Canada; mandate that the Department of Interior and the U.S.
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Don’t Turn the Clock Back on Animal Welfare Enforcement
Congress made important progress last year addressing serious gaps in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s enforcement of key animal welfare laws by providing the agency much-needed funding to allow for better inspection programs.
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Tiger Mascot Costs Too Much to Tackle
Nearly five months after Terry Thompson sent about 50 tigers, lions, bears, and other dangerous exotic animals to their deaths by setting them free in the community of Zanesville, Ohio, state lawmakers now have a bill in front of them to crack down on the problem of exotic pets. Senate Bill 310, introduced by Sen.
