Our final 2024 Humane Scorecard is available, with a look at where federal legislators stood on our core priorities for the second session of the 118th Congress. The scorecard tracks animal-friendly actions by lawmakers while creating greater awareness and increasing legislators’ support for our priorities.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
We have a new name—Humane World Action Fund—and an ambitious agenda, grounded in the mission we’ve pursued for several decades: to deliver positive and permanent policy outcomes for animals. We are as committed as ever to bringing laws into greater alignment with humane values—the values of kindness, compassion and fairness to all creatures. These are values we share with tens of millions of people not simply within the United States but throughout the world.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House last month for a second term, his administration has been issuing dozens of executive orders, some of which can have an impact on animals.
Legal Agreement Spurs Deadline for U.S. Finding on Hippo Protections
Legal Agreement Spurs Deadline for U.S. Finding on Hippo Protections
WASHINGTON (Feb. 3, 2025)—A federal court approved an agreement today that requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine by July 27, 2028, whether the common hippopotamus should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
With allies and supporters, we have been doing all that we can to keep more sharks swimming safely in oceans all over the world. For years, we advocated for the passage of the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, which President Biden signed into law in December 2022, with strong bipartisan support.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
In a victory for wolves, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently denied two petitions filed by trophy hunting organizations aimed at removing federal Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the Western Great Lakes region and reducing or removing protections for wolves in other areas of the lower 48 states.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Inevitably, the passing of an American president offers an opportunity to think not only about an individual’s achievements in office, but to reflect on what those achievements say about our nation, and who we are, and what we can be. In this regard, Jimmy Carter leaves one of the richest legacies of anyone who has ever occupied the White House.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
On Wednesday afternoon, in a move supporting the notion that the species needs more time to recover, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would not prematurely remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears living in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems—the two largest populations in the continental U.S. Wyoming and Montana had petitioned the agency to delist grizzly bears and turn the management of the animals over to the states.