Today, we have posted the preview version of our annual Humane Scorecard covering the second half of the 119th Congress to help you assess the position of federal legislators on our priority measures. The 119th Congress has presented our movement with unprecedented challenges in many areas of serious concern, and with your support and engagement, we’ve done our best to hold the line against the worst threats to animal protection.

Creating a more humane world for animals often involves rallying support for laws that will protect animals from harm. But it also involves sounding the alarm when efforts to weaken legal protections for animals emerge. Recently, a petition surfaced in front of the California Fish and Game Commission that, if successful, would have allowed private individuals to keep some species of primates as pets. Our wildlife team knows that the wild animal pet trade causes immense suffering on a massive scale, so they took immediate action.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The Trump administration struck a harsh blow to wolves late last week. In an executive order, Trump tasks Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to determine within 90 days whether two species of wolves who inhabit the United States—gray wolves and Mexican wolves— meet the criteria for removing their Endangered Species Act protections.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The factory farming of mink for fur is cruel and unnecessary, and it certainly shouldn’t be subsidized by the United States government. Or any government.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service detected H5N1, avian influenza, on a mink fur farm in Salt Lake County, Utah. This marks the first detection of the contagious virus on a fur factory farm in the U.S.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

On a cold winter morning in January 1966, state troopers with a search warrant raided the property of an animal dealer in White Hall, Maryland. There, they found scores of dogs in distress, chained to boxes and barrels, jammed into wire pens and chicken crates, mired in their own waste, with no shelter from the elements or the numbing temperatures.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

This week, the New York Times reported that several hundred of America’s wild horses have been sold to slaughter, in a total betrayal of public trust, congressional direction and the historic legislation that first set the stage for their protection in the mid-twentieth century.

9/16/26 update: The Senate Agriculture Committee passed their version of the Farm Bill today, without the controversial Save Our Bacon Act on a party-line vote of 12-11. The Senate will need to work with the House, which included the Save Our Bacon Act in their version of the bill that passed in April, on a final version of the Farm Bill.

8/6/26 update: The Senate Agriculture Committee did not pass a Farm Bill today, leaving the controversial Save Our Bacon Act out of the legislation as negotiations continue.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The movement to end the cruel puppy mill pipeline has reached a significant milestone now that Delaware has passed a law prohibiting the sale of dogs and cats in pet shops.