By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
A federal court has rejected an attempt to stop Congress from closing a loophole that allowed cockfighters to continue operating in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and Guam, despite the fact that cockfighting is a felony in all U.S. states.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
For years now, trophy hunters have spun a web of lies to tie their ruthless killing of some of the world’s most at-risk animals to fake conservation benefits. A recent exchange in the prestigious Science magazine has laid bare links some scientists have with the trophy hunting lobby, and it has led to the magazine revising its own policy on how it identifies letter writers with ties to lobbying interests.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The U.S. House has just voted overwhelmingly to crack down on some of the worst and most malicious acts of animal cruelty, including crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, and impaling live animals and sexually exploiting them. The watershed vote takes us one step closer to a federal anti-cruelty statute that would allow the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute those who commit such unspeakable crimes against innocent animals.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The federal government has filed a brief strongly defending a law that would expand the ban on cockfighting in the United States to Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Today, the U.S. Congress once again provides good news for animals. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved two Fiscal Year 2020 bills that cover funding for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Commerce—including federal agencies whose activities and programs have enormous consequences for animals.
Rabbits are docile, loveable animals who we view as companions. Unfortunately, they, along with guinea pigs, mice, and rats, are still used for cosmetics testing for products like lipstick, toothpaste, lotion, and shampoo. In fact, approximately 500,000 animals suffer and die worldwide every year due to cosmetic testing where substances are forced down animals’ throats, dripped into their eyes, or smeared onto their skin, and they are left to suffer for days or weeks without pain relief.
The Protect America’s Wildlife and Fish In Need of Conservation Act, (H.R. 4348)—also known as the PAW and FIN Conservation Act—introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and 23 colleagues, received an important hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee today. This critical bill would stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from implementing irresponsible and dangerous rules designed to gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and decimate federal protections for our world’s most imperiled species.
A House committee today approved four key pieces of animal protection and conservation legislation to alleviate threats faced by some of the world’s most iconic and at-risk species, including a bill that would end harmful public contact activities with big cats, another that would crack down on the shark fin trade in the United States, one that would continue a critical conservation funding source, and a bill that would restrict the import of the body parts of endangered and threatened large animals killed overseas by trophy hunters.
