Every year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service celebrates our country’s wildlife refuges with National Wildlife Refuge Week. Since Teddy Roosevelt’s simple “I so declare it” established Florida’s Pelican Island as the first refuge in 1903, 150 million acres of land and water have been set aside to serve as protected habitat for thousands of species. Visitors to these areas reconnect with nature through a variety of activities, including wildlife watching, hiking, kayaking, and photography.

Today, on The Hill’s Congress Blog, I wrote about how the pork and beef industries, funded by check-off dollars, lobbied against federal legislation that would have improved the treatment of egg-laying hens – taking a knee-jerk position despite the fact that the bill had no impact on them. Since Congress punted on the issue, the corporate sector has stepped up big time. We are seeing a rapid movement among producers, retailers, and restaurant chains toward cage-free eggs, with major corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s making recent announcements.

It’s not just Europe where ground beef and meatballs could be tainted with horsemeat.

The tragic death of Cecil the lion—senselessly shot by an American dentist with a bow and arrow and left to suffer for hours before being shot again—has exposed the pay-to-slay subculture of wealthy people who spend a fortune to kill the grandest, most majestic animals in the world. The public outrage shows no signs of slowing down.  

Good news for horses: a bipartisan group of more than 100 members of Congress, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, joined together as original cosponsors of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act introduced last night in the U.S. House. Led by Reps. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., who are both veterinarians and co-chairs of the House Veterinary Medicine Caucus, along with the leadership team of Reps.

It’s well established that malicious animal cruelty indicates a broader social pathology and lack of empathy, and the perpetrators often are indiscriminate in choosing victims – one day it’s a dog or a horse, another day it’s a neighborhood child or just some innocent passerby.

Yesterday was a mixed day of results for animals on Capitol Hill, with some setbacks and some progress on a number of different fronts for companion animals, wildlife, and farm animals. 

What good news there was came in the Agriculture Appropriations Bill that passed the House Appropriations Committee.

Today the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed H.R. 2494, the Global Anti-Poaching Act, sponsored by Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Ranking Member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

More than 30 countries—home to 1.7 billion consumers—prohibit the manufacture and sale of animal-tested cosmetics. The United States can help accelerate the pace of reform worldwide and drive the market toward cruelty-free products with new bipartisan legislation introduced today in Congress.

Some anti-wolf politicians in Congress are once again pushing to force the removal of wolves from the Endangered Species Act and to block wildlife biologists, the courts, and so many members of the public from having anything to say about it.  It’s the worst kind of back-room deal-making, and we need your help now to stop it.