We Are All Cecil
Yesterday’s action by the California Fish and Game Commission to ban trapping of bobcats in the state is yet another big advance for animal protection. The commission, led by its two newest appointees, grounded its action not on concerns about scarcity, but around the very notion . . .
Progress on Ag-Gag and Puppy Mill Fronts
With public opinion continuing to turn sharply against the safari hunting escapades of American trophy hunters and a cascade of major airlines announcing they won’t transport trophies from the African Big Five, there was other big news on other fronts – in particular, on factory . . .
Compass Sets Coordinates to Achieve 5 Freedoms
The latest thunderbolt on the farm animal protection front comes from Compass Group, the world’s largest food service company. Compass Group USA is embracing the Five Freedoms for Animal Welfare for its procurement practices, building on similar declarations made earlier this year by Walmart, Aramark, and . . .
Time for Major Airlines to Stop Shipping Africa Big Five Trophies
Breaking News: Today, both Delta and United – the biggest U.S. based carriers to Africa – announced new policies that ban transport of trophies from lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards, and buffalo – the “Africa Big Five.” These announcements come in response to the global furor of . . .
Time to Shut Down Trophy Imports of All Lions to the United States
Overnight, we learned that Zimbabwean officials will seek to extradite Walter Palmer from the United States, for luring a male lion named Cecil out of a park and wounding him in an unauthorized area, before killing him 40 hours later. The HSUS and Humane Society . . .
American Public Roars After It Gets a Glimpse of International Trophy Hunting of Lions
Cecil the lion is dead because Walter Palmer the dentist is a morally deadened human being. The man traveled clear across the world – from the suburbs of Minneapolis into the pay-to-slay world of Zimbabwe, where dictator Robert Mugabe sells off hunting rights and other . . .
Breaking News: Cheesecake Factory Makes Major Announcement on Gestation Crates, Cage-Free Eggs
The Cheesecake Factory—a restaurant chain with nearly 200 locations—announced it is embracing the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare for its farm animal procurement program. The first steps include eliminating pork from operations that use gestation crates by 2020 (two years ahead of its earlier announced timeframe) . . .
Breaking News: Nepalese Organizers Announce an End to the World’s Bloodiest Animal Sacrifice Spectacle
A few months back, I wrote with burning anger and sadness about the world’s largest animal sacrifice, Nepal’s Gadhimai festival, an event held every five years that results in an orgy of killing – nearly half a million animals slaughtered in the open air. Today, . . .
MARC’ed Progress
In January, with an inside view from a long-serving, whistleblowing veterinarian, The New York Times exposed appallingly cruel and unnecessary experimentation on farm animals at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (MARC), a government-run laboratory in Nebraska. Reporter Michael Moss documented scientists at the Center . . .
Breaking News: Obama Announces Landmark Commercial Trade Ban on Ivory
With Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, President Barack Obama announced that the United States will take urgently needed steps to curtail wildlife trafficking and address the devastating elephant poaching crisis, issuing a proposed rule that will establish a near-complete ban on the commercial ivory trade in . . .
Korea Dog Meat Trade Survivors Settle Down in Forever Homes
In January, I shared the story of 23 dogs who managed to make it out of a dog meat farm in South Korea – which, for all of the other dogs who’ve ever met the fate of being caught up and caged in such a facility, . . .
Time for Federal Anti-Cruelty Statute
Today, our federal legislative priorities gained even sharper focus with the introduction of the Senate version of the Prevent Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, advanced by U.S. Senators Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. This bill, introduced in the U.S. House as H.R. . . .
