News has come out that another bull elephant was shot and killed in Tanzania, reportedly by an American trophy hunter from Texas. This is the third bull, believed to likely be another “super tusker,” beloved by locals, gunned down near the Tanzanian-Kenyan border, part of the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, within the past six months.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech marks a midway point in his term, and for us, an opportunity to assess the administration’s animal protection priorities. Like many animal advocates, we were buoyed by the legislative successes we helped to secure as 2022 closed. At year’s end, a...

An undercover investigation from the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International has ​ unearthed a thriving market for elephant ivory products in Massachusetts, as lawmakers there consider a bill that would ban the ivory trade within the state. Our investigators visited the...

What kind of world would this be if there were no regulation of the international trade in wildlife and wildlife parts? In a world in which commercial interests alone determined the fate of tigers, elephants and hundreds of other species threatened by trade, would these species really stand a chance...

The annual Dallas Safari Club convention is a sickening display of the havoc American trophy hunters wreak year after year on the world’s wildlife, with their penchant for killing endangered and at-risk animals. The pandemic has forced the 2021 convention to move online this year, but that doesn’t...

A canvas made of a whole elephant’s ear. Belts made with hippo skin. Elephant skin furniture. The annual Safari Club International convention in Reno, Nevada, had plenty on view that would shock and sicken the average person. But investigators for the Humane Society of the United States and Humane...

At the Safari Club International’s annual convention each year, wealth, privilege and power come together with a revolting goal: mowing down the world’s rarest and most beloved wildlife. This year’s event in Reno was no different. Trophy hunters heard speeches from guest of honor Donald Trump Jr...

Whenever I see social media posts by trophy hunters gleefully posing with the animals they’ve killed, I have a feeling of deep loss, for the individual animals slain, for those animals’ families and social networks, and for our planet. And I also feel a deep outrage, because to me those images stand...

So many of us were saddened this week to learn about the death of Beulah the elephant, who spent most of her 54 years in captivity and chains, working for a Connecticut-based traveling petting zoo. Beulah was just six years old when she was sold to the R. W. Commerford & Sons Traveling Petting Zoo...

The exploitation and abuse of big cats as props for paid public interactions at roadside attractions will soon be a thing of the past. As we recently shared, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, something we’ve been working on for over a decade, passed the U.S. Senate and just became law. It’s the...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson Weather-related disasters such as floods and wildfires are occurring more frequently and with increasing intensity across the United States. While there is a federal law that requires state and local authorities to consider household pets and service animals in their...

Nevada, one of the last remaining states without a ban on the ownership of exotic wild animals as pets, is now moving to pass a law to do exactly that. A bill, SB 344, recently passed the Senate and now awaits action in the Assembly. It would, among other measures, end the private ownership of...

The southern African nation of Botswana may be on the verge of bucking the global trend against trophy hunting. Last week, a subcommittee appointed by the president made the recommendation to end a ban on trophy hunting which has been in effect in the country for five years now, and to create new...

Botswana today auctioned off the lives of 60 of its elephants, giving trophy hunters around the world a license to kill these gentle giants for fun. This was the first elephant auction held since the country lifted a five-year ban on such hunts last year; it was conducted by a local auction company...

In a triumph for wild animals and the people who advocate for their protection, Belgium’s Parliament voted to prohibit the importation of hunting trophies from many endangered species into the country. This means that trophy hunters who pay top dollar to travel abroad to shoot endangered animals to death will no longer be able to bring home animal body parts to hang on their walls.

Update (10/26/2021): The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed rules to rescind two Trump-era critical habitat regulations. If these rules are finalized, they will restore the definition of "habitat" and regulations that govern critical habitat exclusions...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced a final rule to stop a strange, persistent and deeply disturbing cruelty that has survived more than a half century’s legislative attempts to suppress it. In a huge win, the new rule bans the use on Tennessee walking and racking horses of devices and substances integral to soring, including tall, high-heel-like horseshoes (known as “stacks”) and chains that bang against a horse’s chemically sored ankles, all used to cause excruciating pain. The rule also assigns sole responsibility to the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to screen, train and authorize inspectors, and creates an inspection system that relies on veterinarians, veterinary technicians or others employed by government agencies to enforce relevant laws and regulations. We believe that the rule puts the government on a much stronger footing to finally eliminate soring.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums announced this morning that it will phase out the use of bullhooks on elephants at its member zoos, taking the United States a giant step forward toward relegating these instruments of torture to history. According to an article in the Washington Post this...

In a senseless step backward, the southern African nation of Botswana yesterday announced it will once again allow trophy hunters to prey upon its natural bounty of wildlife, including its iconic elephants. The move, reported in the media as a political ploy by President Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi to...

The appropriations bill and accompanying coronavirus relief/stimulus package for fiscal year 2021 now advancing through Congress will bring critical and much-needed support to millions of Americans. We are also pleased to report that the package, which funds federal agencies, includes a number of...