This week, a few hundred industry participants have gathered in Shelbyville, Tennessee, for the 80 th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration: an event that has over the years seen many cruelly treated horses -- victims of a practice known as horse soring -- exhibited and their owners...
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...
Just over five years ago, our teams rescued Douala along with more than 200 other wild animals from the St. Edouard Zoo, an unaccredited zoo in Quebec, Canada, which had a history of warnings and charges from the local government. This time, the operator of the zoo had been charged with two counts of criminal cruelty and neglect following an investigation by the Montreal SPCA, leading to the seizure of these animals and the closure of the zoo.
It is a scenario that would be impossible to fathom anywhere other than with in the bizarre world of walking horse competitions. Last Saturday, at the annual Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, the event’s top honor of World Grand Champion went to a horse, I’m Mayhem, trained by a man named Rodney...
This Friday, with the release of Disney’s “Black Beauty,” a new generation of moviegoers will be introduced to Anna Sewell’s beloved story of a horse who goes from a carefree life as a foal to one filled with troubles before returning home to peace and love. The book, narrated as an autobiographical...
By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson Thousands of tigers, lions, leopards and other big cats are kept in private homes and poorly run exhibits across the United States. These wild and dangerous animals are forced to spend their lives in inhumane conditions, locked up in small cages that are as far from...
A bill that would ban the sale of dogs from large-scale commercial breeders at pet stores is making its way through the Pennsylvania state senate. If it passes, Pennsylvania would become the third state in under two years to end pet store sales of dogs from puppy mills -- facilities that breed dogs...
A bill that would prohibit public contact with big cats like tigers, lions and leopards and ban keeping these animals as pets has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate. The Big Cat Public Safety Act, S. 1210, would end the suffering of animals like Elsa, a tiger cub kept as a “pet” and found outdoors...
By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson A bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives today introduced a bill to crack down on puppy mill cruelty by closing loopholes in the law that allow problem breeders with severe and multiple Animal Welfare Act violations to continue doing business as usual. The Welfare...
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 U.S. Department of Justice just announced that Inotiv will pay more than $35 million, including an $11 million fine for violating the Animal Welfare Act, the largest in the Act’s history, because of violations that occurred at a facility that bred dogs for use in animal testing in Cumberland, Virginia. Inotiv is the parent company of Envigo RMS, which owned the breeding facility. As a result of these violations and a federal investigation, during 2022, our team removed more than 4,000 beagles in a monumental effort.
A major win for animals in Italy caps off a year of remarkable progress toward a fur-free future. Today, the Italian Senate Budget Committee approved an amendment that will shutter the country’s 10 remaining fur farms within six months and enact a permanent ban on fur farming throughout Italy. This...
