Animal Wellness Action

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“Our nation needs a strong organizational voice for animals in the political sphere, and that's the notion that animates our work every day at animal wellness action. There is an asymmetry in power relations between people and animals, and that's why the law must speak and shield animals from human malice, greed, indifference, and cruel customs or habits. We need public policies to address cruelty in all its forms and to wipe it away - whether the abuse happens in a fighting pit, on a factory farm or in a drug-testing laboratory, at a horse slaughter plant in mexico, or in a forest or field where trophy hunters or commercial trappers lay in wait to kill animals for their heads or their beautiful coats. When you look at our campaigns - whether it's our cage-free future campaign to protect animals in agriculture, our animal fighting is the pits campaign to eliminate the scourges of dogfighting and cockfighting, and or our kangaroos are not shoes campaign to bar athletic shoe retailers from keeping the skins of majestic marsupials in their supply chains -- it feels sometimes like we are playing 15 or 20 games of chess at one time. We are making bold and strategic moves, and we are locked in political struggle with our opponents who seem hellbent on defending the status quo. With each move, the goal is to position us for ultimate success, even if it takes a while to get there. But "winning" a campaign does not translate into our political adversaries "losing" their way of life or their business operations. Our goal is to find a better way forward for the whole of society, including the people taking actions at odds with the wellness of animals. Resistance to change is often not grounded on reason, but on reflex. Researchers don't need to torment beagles or primates when non-animal testing methods, such as liver-on-a-chip technology, allow them to search out toxicities for drugs and to rely on more predictive human biology. Farmers don't need to confine animals so severely that they are unable to move; keeping them in less crowded conditions is less stressful for them and doesn't create an environment where disease spreads so rapidly. Adidas does not need to use kangaroo skins for its shoes, when sustainable fabrics get the job done better for the shoe buyer. Hunters can use non-toxic ammunition when they go afield, rather than continue to rely on poisonous lead ammunition that they scatter in the environment; that means their bullets won't keep killing eagles, hawks, foxes, and other wildlife long after they've left the barrel. In the march of human progress, it's a combination of moral purpose and human innovation that can show us the way forward. Making simple changes, and embracing better methods of conducting science, agriculture, or sport, leads to better outcomes for the whole of society. It's the right thing to do, and it's good for just about everybody. When you take a broad look at our policy goals for animals, you'll see that we are working to close out industries that have dogged animals for decades or centuries. But we are also tackling, and softening, major institutional uses of animals that are likely to be with us for decades to come. There's little debate any longer that greyhound racing, animal fighting, and horse slaughter are deeply unpopular. They've all got to go, and that's why we are working with diligence to create strong legal standards and enforce those standards with vigor. The laws we pass to phase out these practices will stand as statutory monuments to the moral progress we are collectively capable of achieving in our society. For more deeply embedded practices, it's important for us to keep the pressure on, with the goal of methodically reducing the numbers of animals used. This is especially true in animal testing in science and in intensive confinement of animals in agriculture. These businesses, which seem too normal to the people immersed in this conduct, are seeing eroding public support for them”

“More progress, less pain here are some of our organizations' tangible gains, whether they are small steps or leaps forward in a longer march of sweeping change and societal progress to benefit all animals. Cage-free future in 2024, we blocked the eats act in congress that was built to undo the most important state laws to protect animals used in agriculture. Specifically, it seeks repeal of laws, such as prop 12 in california and question 3 in massachusetts, that halt the in-state sale of pork and eggs from pigs kept in two-foot-by-seven-foot cages and of laying hens jammed in battery cages. We rallied democrats and republicans in the house and senate to defend these anti-extreme-confinement laws, and the proponents of eats weren't able to overcome our defensive maneuvers and didn't bring up the legislation for consideration. We know we'll have to be ready to defend these state laws in 2025 as some farm-state lawmakers gin up this assault on states' rights and animal welfare. Meanwhile, in a federal court in massachusetts, we fended off a legal challenge to question 3, which voters approved nearly a decade ago to halt sale of eggs, pork, and veal that come from the worst kinds of factory farms. The factory-farmed pork industry has mounted a two front assault on state laws - in the federal courts and in the congress - after their drubbing at the ballot box in states where voters chose kindness at the ballot box. These defensive maneuvers to protect prop 12 and question 3 also are protective of other state policies coming into effect. For instance, in january 2025, michigan law will require that all eggs sold in the state come exclusively from cage-free operations. Our goal is to expand cage-free and crate-free laws, not to see even one repealed. Relying on animal-housing strategies built around immobilizing animals is, on its face, mistreatment of animals. They have needs and wants like any creature, and the most basic idea is that animals built to move should be allowed to move. Animal fighting is the pits * we prevailed in a federal appeals court upholding a u.s. District court decision that animal fighting is banned on every inch of u.s. Soil, including in the northern mariana islands. This case turned back a cockfighters' challenge to the 2018 national animal fighting law arguing the law should not apply to this u.s. Territory. We won earlier cases in other u.s. District courts (and in appellate courts), affirming that the national animal-fighting ban is constitutionally sound as applied to puerto rico and guam. * there were a record number of animal fighting busts in the united states in 2024, and that's because of the prominence of our no-tolerance-for-animal-fighting campaign, our on-the-ground investigations, and our work with law enforcement. There has been a series of federal cases against dogfighters, including the apprehension of a former senior pentagon official knee-deep in the blood and guts of this betrayal of the human-animal bond. There has been an uptick in federal cases against cockfighting, but local sheriffs have done the spadework here - from florida to texas to california and in dozens of other states. We are reshaping and toughening up our animal-fighting laws, feeding information on these ongoing crimes to authorities, and demanding relentless action. There's never been a riskier moment for scofflaw animal fighters. A dramatic step-up in enforcement will be triggered when we persuade congress to enact the fight act. In 2024, we built unprecedented law enforcement support for the measure, winning the backing of the national sheriffs' association and the national district attorneys' association that represent all 5,000 elected officials in every county. More broadly, we have 760 agencies and organizations endorsing fight. Passing this legislation is among our top priorities for 2025. At the end of 2024, h5n1, or bird flu, has been on the march and, in response, usda has conducted mass killing of laying h”

“The u.s. Senate, with cory booker, d-n.j., rand paul, r-ky., and eric schmitt, r-mo., leading the way on the latest bill, has twice passed bills to turn the page on ineffective, wasteful, and inhumane animal testing - in september 2022 and in december 2024. We've seen nearly 1,000 news stories and science publications featuring that law and what profound changes it promises to usher in for animal well-being and the future of human health and wellness, too. Give a hoot about all owls * we filed a federal lawsuit against the u.s. Fish and wildlife service to stop its plan to kill nearly half a million barred owls in the pacific northwest. The plan is by far the largest-ever raptor killing program instituted by any nation. We also built a coalition of more than 250 groups and it's our goal to block the entire kill before it starts in the spring of 2025. Barred owls are a range-expanding north american native species long protected by the migratory bird treaty act. Range expansion is a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon. Especially in an era of climate change, we cannot punish species that adapt to opportunity or changes in the environment caused by humans. According to one study, a total of 111 other native, north american bird species have engaged in recent range expansions, with 14 of them into more states or provinces than barred owls have. We've rallied 200 organizations to oppose the assault on owls. Keeping wild horses wild * we worked with allies to stop a roundup and removal of the iconic wild horses at theodore roosevelt national park, with a major assist from north dakota governor doug burgum. But we know we must tackle the larger problem of tens of thousands of wild horses and burros being rounded up across our western public lands at an enormous cost to the animals and to american taxpayers. With burgum now serving as interior secretary, we may find a sympathetic voice to halt this abuse of free-roaming horses and burros and to give a break to taxpayers unwittingly financing a wasteful and inhumane program that's been on auto-pilot for years, no matter whether democrats or republicans have been in charge of it. Ending greyhound racing and horse-slaughter for human consumption * we are poised to close out a century of greyhound racing and slaughtering horses for human consumption, given the breadth of political support we've built in congress on both these policy reforms. We planned to pass a legislative amendment to the farm bill on these reforms in 2024, but congress deferred action on the legislation. We'll be ready to secure these policies and to close out inhumane businesses not in alignment with american values and now on the back end of a long decline. Saving wolves * we blocked congressional efforts by anti-wolf lawmakers to eliminate federal protections for the wild canids across most of their range. Meanwhile, we sued the federal government to restore federal protections for wolves in the northern rockies, where wolves are under assault. The killing is particularly ruthless in wyoming, where it's legal to run down and crush wolves with snowmobiles. It's because of that extreme cruelty that we formulated a national legislative campaign - the snowmobiles aren't weapons (saw) act - to ban using motorized vehicles to assault wolves and coyotes. We are also working to stop assaults on mountain lions, bobcats, and other native cats in the west, along with battling to stop the killing of bears for their gallbladders and bile for traditional chinese medicine. We are seeking to halt the mistreatment of dairy cows, engineered at the expense of their well-being for hyper production only to see the milk they dispense thrown away in the national school lunch program, which requires the milk be to provided exclusively to 15 million kids who are lactose intolerant and don't want it. Electing humane-minded lawmakers animal wellness action, as a 501(c)(4) organization, is equipped to elect humane-minded lawmakers and t”