2009 Summer
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About the Cover ABOUT THE COVER This nine-week-old North American coyote pup faces an uncertain future in a hostile environment where traps and snares frequently maim, kill or orphan wildlife. Each year in the United States, millions of wild animals—including coyote, wolf, bobcat, badger, raccoon,... more...
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IWC Defers Major Decisions Critical issues were on the agenda for the 61 st International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting, held June 22 to 25 in Madeira, Portugal; but those that were addressed were principally the minor ones. Instead, in the spirit of conviviality characterizing the IWC over the past two meetings,... more...
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U.S. Fur Sales Tank Internationally Despite the trapping industry’s sanguine spin, the fur market is bottoming out, presumably due to the global recession. The North American Fur Auctions (NAFA) named raccoon, coyote and beaver as species that usually drive the market, yet have seen the lowest sales this year. NAFA blames... more...
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Commercial Wildlife Farms Threaten Asian Fauna Results of a joint study between the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Vietnam’s Forest Protection Department revealed in May that commercial wildlife farms in Vietnam are threatening Asian animal species by depleting their populations and contributing to illegal trade. The findings... more...
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But Not a Drop to Drink Elephants in West Africa continue to struggle for survival during the worst drought in 26 years, reports African elephant conservation group Save the Elephants. With temperatures in the shade hitting 122 degrees Fahrenheit this season, the native cattlemen in Mali, who usually coexist peaceably... more...
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Gray Wolves Relisted; Polar Bears Left Out in the Cold To the disappointment of many, the Obama administration failed to rescind two decisions made under the Bush administration that will negatively impact gray wolves and polar bears. The gray wolf was added to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) 35 years ago, enabling it to survive after... more...
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Canning the Canned Hunt The government of South Africa, one of the largest captive hunting regions on the globe, officially banned the canned hunting of lions in June. About 120 active lion breeders run lucrative enterprises, where they breed and sell their lions to canned hunts frequented by trophy seeking... more...
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Ensnared Fox Kit Sustained by His Mother A three-month-old fox kit in the U.K. was rescued by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) this spring after enduring about two weeks caught in a body snare. Despite suffering life-threatening injuries from the trap, the kit was kept alive by his mother, who fed... more...
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Mystery Fungus Ravages North American Bat Populations Scientific community scrambles to understand the frightening plague and formulate a cure Bats in the eastern U.S. are now facing what could be their biggest challenge, with hundreds of thousands reported dead by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and many species heading toward extinction.... more...
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Turbines Threaten Endangered Bats The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, and a West Virginia local conservationist filed a complaint against Beech Ridge Energy and its parent company in June, contending that their massive industrial wind power facility being built in Greenbrier County,... more...
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Non-Invasive Genetic Sampling: A Kinder Approach to Population Estimation By Ellen Cheng Almost every wildlife biologist has experienced the sinking feeling of finding an injured or dead animal in a live-trap. Live-traps are used to capture animals, so we can monitor the health of individuals, estimate the number of animals in an area, and collect other... more...
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Dances with Wolves: Finding the Balance Between Rancher and Predator Interests By Nathan Lance Although wolves may not have drastic economic repercussions on the livestock industry as a whole, they can substantially affect individual ranchers when depredations become chronic. This creates a difficult environment in which to balance wolf conservation with other... more...
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Bodyguard of Lies By Tom Garrett It is not only war that is, in Churchill’s words, "accompanied by a bodyguard of lies." We live in a time when lies, perhaps more than ever before, are day-to-day tools of governments and of corporations. The public window to industrial pig production, cast briefly open... more...
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Raising the Bar on Raising Pigs In an exciting new development, the North Carolina Natural Hog Growers Association (NCNHGA) and Fudge Family Farms have begun requiring all of their member farms to be accredited by the Animal Welfare Approved program, whose standards for pigs necessitate pasture access and prohibit crates and... more...
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Illinois Court to Decide Fate of Mega Dairy The nonprofit group Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards (HOMES) of Jo Daviess County, Ill., achieved yet another victory against a massive, industrial-scale dairy operation. Investor and California millionaire A.J. Bos is attempting to build a dairy factory farm holding up to... more...
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Silencing Maryland’s Mute Swans The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced in June its intent to eradicate the state’s mute swan population by "reducing it to as low a level as can be achieved." The DNR blames the swans for excessive consumption of aquatic grasses and the subsequent degradation of the... more...
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Trapped in Debate By Camilla H. Fox Greenwash: The dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image. 1 Replace "THE Environment" with "wildlife" in the above definition, and this could easily describe the United... more...
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U.S. Supreme Court to Rule on “Crush Videos” At the request of the Soliciter General, the Supreme Court will review a case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, Pa., which overturned a conviction involving so-called "crush videos" and called the law prohibiting interstate trafficking in such footage an... more...
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Requests for Congressional Funding The annual appropriations process for fiscal year 2010 will begin in October, offering an avenue to improve animal welfare by directing Congress to spend—or not spend—money in certain ways. Earlier this year, AWI President Cathy Liss testified before the House Interior appropriations... more...
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Justice for Wild Horses and Burros The Restore Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act (H.R. 1018), introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), will restore the protections for America’s wild horses and... more...
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Broadening Whale Protections Delegate Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) and co-sponsors Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) recently introduced the International Whale Conservation and Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 2455) in the House of Representatives. The bill amends the... more...
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Keeping Shark Fins on their Rightful Owners Following passage of the Shark Conservation Act (H.R. 81) in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced a Senate companion bill (S. 850) to firmly close loopholes in the 2000 ban against shark finning in U.S. waters. The urgent need for action... more...
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Strides Toward Preventing Horse Slaughter The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S. 727) now has more than 140 cosponsors in the House and nearly a quarter of the Senate on board. The bill recognizes horse slaughter as animal cruelty and contains strong penalties and enforcement provisions to outlaw the slaughter of... more...
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Making a Leatherback Comeback The largest known population of leatherback turtles was discovered on the beaches of Gabon, West Africa, by an international team of scientists in May, Science Daily reports. Land and aerial surveys estimate the number of female nesting turtles to be anywhere between 15,730 and 41,373.... more...
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Canada Seal Hunt Takes a Clubbing The brutal annual slaughter of Canada’s harp seals may be gasping its last breaths this year. Though the Canadian government set the seal quota at 273,000 when the season opened in March, the hunt closed in June with 70,000 seals being killed, BBC News reported. Fishermen's livelihoods... more...
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Depths of Basking Shark Puzzle Plumbed Until recently, the winter whereabouts of the basking shark has stymied marine biologists. But according to a report published online in Current Biology, the mystery has finally been solved. Behind the whale shark, the basking shark is the world’s second largest fish, commonly observed... more...
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A Farewell at Sea A group of five pygmy killer whales appeared in the shallow waters off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kihei in early May—a worrisome and rare sight, since the species’ habitat is far offshore in deep waters. The Honolulu Advertiser reports that the animals lingered for three weeks, until... more...
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Emergency Protection for Loggerheads An emergency rule to protect loggerhead sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico took effect on May 18 and will be upheld for at least 180 days. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) passed the temporary rule after federal observers reported that the bottom longline fishing fleets that hunt... more...
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Coral Reef Loss Causes Fish Decline A recent study published in Current Biology by a group of international researchers shows that Caribbean reef fish populations have been steadily declining for more than a decade. The researchers used a technique called meta-analysis to examine the results of 48 previous studies of... more...
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Red Knots in a Bind As horseshoe crab populations dwindle, species up the food chain are feeling the pinch. You may have never thought twice about a horseshoe crab—or even once for that matter—but lately, people are noticing that perhaps they should. Having existed one million years before even the first... more...
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Dr. Marjorie Anchel-Rackow 1910-2009 Member of the Scientific Committee of the Animal Welfare Institute since 1967, Dr. Marjorie Anchel-Rackow passed away on April 29, a week shy of her 99 th birthday. Well known for her work in chemistry, Dr. Anchel was senior chemist and laboratory administrator for the New York Botanical... more...
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Chris Fisher 1961-2009 Chris Fisher, a bright, energetic and determined individual, passed away in April. Fisher was the architect and chief lobbyist behind the European Union (E.U.) Cosmetics Directive and the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods. He later joined Eurogroup for Animals,... more...
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Carol Noon 1949-2009 The animal protection community lost a true champion for chimpanzees on May 2, when Dr. Carole Noon passed away at 59 years of age after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Noon was the founder of Save the Chimps, the world’s foremost chimpanzee sanctuary, located in Florida and New Mexico.... more...
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Princess Elisabeth de Cro˙ 1921-2009 After 40 tireless years of advocating for animals, Princess Elisabeth de Cro˙ passed away on May 18. Descended from the kings of Hungary, the Princess used her celebrity to draw attention to global animal welfare issues and influence the policies of high-ranking government officials. The... more...
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The Cove www.takepart.com/thecove 2009, Runtime: 94 minutes The Cove is a highly suspenseful documentary that introduces viewers to Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer from the 1960s hit television series "Flipper." O’Barry, who has 10 years of experience training dolphins, has turned his knowledge... more...
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Animal Investigators How the World's First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species By Laurel A. Neme, Ph.D. Scribner ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5056-3 230 pages; $25 In her new book, Animal Investigators—How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species, Laurel Neme, Ph.D., tells the true story of a group of scientists... more...
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Roots of Human Behavior By Viktor Reinhardt Animal Welfare Institute ISBN 978-0-938414-90-2 141 pages; $8 Roots of Human Behavior is a vibrant photo documentation of the parallels between animal and human expressions, emotions and psychology. It is another book in a series of AWI publications... more...
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Class B Dealers Unnecessary, National Academy of Sciences Tells NIH Class B Dealers Unnecessary, National Academy of Sciences Tells NIH
In what AWI hopes will be the death knell for this cruel industry, a National Academy of Sciences Committee report funded by the NIH concluded there is no scientific need to purchase dogs or cats from Class B dealers for NIH research. more...
