Sunday, December 22, 2024

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

One of the urgencies that defines our mission in this era is the rapidly increasing threat to wild animals all over the world. Under the overwhelming pressures of biodiversity loss, shrinking habitats and climate change, untold numbers of wild animals also face the cruelty of the illegal wildlife trade, trophy hunting, predator control and businesses that want to lock them in cages, pools, circus rings or petting zoos for entertainment. Others simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, sparking human-wildlife conflict and its too-often fatal “solutions.”

Where the threats are many, dexterity is essential. We are proud that our work to end cruelties that afflict wildlife involves a multitude of strategies designed to ensure their protection. Here are just some of the pro-wildlife practices and policies we pursued in 2024:

Protecting wild animals from cruelty

We take action to stop cruelty from finding animals in their wild homes, whether it’s the manifest harms of the wildlife trade or the scope of a trophy hunter’s rifle.

  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a rule that will effectively ban elephant hunting trophy imports from certain countries that serve as major destinations for trophy hunters—a win for the conservation of the species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
  • We released an undercover investigation that exposed a thriving market for elephant ivory in Connecticut, showing that the weak patchwork of laws addressing the elephant ivory trade is not enough.
  • We and our allies won an injunction in federal court halting wolf trapping in Idaho’s grizzly bear habitat, an area covering roughly half of the state. The court’s ruling cited the unacceptable risk that indiscriminate steel-jawed leghold traps and snares pose to grizzlies.
  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule under the Endangered Species Act to support reintroduction and recovery of grizzly bears within the North Cascades Ecosystem.
  • The U.S. National Park Service finalized a rule to ban the use of donuts, dog food, meat scraps and other smelly bait to attract brown bears and black bears to be hunted and killed on Alaska’s national preserves.
  • We successfully shielded cougars from additional trophy hunting in Washington, where the state’s wildlife commission adopted rules based on a petition we submitted with coalition partners.
  • In Texas, we supported a successful effort to ban the canned hunting of cougars and establish a trap-check time to spare animals caught in traps from prolonged suffering before their deaths at the hands of trappers.
  • With allies, we successfully defeated a proposal by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Commission to reduce the population of mountain lions.
  • We sent an expert delegation to the International Whaling Commission conference in Peru to advocate for better protections for cetaceans and an end to commercial whaling.
  • In Iceland, we worked alongside our partner groups to amplify calls for a ban on commercial whaling there including submitting a 2.2 million signature petition with Avaaz.
  • We collaborated with Costa Rica’s National Environmental Security Commission to train more than 170 law enforcement officers on combating the illegal wildlife trade and best practices for handling confiscated animals and conducted three workshops for Costa Rican authorities about how to care for wildlife seized in judicial and police operations.
  • In Guatemala, with our local partner ARCAS, we provided training for wildlife officers from the National Council of Protected Areas on the threats of illegal wildlife trafficking. The training covered topics such as the proper handling of confiscated animals and human-wildlife interactions and coexistence.

Defending wild animals kept in captivity

  • In South Africa, we helped governing authorities take the first steps to close the captive lion industry and press for the surrender of its stockpiles of lion bones and parts.
  • In England, we welcomed new restrictions on the keeping of primates as pets, making it an offence to own a primate privately without a license.
  • In Guatemala, with the support of ARCAS Rescue Center, we facilitated the rehabilitation and release of 112 animals from 18 different species, including endangered scarlet macaws, margays, anteaters, raccoons and more, all of whom had been rescued from wildlife trafficking and other exploitative practices.
  • In the U.S., we helped secure the passage of three state-level bills ending the use of some wild animals in circuses. We led the campaigns in Maryland and Massachusetts and supported the effort in Virginia.
  • We shined a bright spotlight on roadside zoos by releasing the findings of our undercover investigations: In New York, we documented the cruelties at a sloth-petting business and  delivered our findings to local and state law enforcement. Local media outlets reported extensively on the investigation. Our investigation of two SeaQuest locations (part of a chain of retail shopping mall operations that sell exploitative public encounters with wild animals), revealed hungry animals begging for food, animals terrified by public interactions, stressed animals exhibiting neurotic behaviors, and roach-infested conditions. Our undercover work at several roadside zoos over the years, and this year at SeaQuest, has resulted in multiple national media stories, such as an ABC News feature.
  • Wild animals kept captive on fur farms so that they can be brutally killed suffer tremendously, which is why we also fight the fur trade all over the world—read more about 2024 wins in this work.

Preventing conflict and improving coexistence

Too often, responses meant to address human-wildlife conflict result in significant harm to animals. In 2024, we advanced and implemented humane and effective approaches to conflict resolution that promote coexistence.

  • This year, animal care and control professionals across the U.S. took more than 2,200 trainings from our Wild Neighbors team in humane wildlife conflict resolution techniques.
  • More than 130 animal care and control organizations signed our Wild Neighbors pledge, making a total of more than 800 agencies/organizations in the U.S. and abroad that have committed to policies and procedures for humanely responding to conflicts with wildlife in their communities.
  • For prairie dogs in the U.S., we tested new translocation techniques for large landscape managers while translocating 749 prairie dogs to prevent colony collapse during an epizootic plague. We also contributed to the management response effort that protected 220,000 prairie dogs.
  • For all species of vultures in South Africa, we created a recovery and reintroduction program that addresses a number of threats that imperil these birds, including habitat loss and degradation, poisoning and electrocution.
  • In Canada, we achieved a national ban on the use of strychnine, a poison used to kill “pests” such as wolves and coyotes, which results in horrific, drawn-out deaths of both target and nontarget wildlife, as well as secondary poisoning of other animals.
  • For elephants in India, we entered into a five-year agreement with the Karnataka Forest Department to establish long-term elephant population monitoring programs, build agency capacity for conflict management work and promote coexistence.
  • In India, our snakebite mitigation program continues to bring humane and practical solutions to help communities live safely alongside snakes. The government of India’s National Center for Disease Control launched a National Action Plan for Snakebite Envenoming, now the primary policy document for all state governments to formulate their own strategies for snakebite reduction outreach. With other organizations, our India team helped to shape this policy.
  • In Viet Nam, we celebrated better protections for the country’s wild and captive elephants after two years of hard work with key government ministries. This collaboration promises to improve elephant monitoring, reduce conflict between people and elephants, and implement best practices in key elephant ranges across Viet Nam.
  • In the UK, we celebrated a ban on the use of glue traps by the public to catch rodents in England coming into force, following the success of our “Unstuck” glue trap campaign— plus, a complete ban on snares to trap animals and a near-total ban on rodent glue trap use in Scotland.
  • In Costa Rica, we’ve made strides in strengthening wildlife coexistence practices across infrastructure, tourism, urban areas and agriculture. This includes preventing wildlife-vehicle collisions, promoting ethical tourism and mitigating conflicts between wildlife and livestock. Over 500 individuals from local municipalities, government agencies, organizations and law enforcement received training. Additionally, through the Costa Rica Silvestre project, which promotes sustainable coexistence between wildlife and human communities, we reached over 8,000 people, including schoolchildren, government officials and community leaders.
  • In El Salvador and Argentina, we continue our commitment to promoting coexistence with pumas. In El Salvador, we trained six municipalities in areas with highly endangered puma populations, focusing on coexistence strategies as part of the National Puma Conservation Plan in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. In Argentina, we supported the Pumas de las Pampas project, assisting with mitigation strategies in areas where negative puma encounters were reported, leading to significant reductions in such incidents and fostering better coexistence.

Defending progress for wild animals

Ensuring progress for wild animals demands a devotion to also fight harmful measures that would roll back protections for wildlife.

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld New York’s landmark ban on the sale of elephant ivory and rhino horn. This is a heartening win because this ruling affirms the right of states such as New York to create laws that protect wildlife and end their own participation in markets for cruel products. Attorneys from our Animal Protection Law team helped to defend the New York law in court.
  • We joined wildlife protection groups to garner support against anti-wildlife policy riders in the final fiscal 2024 Interior-Environment Appropriations bill in the U.S. Congress. The House version of this bill included deep funding cuts to wildlife programs, attempts to undermine federal rulemaking, and provisions to block federal protections for specific species such as the gray wolf and grizzly bear. The final version of the bill, passed in March 2024, rejected these riders.
  • Our persistent legal work spanning nearly a decade led to proposed Endangered Species Act protections for giraffes, which, if finalized, will restrict all giraffe imports into the U.S., including trophies, parts and products.
  • We defeated a proposal to strip protections from wolves in Washington; multiple bills in Minnesota that would have mandated a wolf trophy hunting and trapping season if wolves lose their Endangered Species Act protections; and a bill in Iowa that would have placed a bounty on raccoons.
  • In seven U.S. states, we defeated “right to hunt” preemption measures that would have enshrined archaic and cruel methods, including hounding, baiting and trapping, into their constitutions.
  • In Canada, we successfully campaigned to uphold a ban on spring bear hunting in Nova Scotia, the only ban of its kind in the country, which had come under pressure and threats from trophy hunting interest groups.

The wrongs committed against wildlife worldwide present tremendous challenges to all those trying to make a difference, but we remain determined to make this world a better one for wild animals. Our wildlife teams don’t shy away from a challenge or a fight when the welfare of animals is on the line. Whether it’s stopping an existing cruelty or preventing an imminent one or helping to implement lasting humane solutions to human-animal conflict, we’re building a better world for wild animals. And it lifts our spirits to know that you are with us every step of the way.

Kitty Block is CEO of the Humane Society of the United States

Wildlife