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By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The Humane Society of the United States has helped make significant progress in ending wildlife killing contests, in which contestants massacre large numbers of coyotes, foxes, bobcats and other wild animals for cash prizes. Seven states now ban such contests and we are working with lawmakers in other states to end them. But the pandemic has added a new, insidious dimension to this cruelty, with more and more contests being held online, where they appear to be thriving.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

It is a bloody scene at the Texas weigh-in of the “De Leon Pharmacy and Sporting Goods’ Varmint Hunt #1” on a cold January morning this year. Participants in this wildlife killing contest are unloading the bodies of bobcats, grey foxes, coyotes and raccoons from their trucks, which are expensively outfitted for the killing with raised decks, comfortable chairs and gun mounts. Sixty or so animals have been slaughtered over the contest’s 21-hour period, using assault rifles and other powerful weapons.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

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 mean it has become any less deadly.

Tom Vilsack’s confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Agriculture was today. If he is confirmed by the full Senate, it will mark the official launch of our 2021 animal welfare agenda with the agency he will lead for a second time. But for several months already, we’ve been advancing our priorities concerning the United States Department of Agriculture with President Biden’s transition team and members of Congress.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The canned hunting industry is often associated with countries like South Africa, where wealthy trophy hunters can pick out and shoot captive-bred lions in enclosures for a hefty price tag. It is, literally, the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, and it is a practice so shameful, many hunting groups disavow it.

With our final 2020 Humane Scorecard now online, we invite you to check out how your federal legislators stood on a range of key issues. Please share this scorecard with family, friends, and fellow advocates and help spread the word!

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

One more nation, Sweden, announced today that it will suspend all mink fur farming this year to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and its mutations.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The Biden administration has withdrawn a deplorable pending rule that would have allowed qualifying chicken slaughter plants in the United States to permanently dial up line speeds from an already inhumane and lightning-fast 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

A U.S. District Court has ordered Jeff Lowe, a notorious big cat exhibitor who took over the running of Joe Exotic’s zoo, GW Exotics, to surrender all big cat cubs and their mothers in his possession over allegations of mistreatment.

The preliminary injunction in the Department of Justice case for recurring inhumane treatment and improper handling of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act was based on shocking findings by the U.S Department of Agriculture at Lowe’s facility in Oklahoma.