By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The killing of Cecil the lion five years ago this week by an American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe triggered worldwide outrage. Father of a pride, lured with an elephant carcass, wounded by an arrow, he suffered for hours before being killed by gunshot. As it turned out, this was a shot heard around the world, giving momentum to global demand for an end to trophy killing of animals.
In this challenging time, we want to shine a spotlight on a bipartisan group of lawmakers who led the way together during the last year in making the world a better place for animals. Humane Society Legislative Fund and Humane Society of the United States are pleased to present Senators Pat Toomey, R-Pa, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Representatives Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., with our 2019 Humane Legislators of the Year Award for their successful leadership in establishing a national anti-cruelty law, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
We’ve just learned that Donald Trump Jr.’s trophy hunting trip to Mongolia, where he hunted an argali sheep—an animal listed as "threatened" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act—cost American taxpayers a whopping $77,000.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The Trump administration has just delivered a one-two punch to Alaska’s wildlife: it has announced that it will release a final National Park Service rule allowing some of the cruelest practices for killing black bears, wolves and other wildlife on national preserve lands in Alaska; and it has announced it will propose overturning Obama-era protections for brown bears and other animals on two million acres of public lands in the state's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted the world to acknowledge the pressing need to change our relationship with animals. From the wildlife markets implicated in the origin of the novel coronavirus to the slaughterhouses that have become clusters for its spread, we now know only too well that our uncaring attitudes and indifferent practices toward animals can have grave consequences for human health.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The World Health Organization is calling on nations to end wildlife markets because of the high risk they pose for the spread of pathogens like the coronavirus that can jump from animals to humans.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
Like an alarm bell in the night, COVID-19 has cut through the uneasy silence of the world’s failure to address pandemic illness tied to the trade, transport and consumption of wildlife. The notion that we could have prevented COVID-19 by taking decisive steps to curb that trade a decade or two ago should and will haunt us for generations. Still, it is not too late to act, and it is more urgent than ever that we do so.
By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
The nation’s most authoritative voice on infectious diseases today sounded a stern warning about the dangers of the wildlife trade and its relationship to pandemic diseases like COVID-19.
In an interview with Fox News, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci called for the global community to pressure China and other nations to close down their wildlife markets, where live animals are sold and slaughtered for food.
