People who hunt often speak about their own ethical standards—ensuring, for example, that animals have a sporting chance and a fair opportunity to escape their pursuer. It’s not the killing that matters, many say, but the tracking of wildlife in the outdoors, the thrill of the chase, and the matching of wits between predator and prey.
President Obama last week signed a much-discussed credit card reform bill, after Congress attached an utterly nongermane provision having more to do with reloading than refinancing. An amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) forces a reckless about-face on a Reagan-era rule which had, for a quarter-century, barred national park visitors from carrying loaded weapons.
Over the past few years, The Humane Society of the United States has conducted a series of investigations revealing widespread deception in the fur fashion industry.
Thousands of gun owners flocked to the National Rifle Association convention in Phoenix this past weekend, with participants and keynote speakers rallying around their core interests of concealed handguns, background checks, and President Obama’s gun policy. One topic that I suspect didn’t make the agenda: The NRA’s continued defense of poaching.
Imagine a drug dealer peddling heroin in a schoolyard, and then using the ill-begotten gains to hire a professional lobbyist to advocate for relaxing the drug laws. Or using drug money to make political contributions, hoping to curry favor with lawmakers.
An historic vote this morning in the European Parliament will have ripple effects for animals on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. All 27 member nations of the European Union will soon ban the import and sale of seal fur, drying up the market for Canada’s annual hunt of baby seals—the largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals in the world.
It’s a
consensus position that dogfighting is abusive and unacceptable, and an important part of
our work at The HSUS and HSLF involves strengthening the state and federal laws
to combat this practice. But it’s not enough just to wrestle down the cruelty
and put people in jail when it occurs—we also need to reach out to young people
and make sure they don’t get lured into the world of dogfighting in the first
place.
As everyone knows, money talks. Whether an animal welfare law will be effective often turns on whether it gets
adequately funded. And that spending is vital even when it comes in the worst economic times since the Great Depression. Our fortunes are intertwined with those of animals, and proper enforcement not only helps these creatures but also helps to improve food safety, public health, disaster preparedness, and other social concerns.
“Swamp Things,” a fascinating article by Burkhard
Bilger in the April 20 issue of The New Yorker, describes how the
exotic pet industry has helped transform the state of Florida into “a
biological cesspool of introduced life.” As fads of exotic birds, reptiles, and
primates have come and gone, nonnative species have established themselves
in the wild—transported by hurricanes or deliberately set loose by their
owners. As Bilger explains:
One of the quiddities of the U.S. Congress is that it’s slow
by design. Bills have to make it through both the House and the Senate, via
committee process and floor action in both chambers. That’s why more than
10,000 bills are introduced in a two-year congressional session, and only 4 to
5 percent actually become law.
