President Trump’s pardon of Joe Exotic is an affront to animal-loving Americans, Republican, Democrat and independent, and it will be viewed with outrage today and for many years to come. Joe Exotic, a.k.a. Joseph Maldonado Passage is a serial tiger abuser/killer who was serving a 22-year sentence...
For many years now, Humane Society International has been at the forefront of a hot war against the dog and cat meat trade across Asia. We have taken on many high-profile fights and we’ve made tremendous progress, from pushing back hard against China’s Yulin dog meat festival to shuttering dog meat...
In a long-awaited move, the U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced important reforms to tighten licensing requirements to prevent those who mistreat animals in their care from carrying on business as usual. All dealers and exhibitors, including puppy breeders and roadside zoos will now need...
When they learned there was a way out of raising puppies for sale and slaughter, two business owners in Viet Nam seized the opportunity. Because they contacted our team in Viet Nam to help them transition their businesses to kinder livelihoods, they will no longer be complicit in the trade that kills 5 million dogs and 1 million cats each year for meat in Viet Nam.
This week, our Animal Rescue and Response team was dispatched to Indiana to help rescue dozens of cats from a house in Muncie. I had the honor of being with them, on the ground, seeing the first moments these cats got the love and care they so desperately needed. When I first entered the house, a...
If you’ve been online at all in the past week, chances are you’ve seen the footage of an alarmed off-duty police officer pointing a gun at an approaching tiger in a sleepy residential neighborhood in Houston. The tiger’s name is India and, after a mysterious disappearance and a week of dramatic plot...
Today, Governor Jay Inslee signed the Humane Pet Sales Bill, making Washington state the fourth in the nation to prohibit the sale of puppy mill puppies in pet stores. Washington joins California, Maryland, Maine and over 380 localities across the country in taking a strong stand against cruel puppy...
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...
A federal judge has dismissed a court challenge to Maryland’s landmark law prohibiting the sales of puppies and kittens in pet stores, giving animals and consumers a huge victory in the fight against puppy mills. The ruling today means the law, which went into effect in the state at the start of the...
Dr. Katherine Polak, the vice president of Companion Animals and Engagement for Humane Society International, recently returned from HSI’s dedicated veterinary training center in La Paz, Bolivia, the only such center in the country. In this guest blog, Dr. Polak gives us an inside look at how the...
A bill introduced in California this week would end all trophy hunting of bobcats, making the Golden State the first in the union to move decisively to protect one of our country’s most iconic native carnivores. Assembly bill 1254, introduced by Assembly Member Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles...
Millions of renters in the U.S. have pets, but pet restrictions is a primary barrier for many in securing housing. We are sponsoring a bill, AB 2216, with Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, that would create better to access rental housing in California by prohibiting blanket pet bans and requiring landlords to have reasonable justification for not allowing a pet in a rental unit. The bill would also prohibit landlords from charging additional pet rent and fees, one more way in which it supports more pet inclusive options for tenants.
California, which took the pioneering move of banning mountain lion trophy hunting three decades ago, is still standing strong for these iconic animals. This week, California lawmakers passed groundbreaking legislation to ban the use of certain rodenticides that have been held responsible for the...
As a bill to outlaw chemical tests on dogs that are not required by law advances in California, we are releasing a new poll today that shows overwhelming support among the state’s residents for ending such procedures. The poll, commissioned by the Humane Society of the United States and conducted by...
California has once again topped our 2018 Humane State rankings list, after overwhelmingly passing the strongest farm animal protection law in the world, and by enacting a law that bans the sale of cosmetics tested on animals -- the first U.S. state to do so. Oregon, which has some of the strongest...
Today, on World Lion Day, we celebrate lions as an iconic wild cat species, and we recommit to our campaigns to halt their exploitation and destruction in the United States and abroad. We are giving it all we’ve got. In the wild, of course, this iconic species is among the most imperiled of all with...
Each year, millions of homeless pets enter U.S. shelters and approximately two million dogs and cats are euthanized. This is a huge improvement since the 1970s when it was closer to 15 million, but it’s still too many. That’s why ending pet homelessness is a key goal for the Humane Society of the...