Update 3/15/2022: President Biden signed the appropriations package into law. Humane advocates often look to the passage of animal-friendly legislation as the strongest measure of progress in our work at the federal level, and clearly, good laws are important. But a nation that cares for animals...

Anyone with pets knows that our furry family members can become so frightened by exploding fireworks that they do anything to escape the noise, whether it’s hiding in the bathtub, or something more desperate (and dangerous), such as breaking through windows or door screens. At least we can make...

In the U.S., today is National Voter Registration Day, which is a chance to recognize and celebrate the potential of our collective role and influence as voters. Now more than ever, our nation needs compassionate, courageous legislators to act in support of animals and to defend against the many...

In May, our Humane Society International team assisted with the extraordinary rescue of 200 wild animals, including zebras, kangaroos, lions, tigers and bears, from a ramshackle roadside zoo in Montreal, Canada. Many of the animals were confined in dark, barren, dilapidated enclosures, many were...

Early on Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, our Animal Rescue Team deployed to support local law enforcement agencies with an alleged neglect case involving nearly 200 cats in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. By day’s end, responders had removed 176 cats from three residential properties owned by one individual...

For many years now, Humane Society International/India has been working to stop the world’s largest ritual sacrifice of animals at the Gadhimai temple in Bariyarpur, Nepal, close to the Indian border. In 2015, following national and global criticism, the temple committee voiced support for ending...

The animal protection movement made some great progress this week when the U.K. announced new legal recognitions for animals and a plan to improve animal welfare policies. Here, Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International/U.K. , explains what this means for animals. As the...

As Russia continues its deadly assault on Ukraine, humanitarians and animal advocates from around the world are banding together to provide urgent relief to those imperiled by the fighting, and to help people fleeing the war zone with their beloved pets. Indeed, the situation inside Ukraine grows...

Disasters and other emergencies can upend everyone’s lives—human and animal. That’s why we’re celebrating great progress for animals now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will implement long-overdue requirements for contingency and disaster preparedness planning for animals...

With yesterday’s passage of an ordinance banning the sale of certain fur products, Ann Arbor, Michigan’s City Council scored a pair of firsts. The 10-member council’s unanimous vote made Ann Arbor not only the first city in the Midwest to prohibit the sale of fur, but the first in a fur-producing...

Julie Cassadore has been voted the 2024 More Than a Pet Community Hero for the good she has done for her community of San Carlos, Arizona, and its animals. Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital, the organization that nominated Julie, will receive $10,000 to boost its efforts for companion animals and the people who love them.

Last week, members of the Humane Society of the United States’ Equine Protection team traveled to Tennessee to evaluate the condition of the horses at the 85 th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration. In the weeks leading up to the show, we posted billboards in town to expose the...

Our seventh annual Horrible Hundred report, which we are releasing today, reveals shocking instances of neglect and mistreatment of dogs in puppy mills, including severely underweight dogs and large numbers of puppies dying mysteriously. What it also reveals is that the U.S. Department of...

News has come out that another bull elephant was shot and killed in Tanzania, reportedly by an American trophy hunter from Texas. This is the third bull, believed to likely be another “super tusker,” beloved by locals, gunned down near the Tanzanian-Kenyan border, part of the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem, within the past six months.

The euthanasia of homeless companion animals in gas chambers sounds archaic and is inhumane, but the practice is still prevalent in four states—Ohio, Missouri, Utah and Wyoming—where there are fewer than a dozen such chambers in operation. That’s still too many. Since 2013, the Humane Society of the...

A Petland in Naperville, Illinois, will have to stop selling puppies and kittens after the city council passed an ordinance Tuesday ending such sales in pet stores. This makes Naperville the 341st locality in the United States to pass such a measure. There were Petland stores in several of these...

Our National Marine Fisheries Service, slow to take action, really shouldn’t need a prompt about the fierce urgency of now when it comes to protecting the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Still, a new reminder has come with the tragic sighting last week of a four-year old male badly...

In an important and encouraging advance for the protection of farm animals, Arizona has moved to ban cruel cages for egg-laying hens and ensure that all eggs produced and/or sold in the state are cage-free. The regulations promulgated by the Arizona Department of Agriculture guarantee that over 7...

Arizona’s Game and Fish Commission has voted to ban wildlife killing contests: gruesome spectacles in which participants vie for cash and prizes for killing the most or heaviest animals within a specific time period. This is a wonderful development because Arizona has been the site for an appalling...

One of the most successful political channels through which advocates have been able to take a stand for animals in recent years is by securing the passage of local ordinances to regulate or end practices associated with animal cruelty and suffering. But vested interests in a slew of states are...