This year has seen incredible wins for animals despite a steady onslaught of Congressional threats and agency rollbacks. On the one hand, there have been attempts to roll back protections for wild animals, like native carnivores in Alaska, and attacks on the Endangered Species Act. The U.S...

A rule recently proposed by the Trump administration would roll back an Obama-era regulation that prohibits controversial and scientifically unjustified methods of hunting on Alaska's national preserves, which are federal public lands. These egregious hunting methods include killing hibernating...

For years we have been working to prevent the wanton slaughter of animals in wildlife killing contests . The c oyote, an animal who has been wrongly considered a pest in popular culture, is most often the central target of such events. We are trying to change that. Here, Katie Stennes, program...

With Halloween upon us, the residents of wildlife sanctuaries and animal rehabilitation centers associated with the Humane Society of the United States and our affiliates are busy trick or treating. They are snacking on peanut butter and nuts stuffed inside pine cones, bringing down pinatas filled...

This time of year is a special moment in the lives of black bears. After consuming about 20,000 calories and gaining three to five pounds every day during the late summer and early fall, black bears head to their winter dens. Because bears hibernate in their dens for three to six months (depending...

Earlier this month, our Nevada state director Rebecca Goff and others testified at the Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing in support of a bill in Nevada (A.B. 102) that would end cruel, unsporting and ecologically destructive wildlife killing contests in the Silver State. An end to these...

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...

A new National Park Service proposed rule marks a substantial step forward for some of our nation’s most iconic wildlife species, including brown and black bears and wolves. The NPS rule would ban certain extremely cruel methods of trophy hunting and trapping on Alaska’s national preserves. We have...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson Today, we are releasing chilling footage of Andrew and Owen Renner’s now infamous – and illegal – black bear trophy hunt in Alaska last April, so you can see what grisly fate awaits the state’s native carnivores if the U.S. government goes ahead with a proposal to...

Today Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation to ban wildlife killing contests in New York state. This is a wonderful moment for wildlife, as New York has been the scene of more than 20 of these senseless spectacles each year. The contests targeted a broad range of animals including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, squirrels, raccoons, crows, rabbits and woodchucks. The new law, to take effect in November 2024, will prohibit cash-for-wildlife competitions in which the objective is to slaughter animals for money and prizes.

Arizona today banned all wildlife killing contests for coyotes, bobcats, foxes and other animals, joining a growing number of states taking action to stop these gruesome events in which participants vie for cash and prizes for killing the most or heaviest animals within a specific time period. The...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson Update: The bill to ban fur sales has also passed the concurrence committee and will now head to the governor’s desk for his signature. In two historic votes for animals, California lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly to ban fur sales and to stop the trophy hunting...

A man who, along with his teenage son, mercilessly slaughtered a hibernating mother bear and her two newborn cubs in their den, and then lied about it, will serve time in jail for the gruesome crime that shocked Americans when it came to light last August. Andrew Renner was convicted of eight counts...

Maryland legislators have just passed a bill banning wildlife killing contests—cruel events where participants compete to win cash and prizes for killing the most or the heaviest animals. The vote comes just over a year after we did an undercover investigation of such contests in the state that...

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...

Washington has just outlawed wildlife killing contests—the seventh state to do so in the past six years. The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted 7-2 this morning to pass a rule ending these gruesome spectacles where participants kill large numbers of wild animals simply for the thrill and...

Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will be proposing a rule that would ban predator control on the National Wildlife Refuge System. When finalized, this rule will be a huge victory for countless wildlife living on refuges. The National Wildlife Refuge System is home to thousands...

Massachusetts has just banned cruel wildlife killing contests, becoming the fifth state, after Vermont, California, New Mexico and Arizona, to take a firm stance against these gruesome events in which participants compete to win cash and prizes for killing the most or heaviest animals. The...

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...

Colorado has closed a loophole in its law to end all wildlife killing contests of furbearing animals, including coyotes, bobcats, swift foxes and prairie dogs. Although the state had already banned most such contests in 1997, a regulatory loophole permitted some events that limited the numbers of...