The other day, the Washington Post’s Pam Constable published a story about a wealthy American hunter who paid $110,000 for the right to kill a rare and magnificent mountain goat in Pakistan. There are just several thousand markhors alive, so it’s hard to see how killing one does the species much...

Throughout 2018, Humane Society International has driven transformational changes for animals around the globe. Vietnam adopted animal welfare language for the first time in its history; Unilever supported a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics; the Indonesian government supported a ban on the...

The world’s largest wildlife trade conference has just wrapped up in Geneva and as our own Humane Society International team returns home, we are celebrating big wins for 135 wild animal species, including the giraffe, African elephant and southern white rhino. Delegates at the Conference of the...

It has been six years since the death of Cecil, a male lion who was a popular individual for wildlife viewing tourists visiting Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The heartbreaking details of the hunt that killed Cecil made international headlines: Cecil was lured out of the protected area with...

Every year that passes sees hundreds of thousands of wild animals in the U.S. and around the world killed by trophy hunters, whose main motivation is to display whole animals or their body parts for bragging rights. Given all the threats facing wild animals, including habitat loss, environmental...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson It may be hard to believe that a group of celebrity and professional trophy hunters, a director of the National Rifle Association, and the president of the world’s largest trophy hunting group are advising our government on wildlife conservation. But that is exactly...

African elephants and rhinos are under the gun; literally. More than 30,000 elephants and 1,000 rhinos are slaughtered by poachers every year for their tusks and horns, respectively. The reason for this war on some of Africa’s most iconic and beloved wildlife is that people are buying ivory trinkets...

With a presence in more than 50 countries, Humane Society International has the reach and the ability to create lasting and transformational change for animals around the globe. In 2019, among several achievements, our team helped win key victories for giraffes, elephants and rhinos at the meeting...

Our Animal Protection Litigation team plays a critical role at the Humane Society of the United States, filing lawsuits and legal petitions to support our major campaigns, drafting language for state and federal animal protection bills and ballot measures, and defending animal protection laws once...

The year 2019 was one of extraordinary gains for animals trapped in the cruel business of fur, for companion animals who are the victims of malicious cruelty, for wild animals at risk of extinction because of trophy hunting and the wildlife products trade, and for farm animals forced to spend their...

Trophy hunting is a cruel and dangerous pastime that is pushing some of the world’s most iconic animals closer to extinction, and the Humane Society family of organizations has put our might behind stopping it. In the past four years we have encountered tremendous challenges under the Trump...

Wild animals face a chilling multitude of threats. At a time when so many are vulnerable to the unprecedented impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and ongoing human encroachment on shrinking habitats, imperiled animals continue to be killed for nothing more than a trophy, a prize, a pelt or a trinket. Others suffer at the hands of traffickers and breeders who want to lock them in cages for entertainment.

Today, Canada took a historic step forward in defense of imperiled wild animals, announcing landmark regulations that ban trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn, as well as imports of hunting trophies containing these parts.

The Trump administration’s course on wildlife policy, riddled with handouts to trophy hunters, took another wrong turn last week with the hiring of Anna Seidman, a litigator for Safari Club International, to head a key office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The SCI is one of the world’s...

On Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld New York’s landmark ban on the sale of elephant ivory and rhino horn. This is a heartening win for these animals because this ruling affirms the right of states such as New York to create laws that protect wildlife and end their own participation in markets for cruel products.

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about our work at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—known as CITES. This conference is so important because it shapes how wild animals in trade are treated across the globe and can...

For the first time since 2016, when the United States protected lions under the Endangered Species Act, the Trump administration will allow an American trophy hunter to bring home the body parts of a lion he killed in Tanzania. This is the second such instance of the administration’s reckless...

Vietnam is one of the world’s largest consumers of rhino horn for use in traditional medicine. The demand there has helped push this distinctive animal to the brink of extinction. The animals are killed for their horns and a small number remain alive and suffer in agony after the horns are hacked...

One of the biggest obstacles Humane Society International faces is the frequent lack of comprehensive animal welfare laws within some of the countries in which we work. While we don’t let this stop us from pushing forward with the means and tools available to us, the existence of laws and systems of...

Over the weekend, Americans were shocked by an incident at the Conservators Center in North Carolina, a privately run wild animal menagerie, where a 22-year-old intern who was cleaning an enclosure was attacked and killed by a lion. Law enforcement shot and killed the lion in order to retrieve the...