Tenure: 114th–119th Congresses
Years of Service: 2015–Present
Over 12 years in the U.S. Senate, Dan Sullivan has played the leading role in working to nullify critical federal protections for wildlife on nearly 100 million acres of national wildlife refuges and national preserves in Alaska. Unlike lawmakers whose records reflect limited engagement on animal issues, Sullivan has repeatedly led efforts to weaken protections for wildlife, and he has not counterbalanced those votes by actively supporting pro-animal policies.
At the beginning of President Trump’s first term in 2017, Sullivan was the lead author of SJR 18 to nullify a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule to forbid shooting or trapping wolves and their pups while at their dens in the spring; using airplanes to scout, land and shoot grizzly bears; trapping of grizzly bears and black bears with steel-jawed leghold traps and wire snares; and denning of black bear mothers and cubs during hibernation. The FWS rule, adopted after years of public engagement and with the support of so many Alaskans, does not apply to subsistence hunting or sport hunting by standard methods; it simply restricts methods of killing that are not acceptable anywhere, least of all on national wildlife refuges.
Sullivan’s Congressional Review Act resolution narrowly passed by a vote of 52–47. Those extreme hunting practices are still in place.
Sullivan also led efforts to persuade the Trump Administration to overturn a rulemaking similar to the Fish and Wildlife Service policy that was adopted by the National Park Service in 2015. During the first term of President Trump, and at the insistence of Senator Sullivan, the National Park Service nullified the rule to halt the use of aircraft to facilitate the killing of predators, the shooting of swimming caribou, baiting of black and grizzly bears, and other practices conducted on 20 million acres of national preserves.
The Biden Administration reinstated just one portion of that rule – the prohibition on bear baiting – but in October 2026, the NPS nullified that rule, too. Like the first back-and-forth efforts between presidential administrations, this new action by the National Park Service will be challenged by national and Alaska-based animal welfare and conservation groups. But Senator Sullivan has been in the forefront of these efforts to defend these extreme practices.
In 2022, Sullivan voted to gut a provision from a House-passed bill that would have phased out domestic mink farming due to public health risks of minks transmitting COVID-19 variants to humans. Driven by sustained consumer preferences for cruelty-free clothing over many decades, U.S. demand for mink fur products virtually disappeared, and domestic production shrank from over 7,000 farms in 1960 to barely 50 today. Nevertheless, the measure to shield the inhumane industry passed, with Sullivan’s support, by a vote of 59-33.
In 2023, Sullivan cast the deciding vote in favor of a resolution that limited the ability of the National Marine Fisheries Service to designate an area as a “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act. A “critical habitat” is a geographical area containing physical or biological features that may need special management because they are essential to conserving endangered and threatened species. The measure passed by a final vote of 51-49, meaning that if Senator Sullivan had voted differently, it would have failed on a 50-50 tie.
In the fall of 2025, Sullivan opposed allowing an up-or-down vote on a resolution led by his fellow Republican, Senator John Kennedy, R-La., to stop the largest massacre of owls by any nation in world history. The scheme called for killing hundreds of thousands of native North American barred owls, a species that has been federally protected for more than 100 years. The procedural vote to take up Senator Kennedy’s resolution failed by a vote of 25-72, with Sullivan siding with almost all Democrats and about half the Republicans to keep the so-called “hoot-and-shoot” in place.
That said, Sullivan did not object to the Senate passage of bills to eliminate in 2022 an animal-testing mandate (the FDA Modernization Act 2.0), a follow up bill to conform FDA regulations to the plain language of the 2022 statute, to create a federal authority to establish safety standards for horses, and jockeys in American Thoroughbred racing, or to stop the trade in big cats as pets. In short, he does not seem to act as an obstructionist when there are bipartisan measures to advance animal welfare standards in society.
That said, during his 12 years in the Senate, Sullivan has declined to sign onto bipartisan bills to close loopholes in laws against animal fighting, to stop the trade in bear parts for Traditional Chinese Medicine (even though Alaska forbids this trade), to crack down on live exports to Mexico or Canada of horses to slaughter for human consumption. Animal welfare does not appear to be an active concern of Sen. Sullivan.
Notable Actions
119th Congress
❌ Voted “Nay” on the motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 69 (Senate Roll Call Vote 597), a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to bring the measure before the Senate for consideration to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Barred Owl Management Strategy, which authorized the large-scale killing of barred owls in Washington, Oregon, and California. A “Nay” vote is the anti-animal position because it opposed moving forward with a vote to repeal the barred owl kill plan.
118th Congress
❌ Voted “Yea” on S.J. Res. 23 (Senate Roll Call Vote 122), a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn federal regulations governing the listing of endangered and threatened species and designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act. A “Yea” vote is the anti-animal position because it supported weakening federal protections for imperiled wildlife and their habitats.
117th Congress
✅ Approved by unanimous consent, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, H.R. 263, to prohibit most private ownership and breeding of lions, tigers, and other big cats while restricting public contact with these dangerous wild animals. The law was designed to curb the exploitation of big cats in roadside zoos and cub-petting operations, improve animal welfare, and enhance public safety by limiting private possession of these species.
❌ Voted “Yea” on Sen. Ron Johnson’s Motion to Instruct conferees on H.R. 4521 (Senate Roll Call Vote 152), which sought to reject a House-passed provision prohibiting commercial mink farming in the United States. A “Yea” vote is the anti-animal position because it supported removing the House provision to end commercial mink farming.
116th Congress
✅ Approved by unanimous consent the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, landmark legislation making the most egregious acts of intentional animal cruelty—including crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling, and other forms of torture—a federal felony when committed in interstate commerce, on federal property, or within federal jurisdiction. The measure strengthened the nation’s legal framework against animal cruelty and closed a longstanding gap in federal law by ensuring that the worst acts of animal abuse could be prosecuted even when state or local authorities could not act. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent.
115th Congress
✅ Approved by unanimous consent the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, S. 654, bipartisan legislation to make the most egregious acts of intentional animal cruelty—including crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling, and other forms of torture—a federal felony when committed in interstate or foreign commerce or within federal jurisdiction. The Senate passed the legislation by unanimous consent in December 2017.
❌ Voted “Aye” on H.J. Res. 69, a Congressional Review Act (Senate Roll Call Vote 92) resolution to overturn an Obama administration rule prohibiting killing bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens, baiting bears with food to shoot them at close range, and aerial shooting of wolves and other predators. The resolution passed the Senate 52–47. An “Aye” vote is the anti-animal position because it repealed the rule protecting wildlife from these inhumane and unsporting predator-killing practices on national wildlife refuges in Alaska.
✅ Voted “Yea” on the conference report for the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Farm Bill), H.R. 2 (Senate Roll Call Vote 259), which included major animal-protection provisions prohibiting dog and cat meat consumption, extending the federal animal-fighting prohibition to all U.S. territories, and providing protections for domestic-violence survivors and their pets. The final bill also excluded the House-passed King Amendment, which threatened state animal-welfare laws. The Senate approved the Farm Bill 87–13.
114th Congress
✅ Approved by unanimous consent the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, S. 1831, to establish federal criminal penalties for extreme acts of intentional animal cruelty, including imprisonment for up to seven years. The Senate passed the bill in December 2016, although the House did not complete action before the end of the Congress.