AWA Helps Lead Efforts to Secure Ban Doping in Thoroughbred Horseracing, but Landmark Deal Blocked to Establish Felony Offense for “Horse Soring” Washington, D.C. — In the biggest gain for animal welfare in the $900 billion just-released, year-end spending bill expected to be signed into law within days, the Congress added a rider to ban … Read more
Washington, D.C. — In the biggest gain for animal welfare in 2020 and in the $900 billion year-end spending bill just-released, that’s expected to be signed into law within days, Congress added a rider to ban race-day doping of Thoroughbreds: the Horseracing Integrity and Safety (HISA) Safety Act. H.R. 1754/S. 4547, concluding an eight-year campaign … Read more
Group previously negotiated a “deal” enabling round-ups of up to 30,000 wild horses and burros a year from our public lands Malicious, intentional cruelty should be a felony offense. That was a long-held rallying cry for a wide range of animal protection organizations, including the Humane Society of the United (HSUS), where my former colleagues … Read more
More so even than live wildlife markets — which incubated and then launched COVID-19 across the globe — mink farms around the world are turning out to be present-day gathering places for the highly contagious virus. From British Columbia to Denmark to Lithuania, COVID-19 is methodically infiltrating mink farms throughout North America and Eurasia, being … Read more
Washington, D.C. — Today, one of Washington D.C.’s major political daily publications, The Hill, released its annual list of honored Top Lobbyists of 2019 and included Animal Wellness Action’s executive director, Marty Irby. Irby was also named as one of The Hill’s Top Lobbyists for 2019. Irby, a lifelong horseman, and native of Mobile, Ala., … Read more
On December 9, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Horse Protection Act (HPA), the first federal law aimed at shielding horses from a distinct form of cruelty. Just prior to the HPA’s enactment, LIFE Magazine, in “Agony of the Walking Horse” chronicled abuses in the subculture of a show horse industry. … Read more
Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Animal Wellness Action (AWA), the Animal Wellness Foundation (AWF), Center for a Humane Economy (CHE), American Horse Protection Society, Join-Up International, and the Horses for Life Foundation commemorated the Golden Anniversary of the enactment of the bipartisan Horse Protection Act (HPA), signed into law on December 9, 1970 by … Read more
A Profile of Chris Gorman by Josh Marquis As attitudes about animal cruelty evolve, both new and old voices call for reduced tolerance of animal abuse and neglect. That call was heard recently in Kentucky, a state where cockfighting has been a barely concealed practice in the Bluegrass State. Among the leading voices denouncing this … Read more
by Wayne Pacelle In October, the U.S. District Court for the District of Guam turned aside a legal challenge to a 2018 amendment to the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 that made illegal the practice of pitting animals against one another in a fight, often to the death, in all U.S. states and territories. The … Read more
by Scott Beckstead Many of my fondest childhood memories are of time spent with my grandfather, a mink farmer in the small town of Franklin, Idaho, a short skip to the Utah border. A soft-spoken, kind, and generous man, my grandfather doted on his children, including my mother, and on me and his other grandkids. Grandpa … Read more