For the first time, The Kentucky Derby and the Tennessee Walking Horse World Grand Championship will be held on the same evening – one an event known to all, the other a regional event in the more obscure world of showing Tennessee Walking horses. While the soring of Walking Horses has become a high-profile issue … Read more
Washington, D.C. — Animal Wellness Action (AWA) and the Animal Wellness Foundation (AWF) today asked U.S. Attorney Kenji M. Price, representing the District of Hawaii, to investigate allegations that a substantial number of residents in the state are knee-deep in the business of illegal trafficking of fighting animals and perhaps making millions of dollars from the … Read more
Thirty years ago, I wrote a magazine cover story about horse racing, arguing the pageantry and pomp that viewers glimpsed at the Kentucky Derby and other Triple Crown races was a veneer barely concealing a set of hazards for horses. There was widespread doping of horses on race day to enhance performance, frequent breakdowns that … Read more
The question of free expression arises in federal court actions initiated by animal fighting practitioners The First Amendment has been used as a shield by perpetrators of animal cruelty for decades. In recent federal court proceedings, cockfighters claim that staged battles between animals are a protected expression and religious exercise guaranteed by the First Amendment. … Read more
Lexington, Kentucky — U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today announced his intent to introduce the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, compromise legislation that would end the doping of Thoroughbred racehorses in the United States. The doping of American racehorses has been a controversial issue over the past five years with hundreds of horses dying … Read more
Washington, D.C. — Today, Animal Wellness Animal (AWA), the Animal Wellness Foundation (AWF), and the Center for a Humane Economy (“the Center) filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit supporting the United States in its defense of a federal law that applies all prohibitions against cockfighting to the … Read more
“There once was a horse; a black stallion named Carbon Copy. Carbon Copy was a perfect model of the Tennessee Walking Horse. He knew voice commands and would respond to a whistle — so people say he could take himself around a ring to show off without anyone on his back. Carbon Copy was the … Read more
The globally unmanageable hopscotching of COVID-19 between living beings is today putting a spotlight on one of the most obscure, ruthless, and frivolous of animal use industries: the production of wild animals on fur farms, particularly mink raised for their pelts. Seemingly more susceptible to getting COVID-19 than dogs or cats or most other mammals, … Read more
by Josh Marquis Dave Aronberg, a member of AWA’s National Law Enforcement Council, oversees an office of over 300 employees, including 120 prosecutors as the elected State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida. Dave was recently elected without opposition to a third (four-year) term, having first been first elected in 2012. For his first case, … Read more
by Robert Ferber First stated by Roman philosopher Cicero in 63 B.C. and restated countless times by other philosophers, criminologists, politicians and even Gilbert & Sullivan in “The Mikado”, the basic tenet of the rule of law is letting the punishment fit the crime. The logic is simple. A jail sentence for a convicted bank … Read more