By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

A bill to end all commercial trade in the United States of shark fins and shark fin products was reintroduced in the U.S. House today.

The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act already enjoys great support in Congress and a previous version passed the House during the last session by an overwhelming vote of 310 to 107. The bill also passed a key Senate committee but failed to see action from the full Senate before the session ended.

We are hopeful of success this time round. There is no time to lose with sharks being killed 30% faster than they can reproduce. A recent study found that shark and ray populations in the world’s open oceans have plummeted by 71% over the last 50 years. Another study of reefs in 58 countries found no sharks in nearly 20% of the reefs: a shocking development as reefs are usually bustling with shark activity and their presence is vital for these marine ecosystems.

The global trade in shark fins is responsible, in large part, for this decline. It is estimated that fins from a whopping 73 million sharks are traded globally each year, mainly for shark fin soup.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose this trade, in which fishermen typically slice the fins off a shark, then discard the mutilated animal back in the water to drown, bleed to death, or be eaten alive by other fish. Unfortunately, our nation is a big importer of shark fins, most of which come from countries with poor or nonexistent shark fishing regulations where finning almost certainly occurs.

The United States is also a major transportation hub for shark fin shipments—a fact highlighted last year by the confiscation of 1,400 pounds of shark fins in Miami. Valued at nearly $1 million, the shipment originated in South America and was likely headed to Asia—a typical route for U.S. shark fin transshipments.

U.S. law already prevents shark finning, but because of the complex international network of the shark fin trade and the difficulty of regulating activities that take place at sea the law cannot be truly effective unless we also ban all trade in shark fins.

We have been working with states to pass laws ending commercial trade in fins and to date 17 states and three U.S. territories have already passed bans or limited the sale of shark fins. But in order to strike a body blow to this problem we need a federal law ending commercial trade in fins once and for all in the United States. Such a ban would also help reassert U.S. standing as a global leader on the important issue of shark conservation and would likely encourage other countries follow in our footsteps.

We applaud Reps. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, D-Northern Mariana Islands, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, for their persistence and leadership on this issue and for reintroducing the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. Sharks are apex predators who play a critical role in our marine ecosystems, and without them our planet would be in crisis: a chance we simply cannot take. Please urge your U.S. Representative to support this important bill and swiftly pass it into law.

Act now and ask your U.S. Representative to support the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act >>

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Nevada, one of the last remaining states without a ban on the ownership of exotic wild animals as pets, is now moving to pass a law to do exactly that.

A bill, SB 344, recently passed the Senate and now awaits action in the Assembly. It would, among other measures, end the private ownership of animals like big cats, bears, hyenas, elephants, wolves and primates. The bill would also end the exploitation of wild animals, and particularly cubs, by unscrupulous roadside zoos and exhibits that offer up these animals for petting and photo ops.

As our investigations have revealed, animals in this industry are horribly mistreated. Jeff Lowe, one of the roadside zoo owners seen in the Netflix series “Tiger King,” smuggled tiger cubs into hotel rooms in Las Vegas for paying visitors to pet them and pose with them. The city eventually confiscated a tiger cub, a liliger cub (the hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger) and a young lemur from him. The animals were underweight and suffering from several health conditions.

Ending such cruelty wherever it exists is an important priority for our organizations and to date 45 states have passed laws to protect citizens from those who exploit wild animals in this manner. Many of these states acted swiftly after one incident that remains raw in our nation’s collective memory: a suicidal man in Zanesville, Ohio, released nearly 50 big cats and other dangerous animals from his backyard menagerie in 2012, creating a major public safety hazard and a tragic situation for the animals who authorities were forced to shoot and kill.

Nevada, along with North Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama and Wisconsin, are the only states with virtually no laws on this issue, and that’s why we are excited to see the state finally move to pass one. At the federal level, the Humane Society Legislative Fund is working to secure passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which has been reintroduced in the House and Senate and previously passed the House. The bills would  prohibit public contact with big cats like tigers, lions and leopards and ban keeping these animals as pets. Federal action is necessary because these animals may be moved across state lines for such activities.

The Nevada bill makes allowances for those who already own exotic animals as pets, permitting  them to keep the animals so long as they meet some basic animal welfare and safety requirements, although they will be prohibited from acquiring new animals. Zoos and all U.S. Department of Agriculture licensed exhibitors, including zoos, can continue to keep animals like big cats, bears, etc., and can acquire more of these animals, but will be required to meet a few additional requirements, including creating emergency plans for the animals. The facilities should also have no USDA citations within the past three years for violations in which a dangerous wild animal’s health and well-being or the public safety was jeopardized. 
These are commonsense requirements and ones most Nevadans support. Wild animals have very unique needs and suffer terribly at the hands of unqualified individuals. In the United States, wild animals have been found badly neglected and living in deplorable conditions in places ranging from junkyards to basements.

It often falls upon sanctuaries and animal protection organizations to clean up the mess these irresponsible owners create. Two years back, a tiger was rescued from a garage in Houston, and earlier this year authorities in San Antonio found a tiger cub freezing in a backyard during a historic winter storm. Both animals, Loki and Elsa, have since found forever homes at our Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch. However, no organization has the capacity to continue rehoming the countless exotic pets that enter U.S. homes each day, and we need to tackle this problem at the root, by preventing irresponsible breeding and ownership.

Captive exotic animals also create a major problem for law enforcement authorities. In Nevada, for instance, in a well-publicized incident in 2012, a male and female chimpanzee escaped from a backyard cage in a residential neighborhood after the male chimpanzee ripped the cage from the concrete and then broke through a padlocked gate. Police responded to emergency calls with more than 20 squad cars as the chimpanzees ran amok, climbing into cars, pounding on vehicles, and banging on windows of homes. The male chimpanzee was shot and killed when he darted towards a crowd of onlookers.

There should be no debate over this issue: chimpanzees, elephants, tigers, leopards and wolves are not pets and they do not belong inside someone’s basement or garage or backyard. If you live in Nevada, please urge your lawmakers to pass SB 344 and get this law on the books without delay. It is time we stop this abuse for good, in Nevada and everywhere it exists.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The United States has finalized a rule to protect key ocean habitats used by endangered humpback whales as they migrate and feed in the waters off the U.S. west coast.

This is a tremendous development and one we hope will help speed the recovery of these iconic marine mammals who were once hunted to the brink of extinction for their oil and blubber. Two of the five “breeding stocks” of humpback whales in the world listed under the Endangered Species Act feed along the U.S. west coast where they are in danger of being struck by ships and face other potentially adverse impacts from commercial fisheries,  including fatal entanglement in fishing gear. The designation of these areas as "critical habitat" for humpback whales will allow the government to limit activities that have the potential to degrade these crucial habitats.

This is a commonsense protection, but it has been a long time coming.  For decades, even after whaling ceased, humpback whales have faced challenges to their survival, ranging from ship strikes to warming oceans and climate change.  Until the 1980s, indiscriminate whaling led to populations of some humpback whales declining by nearly 95 percent globally, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Beginning in the 1970s, the Humane Society of the United States and other organizations waged a major fight to protect these animals both nationally and internationally. Our efforts led to humpback whales being protected under the Endangered Species Act, when that law passed in 1973. Eventually, we won an international moratorium on killing humpbacks in commercial whale hunts.

But in 2016, during a review of humpback whale populations, the NMFS divided them into 14 distinct “breeding stocks” and decided only five of these would remain protected under the ESA moving forward—a decision we did not feel sufficiently protected these animals.

The ESA requires the government to designate “critical habitat” for the five listed stocks, something the NMFS failed to do so for five years despite protests by the HSUS, Humane Society Legislative Fund and other organizations.

We are pleased that under the Biden administration, the NMFS has at last taken this important step, and we now urge it to do more to protect these animals by regulating potentially harmful activities in these vital areas.

Humpback whales are iconic animals who are an important part of a diverse ocean ecosystem. They are a source of joy for whale watchers worldwide. No one who has seen a humpback feeding at the surface in waters close to the shore, slapping their long flippers on the ocean surface and leaping completely out of the water in spectacular breaches is ever likely to forget the spectacle.

In 1970 Dr. Roger Payne, a renowned whale scientist, published a record album “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” introducing the world to the complex and beautiful “songs” of humpbacks in their mating grounds.  At around the same time a shocked American public saw images in the media of dead humpback whales being dragged onto whaling ships. Today, decades later, this dichotomy continues: whales continue to be among our oceans' most beloved creatures, even as they face great challenges to their survival. It's high time these whales get the protections they deserve. Let's celebrate the progress made for humpback whales today, even as we continue to fight on their behalf. 

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

A bill that would prohibit public contact with big cats like tigers, lions and leopards and ban keeping these animals as pets has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act, S. 1210, would end the suffering of animals like Elsa, a tiger cub kept as a “pet” and found abandoned outdoors during Texas’s historic winter storms earlier this year. It would also put a stop to the horrors big cat cubs, especially tiger cubs, endure at the hands of exhibitors and roadside zoo owners like Joe Exotic and Jeff Lowe,  seen on Netflix’s “Tiger King.” These facilities offer the cubs to paying members of the public to pet, feed and pose for photos with—a practice called “cub petting.”

Stopping these practices is one of our top legislative priorities. The Big Cat Public Safety Act passed the House in the last Congress with nearly two-thirds of members supporting it. Unfortunately, the session ended before it could be taken up by the Senate.

The Senate version of the bill introduced today reflects the growing support this bill enjoys in Congress: it is sponsored by the bill’s longtime champion Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and, for the first time, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has signed on as the co-lead sponsor. They are joined by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Richard Burr, R-N.C.

The House version of the bill was reintroduced in January as H.R. 263 by Reps. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn.

More than 70 animal welfare organizations, professionally operated zoos and animal sanctuaries, and law enforcement organizations and officials have also endorsed the bill. Most states have passed laws banning keeping dangerous animals as pets and one more state, Nevada, is in the process of passing a similar law.

Most Americans support such a law as well. Our undercover investigations have laid bare the cruelty people like Joe Exotic commit against the animals; he is now serving 20 years in prison for, among other crimes, killing five tigers in his care. In the Netflix series, he is seen snatching tiger cubs away from their mothers moments after birth. As our own investigation of Joe Exotic’s roadside zoo and similar operations have revealed, to prepare the animals for public contact they are fed irregularly, constantly woken from their sleep, and physically abused when they resist.

At three to four months of age, when they are too big to be used for public contact, they are sent to substandard facilities or into the pet trade. More tiger cubs are bred to replace them, continuing this cruel cycle. Conservationists have long feared that tigers discarded from the cub-petting industry may also feed the illegal market for animal parts used in some forms of traditional medicine, and the poaching of big cats in the wild.

The pandemic has provided another good reason to ban cub petting. The coronavirus has been found in tigers, lions, cougars and snow leopards in captivity, leading the U.S. Department of Agriculture to issue a rare advisory to big cat exhibitors to discontinue hands-on encounters with wild cats in the interests of public safety and animal welfare. (In guidance released last Thursday, the USDA also advises against public contact with nonhuman primates and animals in the Mustelidae family, which includes mink, ferrets and otters.)

Clearly, we need the Big Cat Public Safety Act now more than ever. This is common sense legislation and there should be no debate over ending the suffering of big cats at the hands of those who mistreat them. Please join us in urging your U.S. Senators and Representative to cosponsor and push for passage of this bill without delay.

Act now and tell your legislators to support the Big Cat Public Safety Act >>

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

State and federal inspections of puppy mills have been scaled back or, in some cases, have ground to a halt during the pandemic. As a result, dogs in these operations have been left without the most basic protections under the law.

This is even more disturbing because dog sales in pet stores have been booming since lockdowns began last year. That could result in even more suffering for breeding animals at puppy mills who are already treated like puppy-production machines.

According to our research, some states that require inspections of large-scale dog breeders, including Wisconsin and Texas, appear to have paused their routine inspection programs almost entirely. Others, like Kansas and Missouri, have decreased the number of inspection visits. Many states do not require inspections at all.

On the federal level, the USDA, which is in charge of inspecting breeders and dealers that sell puppies and kittens to pet stores or online, has cut back its already weak inspection program significantly. In a March 2020 notice to licensees, the USDA said it was “limiting routine inspections based on our assessment of the risk to the inspectors and facility personnel.”

The letter described a process where breeders were given significant control over determining how and when, and if, they could be inspected. “In the event that we do request an inspection, we understand that you may have exposure concerns or be dealing with very limited staff. Our inspectors will work with you to address the specific concern, use video or photos, or simply come back another time. This will not be considered a refusal to allow inspection,” it said.

While we understand that some measures are necessary to protect inspectors from COVID-19 risks, routine inspections are necessary to ensure the safety of dogs—and more than a year after that notice went out, online records show that many large-scale breeders have not been inspected since 2019. To complicate matters further, the USDA has noted they are not indicating on their inspection reports if an inspection was virtual, meaning it was conducted by phone or email rather than a standard in-person visit. This is confusing for people who buy dogs from pet stores and are told that the breeder of the puppy they are buying has “passed” a USDA inspection.

The Humane Society of the United States last year sent undercover investigators to visit and photograph dozens of puppy mills that the USDA has not recently inspected or has listed as compliant with Animal Welfare Act regulations. We found that at puppy mills the USDA did not cite for violations, dogs were living in puppy mill-like conditions, confined to small, stacked wire cages and with scant shelter from the elements. Some of these breeders have sold puppies to dozens of pet stores across the country, including Petland, the largest national pet store chain that sells puppies.

The cessation of court proceedings as a result of the pandemic have also created problems. This meant many animal shelters found themselves needing to hold large numbers of dogs seized from puppy mills for much longer than expected, as trials and hearings were repeatedly delayed. For instance, an animal shelter in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, run by one of our Stop Puppy Mills Hero award winners, Kala Hardin, has been holding 42 dogs from a puppy mill case for more than a year due to court delays.

We have been focusing attention on these ongoing problems and attending virtual meetings with enforcement agencies and policymakers to find solutions. We also continue to conduct law enforcement trainings to help localities recognize puppy mills and understand the laws they can use to shut them down. And more than 380 localities and three states have ended the sale of commercially raised puppies in pet stores; seven such local laws passed in the first quarter of 2021 alone, and more are pending on both the state and local level.

We will be pushing for resuming more in-person inspections of puppy mills as states reopen, and we will keep up the pressure on the USDA to better enforce the Animal Welfare Act against commercial breeders who hurt the animals in their care. We will also be working with members of Congress to reintroduce the Puppy Protection Act, which will strengthen protections for dogs in federally licensed facilities.

You are our most important ally in the fight against puppy mills: If you or someone you know purchased a sick puppy, please tell us your story. And if you are in the market for a puppy, please don’t buy one from a pet store or Internet site, which often source dogs from puppy mills. The best option is to adopt from an animal shelter or rescue group. You can also check out our responsible breeder checklist for characteristics to look for in a small home breeder. Together, we can end the scourge of puppy mills in the United States.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

As a bill to outlaw chemical tests on dogs that are not required by law advances in California, we are releasing a new poll today that shows overwhelming support among the state’s residents for ending such procedures.

The poll, commissioned by the Humane Society of the United States and conducted by Remington Research group, showed that 75% of poll respondents, cutting across age, gender, political affiliations and geographic regions, said they oppose the use of dogs to test the toxicity of products intended for human use, such as drugs, pesticides, and food additives.

A further 63% said they would support a law in California to prohibit such testing on dogs. The poll was conducted in late March among 1,470 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7%.

Toxicity testing on dogs leads to unnecessary animal suffering and produces dubious scientific results. Dogs who undergo toxicity testing suffer terribly. They may be force-fed drugs, pesticides or other substances and are observed for harmful effects such as heart failure, signs of cancer or even death. Some tests involve administering chemicals at extremely high doses to dogs over a prolonged period, causing slow deaths. Dogs are often killed after the studies so that their tissues and organs can be examined.

An expanding body of analysis demonstrates that tests on dogs are extremely unreliable at predicting human reactions to toxic substances—a coin toss, at best. Non-animal testing methods are more affordable, more predictive of impacts on humans and clearly less harmful to animals.

The poll also showed strong support for several related efforts to replace the use of all animals in research and testing with more humane and predictive alternatives.

• 67% of those polled said they would support legislation to require laboratories in California to disclose the number of animals used in research and testing, the purpose of those experiments, and whether the animals experienced pain and distress.
• 74% said they believe the government should invest in developing new, non-animal alternatives for biomedical research and product testing.

These poll results come even as the California Senate Committee on Judiciary voted this week to advance SB 252, which was introduced by State Sen. Scott Wiener. The bill would make it unlawful to conduct toxicity testing on dogs or cats not required by federal law or specifically exempted under measures in the bill. In our recent report that scrutinized the government’s role in funding, requiring or compelling experiments on dogs, we included the enactment of state legislation similar to SB 252 in California and other states.

California has long been a trailblazer for animal protection, and twenty years ago, the state was the first to pass legislation that mandated the use of non-animal test methods validated by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM), a committee under the National Institutes of Health that seeks to advance the acceptance of alternative test methods. In 2018, the state was the first to pass a ban on the sale of cosmetics that are newly tested on animals; three other states have followed in its footsteps since and more are considering similar measures. By passing SB 252, the state would build upon this long-standing humane legacy and drive further innovation in humane and human-relevant testing methods.

People are shocked when they see images of dogs suffering in experiments, such as those captured in an HSUS undercover investigation released in 2019, and find it hard to believe these practices are still legal. It is estimated that there are more than 58,000 dogs being used in U.S. public, private and federal research and testing facilities each year, and the U.S. government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars each year to fund this research. Most Americans would not approve of this, and our recent polling makes it clear that the California public is ready for a change. We applaud the Senate Judiciary Committee for voting to advance this legislation and we will keep up the fight for ending toxicity testing on dogs until California—and other states—pass laws to end it. 

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Animals used by the cosmetics testing industry have long suffered in silence. But they now have a new spokesbunny, Ralph, who is telling it like it is.

“Save Ralph” is a powerful stop-motion animation short film featuring Oscar winner Taika Waititi as the voice of Ralph, who is being interviewed for a documentary as he goes through his daily routine as a “tester” in a lab. “I’m a tester. My daddy was a tester, my mom, my brothers, my sisters, my kids. All testers,” he tells a documentary filmmaker voiced by actor and animal advocate Ricky Gervais. Ralph tells his interviewer that he is “doing it for the humans,” so long as “just one human can have the illusion of a safer lipstick or deodorant,” regardless of his own personal suffering.

HSI’s #SaveRalph campaign tackles the cruelty of animal testing in an original and unexpected way—using the story of one bunny to shine a light on the plight of countless rabbits and other animals in laboratories around the world.

While Ralph is animated, the miseries he endures in the short film are far from made up. As Spencer Susser, the director of “Save Ralph,” says, “It’s so important that Ralph feels real because he represents countless real animals who suffer every day.”

Susser, known for his film “Hesher,” is among a slate of powerhouse celebrities and influencers who collaborated with Humane Society International on the making of “Save Ralph.” In addition to Waititi as Ralph and Gervais as the interviewer, the film has Zac Efron as Bobby, Olivia Munn as Marshmallow, Pom Klementieff as Cinnamon and Tricia Helfer as Cottonballs.

Producer Jeff Vespa (“Voices of Parkland”) teamed up with the Arch Model studio of puppet maker supreme Andy Gent on the production.

The film will also be launched in Portuguese, Spanish, French and Vietnamese, with global celebrities like Rodrigo Santoro, Rosario Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama, H’Hen Nie, Diem My, Denis Villeneuve and others voicing the characters in those languages, and Maggie Q providing a video message of support for the #SaveRalph campaign in southeast Asia. The campaign will focus particularly on 16 countries, including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, South Africa, and 10 southeast Asian nations, where we hope to move lawmakers to ban cosmetics animal testing.

We are also hoping Ralph will amplify our ongoing efforts here in the United States, where four states have already passed bans to end the sale of animal-tested cosmetics, and where the Humane Society of the United States is hard at work to get more statewide laws passed. The Humane Society Legislative Fund is also anticipating that the Humane Cosmetics Act, a bill prohibiting cosmetics animal testing and imports with the support of more than 900 companies, will be reintroduced shortly and movement is expected this Congress.

Animal testing for cosmetics is not just cruel, it is absolutely unnecessary. These tests are unreliable predictors of human safety and can under- or over-estimate real-world hazards to people. Many non-animal methods have been, and continue to be, developed for new ingredients that deliver human-relevant results at less cost and in less time than traditional animal tests.

In the film, when Ralph is clamped into the acrylic restraint, the other bunnies, awed by his new celebrity, press him to ask the documentary crew to “get us out of here.” We are working to make sure that cry for help is heard around the world and we are fighting for the day when no animal, anywhere, is subjected to the needless misery of cosmetics testing.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Grizzly bears in the lower 48 states should retain their current protections under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the primary federal agency that makes decisions on the conservation of wildlife species. This is encouraging news for these native carnivores who have been under attack from trophy hunting interests in the states they live in, and who need all the help they can get to survive.

In a report published yesterday, the USFWS recommended that grizzly bears retain “threatened” status based on a five-year scientific status review.

Under the previous administration, the USFWS, in 2017, sought to prematurely delist grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as a handout to trophy hunters. We stopped this effort—and with it the first trophy hunting season on grizzlies in decades—in its tracks with a federal court victory in 2018 followed by an appeals court victory in 2020.

There are fewer than 1,800 grizzly bears now in the lower 48 states—a small number, by any measure. These animals were nearly wiped out of existence in the United States between 1915 and 1975. Today they occupy less than 2% of their original range in the United States.

Grizzly bear populations increase slowly. Female bears do not reproduce until they are between three and eight years of age and they produce small litters, with many years between each litter. Not all of the cubs survive to adulthood. That is why every bear must count, and why it may take a decade for a female bear to replace herself in the population. And the threats to their survival are many, including poachers, ranchers and state wildlife agencies who continually target these animals and kill them over fear and exaggerated claims that they kill cattle—claims we debunked using USDA data.

In its report, the USFWS pointed to tremendous threats grizzlies continue to face, including “limited habitat connectivity, management of access by motorized vehicles, human-caused mortality and uncertainty surrounding future conservation efforts in some ecosystems.”

The USFWS report also correctly recognized that the long-term survival of grizzly bears depends on establishing populations in parts of their historic range where they remain absent, like Washington’s North Cascades and Idaho’s Bitterroot ecosystem. We urge the USFWS to follow through by developing a comprehensive plan to achieve a truly interconnected, recovered population of grizzly bears.

States that are home to these bears should be doing all they can to protect them but instead they have chosen to sell them out to trophy hunting interests. We recently told you about Montana’s state legislature passing a host of bills in anticipation of a federal delisting. Those bills would have, among other atrocities, allowed ranchers to shoot grizzly bears they “perceived” as a threat to their livestock. They included measures such as barring the relocation of grizzly bears to promote their recovery.

These bills also allow hound-hunting of black bears in early spring and expanding wolf snaring and trapping, which could also harm grizzly bears and cubs. Fortunately, continuing federal protection will shield grizzlies from some of the worst impacts of these bills if they become law.

The Montana and Wyoming delegations in Congress are also engaged now in efforts to delist these bears—a shortsighted approach because grizzly bears and other wildlife contribute heavily to these states’ economies, with thousands of tourists flocking there each year to catch a glimpse of these animals in the wild.

We are encouraged by the USFWS recommendation today, but so long as these other threats to grizzly bears continue our work is far from done. You can rest assured we will keep a vigilant eye and continue to work hard to ward off efforts by bad state legislators, wildlife managers and members of Congress to hurt these iconic animals.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Animals are on a winning streak. Over just the last two days, we’ve had four terrific victories in U.S. federal courts that pave the way for progress for millions of animals. These include wildlife in the United States and overseas most often targeted by trophy hunters, animals in the fur industry, and farm animals confined in cruel cages on factory farms.

These wins are important. Many of them confront policies made by federal and state agencies that are harmful to animals and the environment and force these agencies to act with greater transparency toward the American public and the spending of their taxpayer dollars. It is also heartening to see our courts issue rulings that are in tune with the vast majority of Americans who express a clear distaste for practices like factory farming and trophy hunting and unnecessary commodities like fur.

Following are more details on the individual cases:

• USFWS blackout of trophy hunting data: On Monday, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can no longer withhold critical data on U.S. imports of hunting trophies and other wildlife parts and products from the public. HSI filed the case in 2016, after the Fish and Wildlife Service suddenly began redacting huge swaths of data in response to public records requests, leaving the American public in the dark on the role that the U.S. plays in global trophy hunting and the wildlife trade. Following Monday’s decision, the agency will have to turn over the records, which we rely heavily on to petition for increased protections for species on the brink of extinction, such as African elephants, giraffes and pangolins. The U.S imports more animal trophies than any other country, and it is a leading destination for trafficked wildlife body parts.
• San Francisco's history-making fur ban: On Tuesday afternoon, a federal court dismissed the fur industry’s legal challenge to San Francisco's pathbreaking ordinance banning fur product sales. The HSUS had intervened to defend the ordinance and successfully dismissed the fur industry’s challenge to the ban last summer, but the industry sought to keep the case alive by tacking on new (and equally meritless) legal arguments. Yesterday’s opinion not only shuts the door on this case, it also builds on a growing body of precedent affirming the right of cities and states around the country to prohibit the local sale of fur and other cruel animal products. HSUS attorneys partnered with pro bono counsel from Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila on the case.
• Colorado's state-sponsored wildlife carnage: Also on Tuesday, a Colorado federal judge ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to consider the environmental impacts of spending millions of taxpayer dollars on cruel wildlife killing experiments conducted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Colorado set out to kill hundreds of mountain lions and dozens of black bears in a scientifically unsupported attempt to boost local mule deer populations to benefit trophy hunters. In the past few years, Colorado drastically increased its hunting quotas to implement the experiment, leading to an all-out slaughter of the state’s mountain lion population. Federal Wildlife Services agents were also deployed to kill animals using extremely cruel methods such as traps, snares and hounds. Killing mountain lions, especially at these high rates, causes increased conflicts with humans, pets and livestock. Yesterday’s ruling will halt the use of federal taxpayer dollars—which account for more than 75% of the program’s funding—to pay for this state-sponsored slaughter.
• USDA's dangerous bird flu response plan: We reported yesterday on another important win, this time in a federal court in California, in our lawsuit against USDA’s dangerous bird flu response plan, which essentially subsidizes intensive confinement practices at factory farms. The court refused a USDA attempt to dismiss the case and gave our lawsuit the green light to proceed.

These are phenomenal victories against special interests with deep pockets who spend millions of dollars each year attempting to stop the progress we make for animals, so they can continue their exploitative practices. They would not be possible without the expertise and talent of our in-house team of lawyers, who, working with leading law firms and coalition partners, are on the job every day. As we celebrate these victories today, we applaud them for their hard work and for their commitment to protecting animals from those who seek to hurt them. 

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Maryland will soon become the fifth U.S. state to say no to cosmetics testing on animals.

State lawmakers last night voted to prohibit new tests on animals for cosmetics and all sales of newly-animal-tested cosmetics beginning July 2022. The Senate and House versions of the bills passed the Maryland Senate unanimously last night and they passed the House with a large majority, demonstrating the clear support in the state for ending such cruel testing.

The bill now heads to the governor’s desk, where we expect he will either sign it or let it pass into law without his signature.

Maryland joins neighboring Virginia, where Gov. Ralph Northam signed a similar bill into law just earlier this month, and three other states that have passed laws ending new cosmetics testing or sales—California in 2018 followed by Nevada and Illinois in 2019.

The laws reflect rising consumer opinion in the United States against unnecessary testing on animals for products like shampoos, mascara and lipstick. During these tests, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats have substances forced down their throats, dripped into their eyes, or smeared onto their skin before they are killed. Cosmetics companies are listening to consumer concerns and many have joined us to support bills in the states moving to end cosmetics testing sales and production. Maryland lawmakers received letters of support from several companies manufacturing or selling cosmetics products in Maryland, including Lush, MOM’s Organic Market, Jill Turnbull and ReNew Botanicals Skin Care, as they considered the bills.

The Personal Care Products Council, the leading national trade association representing approximately 600 personal care products companies, is also supportive of ending new cosmetics testing and partnered with us during the last Congress to lead the federal Humane Cosmetics Act, a bill addressing cosmetics animal testing and imports. We anticipate the bill will soon be reintroduced in the current Congress.

The United States does not require that cosmetics products be tested on animals. Moreover, these test methods are unreliable predictors of human safety. Different species can respond differently when exposed to the same chemicals. Consequently, animal tests may under- or over-estimate real-world hazards to people. Many non-animal methods have been, and continue to be, developed for new ingredients. These methods can combine human cell-based tests and sophisticated computer models to deliver human-relevant results at less cost and in less time than traditional animal tests.

We applaud Maryland lawmakers for taking this decisive step on behalf of animals, and we are especially grateful to Sen. Clarence Lam and Delegate Terri Hill who sponsored the versions of the bill in the Senate and the House of Delegates. The world is moving away from cosmetics testing, with 40 nations having passed laws to end or limit cosmetic animal testing. In the United States,  Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island are considering similar bans. We urge lawmakers in these and other states to move swiftly and end the cruelty for good.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.