By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson We are on Capitol Hill today for the swearing in of the 116 th Congress, along with Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund colleagues. We’re meeting with members of Congress, old and new, and gearing up for a new session of pushing...

Update 12/29/22: President Biden has signed the fiscal year 2023 omnibus appropriations package into law—a big win for animals! We’ve had remarkable success in our end-of-session push for critical legislation in the U.S. Congress, with the Big Cat Public Safety Act, Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act...

As Joe Biden and Kamala Harris head to the White House, they bring with them a proven track record of protecting animals. In past years, we have worked with both the president- and vice-president-elect to strengthen laws on wildlife, marine mammals, farm animals, and so much more, and we look...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson A number of important bills are now making their way through Congress, and this week has been a particularly successful one for wildlife and especially for elephants, rhinos, wolves, wild horses, burros and right whales. Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee...

Today, the New York Times reported on Airbnb’s new featured offering of “animal experiences,” which will have an ethical focus and will ban any direct contact with wild animals. The announcement comes on the heels of a decision by TripAdvisor, reported just yesterday, to stop ticket sales to all...

Imagine having to work in a roadside zoo, a pet store selling puppy mill puppies, a slaughter plant or a factory farm without ever being able to show your true feelings. Would you ever be able to walk alone among hundreds of dead animals at a wildlife killing contest, surrounded by people carrying...

Update 3/15/2022: President Biden signed the appropriations package into law. Humane advocates often look to the passage of animal-friendly legislation as the strongest measure of progress in our work at the federal level, and clearly, good laws are important. But a nation that cares for animals...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson The last horse slaughter plants in the United States closed years ago, and Congress has consistently voted to prohibit funding for horse slaughter inspections within U.S borders. Unfortunately, this does not prevent the inhumane transport of American equines to other...

America’s wild horses and burros are in crisis and unless the Bureau of Land Management revamps its program to manage these animals in a non-lethal and sustainable manner, as Congress has directed it to do, the gridlock surrounding the program will continue to prevent progress. Recently, BLM...

The appropriations bill and accompanying coronavirus relief/stimulus package for fiscal year 2021 now advancing through Congress will bring critical and much-needed support to millions of Americans. We are also pleased to report that the package, which funds federal agencies, includes a number of...

The U.S. House has just passed the Farm Bill, and we’re celebrating great wins for animals. Most importantly, the bill does not contain the reckless King amendment, which could have nullified state and local laws that address, among other issues, prohibiting horse slaughter for food, the extreme...

Update! The U.S. Senate has just voted to approve the Farm Bill by a vote of 87 to 13. The bill did not include the dreaded King amendment that had the potential to nullify important state and local laws protecting animals, but senators approved three key measures that benefit companion animals. The...

The U.S. House today approved many key animal protection reforms, including measures designed to rein in horse soring, combat wildlife trafficking and help enforce animal cruelty laws, as part of Congress's annual appropriations process. Members also prohibited the use of federal funds for...

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson In a major victory for our campaign to protect wild horses and burros, the United States this week reinstated important safeguards that will prevent unscrupulous kill buyers from purchasing large numbers of these iconic American animals and funneling them to...

Update 7/1/2021: The INVEST in America Act (H.R. 3684) has passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 221 to 201. We urge the U.S. Senate to include the House amendments in their version of the bill and pass it swiftly in order to make these historic wins for animals law. Horses and...

Over the weekend, the 86th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration concluded in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and we are determined that this be the last Celebration with abused walking horses on display. A rule finalized earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and slated to take full effect in February 2025 gives us reason to hope our decades of work to end this practice will come to fruition. However, there are last-ditch efforts to block this essential rule through lawsuits and political pressure, which is why we must continue to press the issue. Members of the Humane Society of the United States’ Equine Protection team traveled to Tennessee to evaluate the condition of the horses at the show, and here, Keith Dane, senior director of Equine Protection, gives an account of what they saw.

For years, the government, through the Bureau of Land Management, has attempted to control wild horse and burro numbers by rounding the animals up and offering them for adoption. It was during one such roundup in the year 2000 that a flashy sorrel and white yearling was picked up in southern Oregon...

Americans are taking a stand against one of the gravest assaults on animal welfare, unfolding right now in the U.S. Congress, where a radical faction of the pork industry is pushing to include the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act (H.R. 4417/S. 2019) in the Farm Bill. We’re not going...

Today, in a crucial victory for animals, President Trump signed into law the Farm Bill minus the anti-animal King amendment but with three pro-animal measures. This is an outcome the Humane Society Legislative Fund had long worked for, along with our Humane Society of the United States legal and...

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...