Summary

• Animal advocates made their presence known at Adidas’s general shareholder meeting in Fürth and zeroed in on its sourcing of kangaroo skins. At the meeting, CEO Björn Gulden signaled that a policy change may be imminent, a key goal of our Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign.
• There has been a drumbeat of arrests of animal fighters and shutdowns of pits. Still, more enforcement is required, and we are asking Congress to pass the FIGHT Act, now endorsed by the National Sheriffs’ Association and the National District Attorneys Association, together representing 5,000 elected law enforcement personnel.
• A political committee formed by Animal Wellness Action will submit approximately 180,000 signatures on July 3 to qualify a November ballot measure in Colorado to ban trophy hunting of mountain lions and bobcats and commercial trapping of bobcats—the first statewide ballot measure for animals since Prop 12 (farm animals) and Amendment 13 (ban on greyhound racing in Florida) in 2018.
• Vermont banned trade in bear bile and bear gallbladders, as we press for a national ban to cover outlier states and imports and exports of trafficked bear parts.
• The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the newly implemented Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act, allowing the national horse safety law to remain in place and protect horses in competition from catastrophic injuries and death.
• We have enlisted 132 organizations and the Commission of Public Lands in Washington state as we continue to fight a plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to execute an inhumane, unworkable, and costly proposal to spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to kill nearly a half-million barred owls over the next three decades. 

KANGAROOS ARE NOT SHOES
Adidas CEO calls kangaroo killing ‘terrible’ and signals that policy change looms
In May, at its general shareholder meeting in Fürth, Germany, Adidas CEO Björn Gulden acknowledged that the commercial industry of killing kangaroos to make shoes is “terrible” and announced that the company may “switch faster than you think” toward fabrics not made from kangaroos. Gulden was leading Puma in March 2023 when that company announced it would end its sourcing of kangaroo skins. Nike and then New Balance followed Puma’s pledge. (The Center is cautious about Adidas pledges, since it reneged on a promise 10 years ago to exit the kangaroo-skin trade.

The Center worked with the German-based Animal Rebellion on the disruption, along with organizing questions from shareholders. Meanwhile, the Center underscored with Adidas that there are very practical consequences of its sourcing policy. We reported that a jogger rescued a 6- month-old joey from inside the pouch of its decapitated mother in Queensland, Australia. The jogger heard cries coming from the remnants of a commercial killing site—where two adult kangaroos and a wallaroo had been beheaded. We’ve long pointed out that the shooting kills hundreds of thousands of lactating females with dependent young, dooming joeys in the pouch or at the feet of their slain mothers.

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ANIMAL FIGHTING IS THE PITS
National Sheriffs’ Assoc. and National District Attorneys Assoc. Endorse FIGHT Act
The National Sheriffs’ Association and the National District Attorneys Association—representing more than 5,000 elected sheriffs and district attorneys in our nation’s 3,100 counties—have endorsed the FIGHT Act, H.R. 2742/S. 1529. Meanwhile, more of their county sheriffs and district attorneys are busting animal fighting operations, with record numbers of arrests. We continue to point out that trafficking of cockfighting birds is a key feature of America’s border crisis.

Meanwhile, Animal Wellness Action is active in opposing law enforcement officials protecting animal fighters. After we worked to defeat long-time dogfighter Stoney Greene, the chairman of the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners, in his run for the Republican nomination for the North Carolina House seat, he’s now resigned from the board altogether. In Oklahoma, voters threw out two pro-cockfighting sheriffs—in Atoka and McCurtain counties. Sadly, Carter County Sheriff Chris Bryant, who has worked diligently to bust illegal cockfighting rings in his county in Oklahoma, acting in some cases on tips from Animal Wellness Action and our partner SHARK, lost a heartbreaking race. He and his opponent ended in a tie in the Republican primary on June 18—2,569 votes apiece. Bryant lost his post after county election officials pulled one of the two names out of a hat to decide the race.

Also in Oklahoma, we defeated all bills to overturn Oklahoma’s voter-approved anti-cockfighting law. Remarkably, the state’s leading cockfighting lawmaker, State Rep. J.J. Humphrey, still had the temerity to issue a welcome video for participants at an annual gathering of the World Association of Cockfighting Breeders. “I appreciate all that you’re doing worldwide to save this industry,” Humphrey says in the video.

HALTING TROPHY HUNTING
We’re submitting 180,000 signatures for anti-trophy-hunting ballot measure
Cats Aren’t Trophies (CATs), a political committee that Animal Wellness Action helped form in Colorado, is on the cusp of submitting 180,000 signatures of registered voters to qualify a ballot measure to ban trophy hunting of mountain lions and commercial trapping of native bobcats. If this measure qualifies, it will be the first animal welfare ballot measure to appear on a statewide ballot since Prop 12 (anti-confinement measure in California) and Amendment 13 (greyhound racing ban in Florida) in 2018. A major fight will ensue between our groups and the NRA and Safari Club International.

By creating a law—like statutes to oppose cruelty to animals or animal fighting—we can stop trophy hunters and commercial trappers from slaying as many as 2,500 native cats a year in Colorado. If enacted, the policy will spare 25,000 wild cats over the next decade.

PROTECTING BEARS
Vermont bans trade in bear bile and gallbladders
Animal Wellness Action led passage of legislation in Vermont to prohibit the sale of bear bile and other internal organs used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The measure aligns Vermont with more than 40 other states to restrict trade in gallbladders and bile to halt poaching.

A key partner organization—Protect Our Wildlife Vermont—documented trafficking of bear gallbladders and bile within the borders of the Green Mountain state, and that revelation motivated the legislative fight. The extraction of these bodily fluids involves killing wild bears or “farming” bears and keeping them in extreme confinement, driving poaching in the wild.

Animal Wellness Action is working on national legislation to forbid any interstate or foreign trade in bear gallbladders and bile. In 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Health controversially endorsed bear bile as a palliative treatment for COVID-19, potentially exacerbating the exploitation of bears worldwide. Bear farms, notorious for their inhumane practices, continue to operate in China and other countries and pose a threat to both captive and wild bear populations.

NO DOPING IN HORSE RACING
SCOTUS lets key federal appellate court ruling stand on national horse safety law
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), rejecting an appeal from horse-racing interests who do not want to submit to comprehensive anti-doping rules. As a result, track safety standards for Thoroughbreds in competition remain in place across most of the nation. The continued implementation of the national law that Animal Wellness Action worked to pass in 2020 is vital for the well-being of horses, jockeys, and drivers. America’s racetracks should not be routine crash sites.

Several horse racing industry groups challenged HISA by filing the appeal that came to SCOTUS from the Sixth Circuit ruling. Since Thoroughbred tracks began complying with HISA, racing-related deaths have declined significantly—by 38 percent according to one metrics report for 2024. Racetracks operating under HISA’s rules and running races in the first quarter reported 0.84 racing-related equine fatalities per 1,000 starts, compared to 1.35 racing-related equine fatalities per 1,000 starts in the first quarter of 2023.

Not all Thoroughbred tracks are under HISA control, however, as racing commissions in several states refuse to comply, including those in Texas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. In those racing jurisdictions, deaths continue to mount. It’s our goal to see that tracks in those states and the harness-racing industry opt into the track safety program. Nine accidents have occurred at eight harness-racing tracks since May 8, leading to the deaths of seven horses and trips to the hospital for seven drivers.

SPARING OWLS
We stand against a federal plan to kill half-million barred owls
The list of organizations signing our letter in opposition to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan to kill nearly 500,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest has now swelled to 132 and now includes 20 local Audubon society chapters, including several in Washington State. The agency says the goal of the plan is to reduce competition with spotted owls.

In late June, Animal Wellness Action won the support of Hilary S. Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands for Washington state, who planned this impractical idea. “I don’t believe that a decades-long plan to kill nearly half-a-million barred owls across 14 million acres of land represents a solution that is absolutely viable, affordable or capable,” she said in a video that was part of a June 20 webinar for Animal Wellness Action.

“How can we prevent the surviving barred owls from simply recolonizing and repopulating the very areas we are trying to preserve?” said Commissioner Franz, who manages three million acres of land in Washington. “I think we can do better, and we have too many questions that need to be answered.” Her letter is posted here.

Our webinar also featured former USFWS wildlife biologist Kent Livezey, who pegged the cost of the kill plan at $235 million—making it one of the most expensive endangered-species management projects ever. He noted in one of his dozen peer-reviewed publications that the biggest-ever raptor killing plan by the federal government targeted 40 birds of prey. But that was in 2010, before the Service started killing barred owls. The current plan targeting barred owls is 12,000 times more than that. “To say that this is unprecedented is an understatement,” he said.

UPDATES ON ITEMS FROM PRIOR REPORTS

• BANNING BEAR BAITING: The Biden Administration has banned bear baiting on 21 million acres of national preserves in Alaska–with a collective land area matching the size of South Carolina. While this is an unmistakable gain that we advocated aggressively to secure, the Administration stripped out a series of other protective measures it had included in its original proposed rulemaking to protect bears, wolves, and other predators on National Park Service lands in our nation’s biggest and wildest state. The agency left open the possibility of addressing other issue it left out of the final rule, including provisions to ban killing wolves and bears, including their pups and cubs, in their dens; prohibiting the shooting of swimming caribou; and halting the use of dogs in hunting bears. While it’s a moment to celebrate the ban on baiting of black bears and brown bears, no National Park Service lands should permit other extreme practices targeting predators.
• Cage-Free Future. In spite of our organizing sign-on letters from more than 200 Democrats and Republicans in Congress opposing the EATS Act—which would overturn Prop 12 and other state farm animal protection laws—the House Agriculture Chairman has inserted it into his version of the Farm bill. That Farm bill will have a tough time advancing with our opposition to it, along with opposition from other key stakeholders.
• Protecting Wolves. In July, we’ll work with allies in Congress to introduce legislation to ban using snowmobiles and other ground- based motor vehicles to run down wolves and other wildlife on federal lands, after Cody Roberts ran down a wolf and grievously wounded her in Daniel, Wyo. The Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act is modeled on a prohibition in place in Minnesota since 1986 that bans the horrific practices of “whacking” wolves and coyotes. Hunting writer Ted Williams has already penned columns in the Northern Rockies noting that a prohibition using snowmobiles and trucks to run down animals is overdue.
• Rescuing Dogs. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a final rule, tightening restrictions on imports of dogs. The final rule “requires for all dog imports: a microchip, six-month minimum age requirement for admission, and importer submission of a CDC import form (CDC Dog Import Form).” While this policy brings a major benefit—a practical ban on the import of puppy mill dogs from foreign nations—it also imposes substantial burdens on charities doing international dog rescue and seeking a new chance for dogs in the United States.

  In addition, it places a burden on Foreign Service and military personnel struggling to hold onto their pets as they return to their country. With this rulemaking, the CDC has made a haywire risk assessment, taking a hyper-protective approach to the low risk of imports of rabies-infected animals while doing virtually nothing to address acute domestic risks from U.S.-based mink farms and illegal cockfighting farms. Mink farms are known to spread SARS-CoV-2 variants and H5N1, while Mexico-based cockfighting farms have launched 10 documented U.S. outbreaks of virulent Newcastle Disease. U.S.-based cockfighters pose a threat in further spreading H5N1, which already lays claims as costliest zoonotic disease outbreak in American history.

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action