Summary

• Colorado officials announced that our anti-trophy-hunting ballot measure—under the coalition name of Cats Aren’t Trophies, which submitted 188,000 signatures in support of its qualification—will appear on the November ballot for a vote of the people. The measure would halt human assaults on mountain lions, bobcats, and Canada lynxes, and it is the nation’s most consequential anti-trophy hunting ballot measure ever launched.
• A U.S. District Court judge determined that a key farm animal protection law—Question 3, passed by Massachusetts voters in 2016—is not preempted by federal law. Animal Wellness Action filed briefs in the case as amicus curiae to protect one of the nation’s two most important anti-confinement farm animal protection measures.
• There was a new surge in busts of animal fighting rings, as our Animal Fighting Is the Pits campaign spurs enforcement actions across the nation. And now, 655 agencies and groups have endorsed the FIGHT Act in Congress to create, among other provisions, the first-ever “private right of action” in any federal anti-cruelty law.
• After Cody Roberts brought to light the legal use of a snowmobile to run down and crush a wolf in Wyoming, Animal Wellness Action filed a federal lawsuit challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to ignore widespread wolf abuses and killing in Northern Rockies states.
• The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 continues to attract tremendous enthusiasm from scientists and drug developers (680 stories on the subject), but the FDA is not implementing the law. A key U.S. House Committee rebuked the agency, and our new authorizing legislation, the FDA Modernization Act 3.0, continues to attract bipartisan support.

HALTING TROPHY HUNTING
Anti-trophy hunting measure officially qualifies for November ballot
Cats Aren’t Trophies (CATs), a political committee that Animal Wellness Action helped form in Colorado, has officially qualified a ballot measure to ban trophy hunting of mountain lions and commercial trapping of native bobcats. That measure is the most important election fight against trophy hunting in at least 30 years. We’ll face a multi-million-dollar campaign from the Safari Club International and other trophy hunting organizations. Trophy hunters and commercial trappers slay as many as 2,000 bobcats and 600 lions a year, most of them in “guaranteed kill” hound hunts led and executed by hunting guides who charge $8,000 for a trophy cat. Jim Keen, D.V.M., Ph.D., the senior veterinarian for the Center for a Humane Economy, issued a report underscoring that lion populations are self-regulating and also noting that trophy hunting creates social chaos among surviving lions and increases the proportion of lions less skilled at killing traditional prey.

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CAGE-FREE FUTURE
Yet one more federal court says Massachusetts farm animal law is constitutional
A U.S. District Court rejected claims from Missouri-based Triumph Foods and other factory farming interests that a voter-approved statewide farm animal protection law in Massachusetts is preempted by federal law. Federal Judge William G. Young stated that the state law, known as Question 3, “seeks to prevent the sale of pork raised in inhumane conditions … not because it is considered unhealthy [which is determined by federal regulators], but because the policy preferences of the Massachusetts voters demand it not be eligible for sale.”

Almost 80% of Massachusetts voters said no to extreme confinement on Question 3 nearly eight years ago. The pork companies’ defeat is just the latest in a string of losses. In May 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a nearly identical measure, California Proposition 12, as constitutional and a proper exercise of state authority.

ANIMAL FIGHTING IS THE PITS
More busts throughout the nation as momentum builds for FIGHT
The pace of animal-fighting busts, mostly at the local level, was robust again in July, with major raids in Granville County, N.C.; Adams County, Colo.; Santa Cruz County, Calif.; and Marathon County, Wisc. The bust in Granville County exposed a criminal network that includes operators of a massive gamecock farm in Wilkes County, perhaps the biggest in North Carolina, that sells fighting birds throughout the United States and into Mexico. Animal Wellness Action has been investigating this farm, and a trailer from that farm was found at the crime scene—with the farm likely connected to drug cartels in Mexico. Our investigations in the Tarheel State began in earnest in 2020 when we determined it was among the top five point-of-origin states for illegally shipped fighting birds sent to Guam.

Meanwhile, the FIGHT Act, which provides a provision to create a private cause of action to allow private citizens to bring animal fighters to court, has now attracted 655 endorsing agencies and organizations, building on the prior endorsements from the National Sheriffs’ Association and the National District Attorneys’ Association.

PROTECTING WOLVES
Lawsuit filed to restore protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies
Following an earlier Notice of Intent to Sue, Animal Wellness Action led a coalition of organizations in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its refusal to give Endangered Species Act protections to the gray wolves in the West, in violation of the ESA and the Administrative Procedure Act. Despite the FWS’ initial finding that listing the Western gray wolf under the ESA “may be warranted,” the agency inexplicably reversed course more than two years later when it decided that the Western gray wolf is not entitled to ESA protection. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have gone wild in setting virtually no limits on killing wolves, including allowing the animals to be run over by snowmobiles, caught in neck snares, and even chased and attacked by packs of dogs. In large parts of these states, wolves can be killed any day of the year and in any number. FWS is continuing to allow decades of wolf recovery to unravel and is failing not just the wolves of the Northern Rockies, but wildlife and wildlands that benefit from healthy and abundant wolf populations.

MODERNIZE TESTING
House Committee rebukes FDA on animal testing
At the close of 2022, Animal Wellness achieved perhaps the biggest federal policy gain ever in Congress on animal testing with the passage of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. Led by Rand Paul and Cory Booker in the Senate, and Vern Buchanan in the House, the legislation eliminated an animal-testing mandate in new drug development. Perhaps three quarters of animals used in testing are for drug screening. The FDA has done little to implement the law, and that’s why we’ve advocated for new legislation—the FDA Modernization Act 3.0—to push FDA to act and to set up a system for qualifying non-animal tests.

As a further prod to FDA, the House Appropriations Committee included this language in its Fiscal Year 2025 spending bill: “The Committee urges the continued implementation of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, designed to modernize the drug development process and empower free market competition. Significant delays may sow confusion among drug sponsors and stifle free-market innovation in new drug development. The Committee requests a briefing 120 days after the enactment of this Act providing an update on implementation and timeline of future activities.” More than 680 news outlets have written about the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 since its passage, many of which noted the paradigm shift it augurs in drug testing not only in the United States but throughout the world.

UPDATES ON ITEMS FROM PRIOR REPORTS

• PROTECTING ALL FOREST OWLS. In response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announcing plans to kill 450,000 barred owls over the coming 30 years to reduce competition with spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest, we are readying a lawsuit to stop it. This final decision by the agency again commanded international headlines because it would be the largest raptor slaughter in the world. Our legal team is developing plans to sue the agency, and we are also preparing to lobby Congress to defund the mass-killing plan. The quarter-of-a-billion-dollar plan is doomed to fail, with the agency suggesting that mass killing of owls across roadless areas in 17 national forests and six national parks is both acceptable and workable. Our coalition opposing the owl slaughter consists of more than 150 groups.
• RESCUING DOGS. We are fighting a separate government plan—this one by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and taking effect August 1st—to adopt onerous import standards for pet owners. The new standards would impact U.S. military and Foreign Service personnel, as well as international dog rescue groups, and their ability to bring dogs back into the United States from abroad.
  
  The CDC now “requires for all dog imports: a microchip, six-month minimum age requirement for admission, and importer submission of a CDC import form.” While this policy brings a major benefit—a practical ban on the import of puppy mill dogs from foreign nations—it also makes it very difficult for any pet owners or Foreign Service or military personnel to return with a dog to the United States. It also imposes substantial burdens on charities doing international dog rescue and seeking a new chance for dogs in this 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 actual and acute domestic risks from U.S.-based mink farms and illegal cockfighting farms.
  
  Many airlines, including Lufthansa, Finnair, Swiss International Air Lines, and Austrian Airlines, have already announced the policies are too burdensome and are stopping transports in the cabin or in cargo, confirming our fears.

   

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action