͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. If you’d like to unsubscribe, click here. [[link removed]]

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Monthly Accomplishments and Update
Animal Wellness Action, the Animal Wellness Foundation, and the Center for a Humane Economy
July 2025
Summary
* A House appropriations committee recommended, in its official report, that the U.S. Department of Justice set aside $2 million in Fiscal Year 2026 to create an animal cruelty crimes section. Building upon our successes in passing federal anti-cruelty laws, it’s time for more robust enforcement.
* It is official that the Trump Administration nixed several barred-owl kill projects, sparing hundreds of owls and signaling opposition to a far larger plan. We subsequently worked with a powerful set of lawmakers to introduce Congressional Review Act resolutions to nullify the government’s scheme to kill nearly half a million of the long-protected birds—a plan we’ve labeled “ a forever war against forest owls. [[link removed]] ”
* We released a 40-page report [[link removed]] , grounded on animal welfare science and economics, exposing legislation in Congress—a rebranded version of the EATS Act—that would nullify the states’ most important farm animal welfare laws. Meanwhile, we’ll battle in court [[link removed]] against an effort by the Trump Administration to invalidate California’s landmark cage-free hen treatment policies, starting with Prop 2.
* Over the July 4th weekend, our undercover team infiltrated three cockfighting derbies in northeast Texas, with sheriff’s deputies raiding the fights and making arrests, including the arrest of a major industry kingpin [[link removed]] . In nearby Oklahoma, our prior investigations triggered an Ethics Commission investigation into illegal campaign activities of two cockfighting leaders, including their funneling of monies from felony sales of fighting birds into political campaigns.
* Our investigations revealed American trophy hunters shot more than 10,000 bears last year over bait piles on federal lands. Federal agencies warn forest visitors not to feed bears, but they inexplicably make an exception for bear baiters. We partnered with Congressman Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., to introduce the Don’t Feed the Bears Act to ban this unethical, reckless practice.
ZERO TOLERANCE FOR CRUELTY
House calls on DOJ to fund new prosecutors’ unit to tackle animal abuse
Our multi-year quest to create an animal cruelty crimes section at the Department of Justice, with a team of federal prosecutors to enforce our national laws against animal fighting and other forms of malicious cruelty, is one giant step closer to reality. The Fiscal Year 2026 House appropriations bill funding the DOJ urges the Attorney General [[link removed]] to allocate $2 million from funds provided to assemble a dedicated team of federal anti-cruelty prosecutors. Reps. David Joyce, R-Ohio, and Joe Neguse, D-Colo., have been spearheading a bipartisan authorizing measure called the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act, H.R. 1477 [[link removed]] , while Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., are leading the FBI Animal Cruelty Taskforce Act, H.R. 3683 [[link removed]] .
Since 2014, the DOJ’s Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) has had responsibility to enforce a half dozen federal anti-cruelty laws. But over the last few decades, the ECS has pursued just a handful of cruelty cases, with the exception of some meaningful work on dogfighting in the last few years. Creating a dedicated animal cruelty crimes unit would allow the government to tackle cockfighting, the sale of crush videos, extreme horse abuse and other odious acts that are often linked to narcotics trafficking, money laundering, illicit gambling, animal and human trafficking, and public corruption.
SAVING OWLS
Congressional resolutions aim to block planned massacre of barred owls
In a front page story [[link removed]] , the Los Angeles Times broke the news that the Trump Administration had nixed several bridge grants to the state of California to kill barred owls, which were intended as an onramp to the agency’s massive plan announced in September 2024 to kill nearly half a million of the long-protected forest owls. The Administration’s defunding of the grants [[link removed]] followed two letters ( March 7 [[link removed]] and May 21 [[link removed]] ) from 38 U.S. House members calling on the Interior Department to quash the billion-dollar kill plan. Following the Times story, we turned immediately to allies in Congress to introduce a pair of resolutions [[link removed]] , S.J. Res. 69, led by Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., and H.J. Res. 111, by Reps. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, Josh Harder, D-Calif., Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Adam Gray, D-Calif., to nullify the whole costly, unworkable, and inhumane scheme.
This Biden-era plan authorizes the largest sanctioned mass killing of long-protected birds by any nation in the world. Even if shooters could amass a big body count of lookalike owls, surviving barred owls would fill the void. “As soon as you stop, barred owls will be back, and you will be back to square one,” said Dr. Eric Forsman [[link removed]] , the dean of forest owl biologists who has studied these owls for 50 years.
The prospects for success are nil: (1) Barred owls are abundant. (2) There are no geographical barriers preventing colonization of purged areas. (3) The control area spans an unmanageable patchwork of 17 national forests and 14 National Park Service units, covering 24 million acres. (4) Hunters have no interest in shooting barred owls, requiring the government to pay shooters to slay owls.
Conservation dollars should be put to better use, and it’s our view that the Endangered Species Act was envisioned as a shield for native wildlife, not as a sword to hurt them.
CAGE-FREE FUTURE
We expose Congress’s plan to kill Prop 12—and announce a challenge to the Trump lawsuit
Our new report [[link removed]] on the Farm Protection and Food Security Act and the Save Our Bacon Act—just warmed-over and rebranded versions of the EATS Act we’ve been fighting for years— exposes [[link removed]] an outrageous attack on states’ rights and an invitation to China to expand its already massive level of control of U.S. pork production. The House and Senate measures would unwind state laws [[link removed]] that set humane standards for the treatment of some farm animals, no matter how well they are working and how widely supported they are by state voters or lawmakers. We helped secure a letter [[link removed]] signed by 32 Democrat and Independent Senators opposing the EATS Act or any derivative of it. And the U.S. Supreme Court turned down [[link removed]] yet one more legal challenge by pork producers.
Our report came out just as the Trump Administration filed a surprise lawsuit [[link removed]] against the state of California, attempting to overturn the state’s key laws to protect laying hens. Not only do we and other animal protection groups support those laws, but so, too, does the egg industry, which has invested billions of dollars to move in the direction of a cage-free agriculture in America. We’re fighting back in court [[link removed]] with the support of many farmers who understand that the public has lost its appetite for extreme confinement of farm animals.
ANIMAL FIGHTING IS THE PITS
Three cockfighting operations shut down in one weekend thanks to our investigators
Our collaboration with Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) led to a trifecta of cockfighting busts over the July 4th weekend in northeast Texas. The infiltration of a massive cockfighting derby in Titus County led to the arrest of cockfighting kingpin Tim Thompson [[link removed]] at his sprawling cockfighting complex that we’d also exposed weeks before. Two other investigations, in Kaufman County and Henderson County [[link removed]] , led to more arrests and the abrupt scattering of cockfighters as sheriff’s deputies took action to break up the staged animal fights in progress.
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, our past investigations with SHARK helped expose the leadership of the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission” [[link removed]] on video engaging in cockfighting activities—actions that triggered a formal investigation [[link removed]] by the Oklahoma Ethics Commission into the cockfighters’ broader efforts over three years to influence state policy and political campaigns [[link removed]] by raising dollars through illicit means.
PROTECTING BEARS
Lawmakers, animal advocates, and hunters take aim at bear baiting on federal lands
Working with Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., we helped develop and partner on the introduction of H.R. 4422, the Don’t Feed the Bears Act— groundbreaking legislation [[link removed]] to ban bear baiting on federal lands nationwide. The bill would stop the practice of guides and other trophy hunters setting up garbage piles [[link removed]] on our federal lands and using those dump sites to ambush bears and shoot them.
Our investigation [[link removed]] showed that more than 10,000 bears were killed over bait piles on federal lands last year, in violation of “fair chase” principles and the land agencies’ strictures on feeding bears. In addition to being unsporting, the practice habituates bears to human foods, causing bears to enter campgrounds and cabins and put hikers, hunters, and the animals themselves at risk.
This legislation comes a year after the National Park Service rightly banned bear baiting on 20 million acres [[link removed]] of national preserves in Alaska—a rule now under attack by the Trump Administration. We’ll be defending that rulemaking while also seeking to apply the same commonsense policies to national forests, national wildlife refuges, and other federal lands. More than 170 organizations, plus wildlife scientists, veterinarians, hunters, and conservationists, are backing our legislation, including acclaimed outdoors writer Ted Williams, who wrote a piece about the issue for our website, labeling bear baiting “a reckless and indefensible relic.”
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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