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Dear Friend,
Meaningful social reform doesn’t spring from hope. It comes from a blend of moral clarity and solid execution.
That’s what Animal Wellness Action delivered for animals in 2025. We pushed animal cruelty out of the shadows and into the glare of the spotlight.
For years, we’ve been laying out the case that animal testing is expensive, ineffective, and morally fraught. We worked with Congress to eliminate an animal-testing mandate for new drug development protocols. And in 2025, there’s been something of a moral and scientific awakening.
We’re seeing an outpouring of public and private investment in innovation. And we are seeing government and business striding toward a future where we spare the primates and the beagles and embrace 21st-century testing methods grounded on human biology.
Because of this work, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now moving to end invasive testing on primates—an extraordinary shift at the nation’s premier public health agency. Private beagle breeding facilities are being shuttered. And there is talk from public health leaders of banning imports of primates into our country for invasive experiments and winding down the work of primate centers, which are clean-looking hellholes for tens of thousands of cognitively complex wild animals trapped in cages.
While we were taking on the task of eliminating animal-testing mandates, we also took on archaic mandates for animal use in our public schools. Both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate passed key provisions of our FISCAL Act to dismantle the 80-year cow’s-milk mandate for kids getting federal nutrition assistance in school cafeterias. Food workers have been directed to put milk cartons on every tray even though 40% of the recipients are lactose intolerant.
This led to kids in the classroom becoming ill or unfed. And it’s led to massive milk wastage, with perhaps more than 100 million gallons of milk tossed in the trash every year. And it disrespected the cows, who labored on factory farms only to see their output discarded without a thought about their sacrifices. The policy we shepherded to passage restores common sense and common decency all around.
When it came to violent abuse, we did not blink. Our investigations exposed the online trafficking of cockfighting gaffs and knives—razor-sharp weapons affixed to the combatants’ legs to maim and kill. As a direct result, Etsy shut down these sales, and we’re working to deliver the same result when it comes to eBay. Our investigators also put drones in the air and donned disguises to sniff out illegal animal fighting derbies, leading to the shutdown of dozens of these operations and the arrests of hundreds of people engaging in malicious treatment of animals.
At the same time, support for the FIGHT Act surged—with more than 1,000 agencies and organizations endorsing a bill to dismantle dogfighting and cockfighting rings. America’s law enforcement leaders now fully grasp that animal fighting is bound up with illegal gambling, drugs, and firearms, and when an animal fighting venture is disbanded, we make our communities safer across the board.
We are also in federal court right now, fighting to stop a reckless plan to kill half a million barred owls and to open 14 national parks to owl hunting—a scheme that threatens wildlife, ecosystems, and some of America’s most cherished public lands. We’re fighting to protect wolves from people who possess an irrational hatred of them and pay no heed to the ecological and economic services they freely deliver.
These victories count. That’s why you invest in our work. But these gains are not endpoints.
Each one represents a fight still in progress—new laws to be enforced, new policies to be enacted, new awareness built. We know that we can convince any rational person—whether a lawmaker, a CEO, or any other influencer—that there is always a better way forward for the good of society than to abuse an animal.
That’s why your continued support is so important right now. A $25,000 matching gift is in place, doubling every contribution made during this early phase of our year-end campaign.
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