Your Summary of Our Latest Animal News and Information

America’s war on prairie dogs is misguided, unscientific, and cruel

In this exposé from the noted wildlife and outdoors journalist, Ted Williams lays bare the irrational hatred aimed at prairie dogs and the mass shooting of these animals in killing contests in Kansas and other Great Plains states. Williams explains that prairie dogs are a keystone species whose burrows sustain grassland ecosystems and provide essential habitat for imperiled wildlife, including black-footed ferrets, burrowing owls, and ferruginous hawks. Shooting and poisoning campaigns targeting them are reckless. It’s especially bad for raptors, foxes, and other species who feed on prairie dogs left behind by the contest shooters. These opportunistic feeders are poisoned by eating the remains of the prairie dogs impregnated with lead fragments. The use of toxic lead ammunition kills long after the round leaves the barrel of the rifle. Read more here.

Cutting off the airlines that fuel the global cockfighting trade

Animal Wellness Action reports on the introduction of its new bipartisan federal legislation — the No Flight, No Fight Act — designed to choke off the international trafficking of fighting birds by commercial airlines. Introduced last week in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, H.R. 7371 makes enforcement easier by restricting the transport of adult roosters and sends a clear signal to commercial airlines that they must no longer carry this contraband or profit from an illegal trade tied to organized crime, violence, and animal cruelty. This smuggling of fighting animals by the airlines is a vital transportation pathway for crime syndicates involved in cockfighting, illegal gambling, and other illicit enterprises. Read more here.

ANIMAL WELLNESS ACTION IN THE NEWS

• This WyoFile report covers a key ruling in the case against Cody Roberts, whose abuse of a gray wolf after hitting it with a snowmobile drew national outrage. A Sweetwater County judge allowed the felony animal cruelty charge to proceed, ruling that Wyoming’s “predator exemption” does not permit capture and prolonged mistreatment. The decision reinforces that predator status is not a license for torture. Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy helped bring the case to national attention and press for accountability. Read the story here.
• A-Z Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy applauded a proposal by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate turning the Oregon National Primate Research Center — one of the nation’s federally funded primate laboratories — into a sanctuary for retired research animals. The organizations argue that the transition makes both ethical and fiscal sense, aligning with modern science’s shift toward human-based methods and away from costly, ineffective primate experimentation. Read the story here.
• In this opinion column in the Aspen Daily News, Ted Williams examines the U.S. House’s passage of legislation that would strip gray wolves of federal protections and shift management to the states — a move critics warn could trigger aggressive lethal control and undo decades of conservation progress. Williams deconstructs the arguments from trophy hunting and cattle industry groups that dismiss the remarkable role the wolves have in balancing nature, including halting the spread of chronic wasting disease in deer and elk. While the gray wolf delisting bill narrowly passed the House, we are working on blocking its progress in the U.S. Senate. Read the story here.

Modernize the FDA. Federal regulations are outdated and confuse drug developers about the need for animal tests — three years after we worked to eliminate the animal testing mandate in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The FDA Modernization Act 3.0 directs the agency to conform the regulations to the plain language of the original statute we worked to pass, clearing the way for safer, more effective drug development by unleashing the use of non-animal methods such as human cell-based testing, organ-on-a-chip technology, and advanced computer modeling. The bill has passed the Senate; House passage would spare animals, accelerate cures, and modernize U.S. medical testing. Urge your representative to support FDA modernization. Take action here.

Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons. Wolves, coyotes, and other wildlife are still being run down and killed with snowmobiles and other vehicles on vast tracts of federal lands. The Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act would close this loophole by banning the intentional harassment, injury, or killing of wildlife with motor vehicles on federal lands, while allowing exceptions to prevent imminent harm. The bill would protect species like wolves and forbid this malicious use of motor vehicles to harass, crush, and kill animals. Urge Congress to pass the SAW Act and end this cruelty. Take action here.

Our work exposes cruelty through investigations and research and analysis, putting a public spotlight on animal exploitation, advancing policy solutions, and promoting enforcement of legal standards — is part of a strategic, coordinated effort to protect animals. Your donation fuels that work and helps turn advocacy, investigation, and education into real, lasting change for animals. Go here to support our campaigns.

MORE FROM ANIMAL WELLNESS ACTION

• Webinar: Why the fight for barred owls isn’t over. Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy examine a troubling moment in wildlife policy: the Senate’s rejection of Sen. John Kennedy’s effort to stop a plan to kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. The discussion explains why the proposed mass “hoot-and-shoot” is scientifically unsound, ethically wrong, and harmful to wildlife and forests. Watch this Claudia Miller Ignite Series program to learn why this fight still matters — and why barred owls deserve protection, not persecution.
• The Animal Wellness Podcast. This episode explores the hidden pipeline that sends tens of thousands of American horses to slaughter in Canada and Mexico each year. Host Joseph Grove speaks with rescuer Thalia Fischer of All Seated in a Barn and Wayne Pacelle of Animal Wellness Action about frontline rescues, policy failures, and enforcement gaps that allow the trade to persist. Together, they link personal stories to the urgent need for the SAFE Act and the steps required to protect America’s horses for good. Listen to the show here.