Dear John,

With your support enabling all of this work, Animal Wellness Action concluded the year with an extraordinary set of victories – passing the first major animal-testing bills in Congress in more than a half century, halting the sale of shark fins, stemming the trafficking of tigers and other big cats as pets, and cementing a national ban on race-day doping of Thoroughbreds in competition at tracks throughout the country.

But while we celebrate that gain, we lament that still more reforms are in the waiting.

• Nike and Adidas continue to source kangaroo skins for soccer cleats even though the vast majority of the shoes from these manufacturing and marketing giants are made from synthetics, not from the hides of animals slain in their native habitats in the wild.
• Enforcement of our federal anti-cruelty laws is still porous, with cockfighters, horse show trainers in the Tennessee Walking horse world, and puppy mills too often getting a free pass to harm animals gratuitously.
• Mink farms continue to confine these solitary, semi-aquatic mammals in wire cages and then kill them for fur, even though Americans don’t buy mink any longer.

These problems also remind me of the connectivity between animal cruelty and larger social concerns.

Kangaroos died in extraordinary number when Australia burned three years ago — a cataclysmic climatic event that signaled that animals and humans are at risk from the effects of climate change.

When it comes to enforcing our anti-cruelty laws, we know that there’s more at stake than just animal safety. People who commit acts of malice and violence against animals often turn those violent instincts against people.

And confining wild animals on factory farms, in this case for mink production, is a prescription for the next zoonotic disease that can threaten people. There have been five mutant COVID-19 viruses already incubated by mink factory farms.

In short, our agenda remains enormous. And the work we do has never been more important for animals and people.

I hope, at the beginning of this year, that you will renew your support for Animal Wellness Action.
 

DONATE $10

You give us the capacity to fight and to win. You allow us to address systemic cruelty and make our society safer and more humane.

Thank you for caring. And for not standing on the sidelines as crises unfold.

For the animals,

Wayne Pacelle