This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

The U.S. House of Representatives has taken a giant step to protect animals by passing much-needed legislation that dictates federal spending for the 2021 fiscal year; now it’s the Senate’s turn. Two massive bills under consideration would save hibernating baby bears and wolf cubs in Alaska, fund the enforcement of anti-animal cruelty laws, eliminate funding of trophy hunting import permits, implement truly humane management of our country’s wild horses and burros, and more! Please urge the U.S. Senate to pass H.R. 7608 and H.R. 7617 to protect animals in need!

H.R. 7608 is the first package of federal appropriations bills. It includes over 100 amendments that cover a wide array of topics, including the following crucial animal protection issues:

TROPHY HUNTING IN ALASKA

The Trump administration recently overturned a ban on highly controversial and exceptionally cruel hunting practices on Alaska’s national preserves to allow:

○      baiting brown and black bears with human food

○      hunting hibernating mother bears and cubs in their dens using artificial light

○      killing wolves and coyotes in their dens during the denning season (between May 1 - August 9) when mothers wean their young

○      using dogs to hunt black bears

An amendment included in H.R. 7608 prohibits the use of funds for enforcement of the National Park Service’s final rule (86 Fed. Reg. 35181) that allows the trophy hunting practices listed above including killing hibernating bears and wolf pups on Alaska’s federal lands. This amendment is desperately needed to save sleeping mama bears and their cubs, as well as denning wolf families, from being mercilessly hunted, gunned down, and slaughtered in Alaska.

MANAGEMENT OF WILD HORSE AND BURRO POPULATIONS

An amendment contained within H.R. 7608 is extremely important to ensure the truly humane treatment and survival of wild horses in America. Under the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has failed miserably for decades with its notoriously cruel and ineffective policies that include deadly and horrific helicopter roundups of wild horses and burros on our public lands, which do nothing for the long-term stabilization of populations.

Advocates have urged the BLM for many years to increase the use of PZP, a humane, reversible fertility control, to help regulate the population of wild herds so that brutal roundups can be halted. For over 30 years, PZP treatments have been proven to be both safe and effective. However, the BLM continues to spend the majority of its wild horse and burro budget on cruel roundups and dire holding facilities for captured animals. The Bureau currently spends less than 1% of that budget on administering PZP to wild herds.  

This bold and courageous amendment included within H.R. 7608 will require the BLM to spend $11 million for PZP usage on wild herds, sparing a countless number of wild horses and burros from terrifying, deadly roundups.

ANIMAL CRUELTY/FIGHTING LAWS

Although illegal in every state, cockfighting is still rampant in the U.S. Recent activities and investigations have exposed law enforcement’s disinterest in ending this crime, with even its own members participating themselves in the vile exploitation of "gamecocks" and with officers shielding other human cockfighters from prosecution. While dogfighting is also outlawed in all fifty states, transporting dogs across state lines for the purpose of fighting is a crime that must be fought on the federal level. Funding to catch and prosecute the people who are willing to engage in this crime is paramount to stopping it.

An amendment would transfer $1 million in funding to the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General for the enforcement of anti-animal cruelty statutes, including horrifically cruel cockfighting and dogfighting.

WILDLIFE TROPHY IMPORTS

H.R. 7608 also prohibits the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from issuing permits for the import of elephant and lion trophies from hunts in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Trophy hunting is cruel. Animals are killed with bullets, or bows and arrows, sometimes in front of their families, and often suffer painful, prolonged deaths. Hunting can traumatize those animals who witness the tragic, violent deaths of their family members. Elephants in particular, who have been scientifically proven to have extraordinary memories, can be haunted by these gruesome images for the rest of their lives.

By and large, trophy hunting allows wealthy, mostly white people from Western nations like the U.S. to have privileged access to African wildlife, at the expense of not only the animals themselves, but local people. This is why trophy hunting is considered a form of neocolonialism, defined as the systematic control of resources by outside influences.

Wealthy American tourists spend five-figure sums traveling to African countries to kill lions and return with their heads as trophies. Walter Palmer paid $55,000 dollars to kill beloved and protected Cecil the lion, who was lured outside of a national park with bait. On private reserves, it’s still legal to bait and hunt endangered species. Tragically, killing a male lion means up to twenty lion cubs may die when a new dominant male takes over the pride.

Prohibiting this issuance of permits to import elephant and lion trophies will reduce the incentive to kill animals for their body parts.

PROTECT HORSES FROM CRUELTY

For far too long, gaited horses have been forced to suffer from a cruel and painful practice known as soring to get them to achieve an unnaturally high step known as the "Big Lick.” Soring typically involves putting caustic substances on the sensitive skin around their hooves, covering them to ensure it’s absorbed and sometimes using chains on top to add to the pain. Pads, or stacks, can also be used on their front hooves to add even more animation, and if that doesn’t work well enough, sharp objects may be put in between the pads and hooves to ensure it hurts them when they put weight down.

This has technically been illegal for decades under the Horse Protection Act, as well as transporting sored horses, but the industry has been allowed to largely self-regulate and horses have continued to suffer terribly for nothing more than prizes at shows.The Horse Protection Program is run by the USDA/APHIS and is supposed to ensure that show horses aren’t subjected to soring under the Horse Protection Act.

Currently, up to 100,000 horses per year are shipped to their terrifying deaths at slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. While it does not do anything to address these horses' cruel and unnecessary deaths, the Slaughter Horse Transport Program, also run by the USDA/APHIS, exists to ensure that horses bound for slaughter are treated humanely during transport.

An amendment would designate $750,000 in funding for the USDA's Office of Inspector General to enforce the Horse Protection Act through funding of the Horse Protection Program and also direct funds to the Slaughter Horse Transport Program.

H.R. 7617 is the second package of appropriations bills, which also includes much-need provisions and amendments for animals:

RESEARCH FUNDING FOR NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALES

An amendment included within H.R. 7617 provides an additional $1.5 million in funding for the research and monitoring of endangered North Atlantic right whales. With only approximately 400 North Atlantic right whales remaining, additional funding to study this rare species is desperately needed. 

RETIRING CHIMPANZEES TO SANCTUARIES 

A committee report directs the National Institutes of Health to transfer approximately 40 chimpanzees retired from use in biomedical research who are being held at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico, as well as those held at two other research centers, to a sanctuary. Under this provision, the chimpanzees would be relocated to Chimp Haven, a federally-funded sanctuary in Louisiana. After years of torment, these animals deserve to live out the remainder of their lives in peace.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION FUNDING SOURCES

At no cost to U.S. taxpayers, the sale of the Save Vanishing Species first-class stamp has raised nearly $6 million for the conservation of elephants, tigers, sea turtles, rhinos, and great apes. 50 million stamps remain in stock, yet they will not be sold past 2020 unless an extension is approved. The House has already passed legislation to continue selling the stamps, however, the Senate has not taken action. HR 7617 includes language to permanently extend sales of the remaining stamps to raise funds for wildlife conservation efforts.

What You Can Do:

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.