Animal Welfare News

As I write this, two whaling ships have just hung up their harpoons for the season, and we are all left to wonder, what is next? Was whale number 25…

KATHMANDU — As Nepal commits to gifting two more greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) to China, conservationists have called on authorities to exercise caution while selecting individual animals for the…

The Icelandic government has announced that commercial whaling can resume after the activity was suspended for more than two months. In June, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, the country’s minister of food, agriculture…

When we think of iconic animals, we tend to imagine them in the wild — African elephants marching across grasslands, tigers prowling through forests, or humpback whales breaching through ocean…

Iceland has suspended its planned hunt for fin whales this year, citing animal welfare concerns. On June 20, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, the country’s minister of food, agriculture and fisheries, announced that…

The darker corners of YouTube document state-sanctioned conservation efforts with video compilations of feral pig hunting. Legal, lethal control of this exotic invasive species is on full display as citizens…

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan authorities are considering banning the use of a human contraceptive injection for animals backed by calls from animal rights activists and vets, after a state-sanctioned chemical…

KATHMANDU — Pictures of enigmatic snow leopards roaming the scenic Annapurna area come to mind when outsiders think about carnivores and predators in the Himalayas. The cats often grab the…

Blinking slowly, the waterbird can’t move. A male greater painted-snipe, he’s tightly tethered to the top of a wire cage among half a dozen of his species. The mass of…

PHNOM PENH — Eight people, including two Cambodian Forestry Administration officials, have been charged by U.S. federal prosecutors for their alleged involvement in an international monkey smuggling ring. One of…

COLOMBO — The horrific fatal shooting of a 1 1/2-year-old Rottweiler in Sri Lanka has sparked fresh concerns about the country’s outdated animal cruelty laws. Rexie went missing in the…

BANGKOK — A run-down department store tucked among Bangkok’s skyscrapers is home to the rooftop Pata Zoo, where nearly 300 animals pace in cages littered with feces, food scraps and…

LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Three chimpanzees have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom after intruders broke into a primate sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo.…

A spate of North Atlantic right whale deaths that began in 2017 shook the scientists who study the critically endangered species. That year, 17 whales died, and the losses prompted…

A new report alleges poor animal welfare conditions on fish farms in Indonesia, one of the world’s leading producers of fish products. Produced by Act for Farmed Animals (AFFA), a…

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s main zoo is bracing for a food crunch for its 4,500 animals, amid runaway inflation that has pushed food prices up by nearly 60% and brought…

Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.

Serving as the mascot of a world-renowned conservation organization, building diplomatic relationships between China and the world, playing protagonists in blockbuster movies — giant pandas have done it all. The…

Over the past 20 years, more than $1 billion has been spent on orangutan conservation. Yet all three species of orangutan are currently classified as critically endangered and continue to…

MALANG, Indonesia — It was a January day in Malang, a city on the island of Java, and restaurateur Bobby was surprised to find the officers from the municipal public…

Stricter measures implemented to protect endangered mountain gorillas from COVID-19 should be made permanent long after the pandemic has passed, conservationists say, citing a significant drop in respiratory infections among…

In the dark, early morning hours, Magali Salinas trails a troop of howler monkeys through the Amazon rainforest. Magali is particularly invested in this troop. She rehabilitated each monkey, brought…

You might think it’s cute to text a GIF of a chimpanzee in overalls walking a dog, but behind this seemingly adorable image is a grim truth: “Those animals were…

On the title page of Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene is a black-and-white portrait of a lamb. The little animal, probably only a few weeks old, stands alone on the…

The recent killing of 1,428 white dolphins in the Faroe Islands has brought renewed scrutiny to the island nation’s long-held tradition of driving cetaceans into shore and butchering them for…

During the pandemic, demand for furs by Chinese, U.S. and EU fashion consumers has set off few alarms, but COVID-19 outbreaks on EU and U.S. mink farms raised questions over the fur trade’s role in spreading zoonotic disease.

Many of us love animals. At least, we think we do. We may serve our cats gourmet food and let them sleep in our beds. We may buy our dogs…

BOGOTÁ — Andrea Padilla is a 42-year-old Bogotá city councilwoman. She has a Ph.D. in law, two master’s degrees in criminology and philosophy, and an undergraduate degree in psychology. Her…

The Mexican government will no longer protect the habitat of the critically endangered vaquita in the Upper Gulf of California, but has opened the area up to fishing, according to…

A horrifying video surfaced last week showing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre struggling to kill an African savanna elephant in Botswana. LaPierre’s pursuit of a trophy, documented (though never…