Author: Kristin Stone

Humane Society International welcomes bans on dog fighting, cosmetic animal testing, animals in circuses and other vital new animal protection measures

Humane Society International

  • The new law creates protections for wildlife, animals used in research and companion animals. Mehmet Salih Guler/istock

In a landmark decision, the Guatemalan Congress voted to approve legislation that will improve the lives of animals throughout the country. It is the first time the legislative body presented this kind of bill, submitted by Humane Society International and its local partners in 2016.

Cynthia Dent, global field manager for HSI/Latin America, who consulted with the local stakeholders during the drafting process, stated: “This vote by the Guatemalan Congress not only marks an unequivocal victory for animals, but also ratifies the country´s commitment to animal welfare. We will continue to consult and work closely with the Guatemalan authorities to ensure a seamless implementation of the new law and to guarantee its observance.”

The original draft legislation was the result of joint initiative involving the University of San Carlos, HSI/Latin America, the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Counsel of Protected Areas, ARCAS. In addition,, local animal protection organizations like Sillas de Ruedas para tu Mascota GT, Asociación de Amigos de los Animales, Mascotas Terapeutas and Corey Quan offered their input during drafting process. Dr. Carlos Alvarado, rector of the University of San Carlos, presented the legislation to the President of the Congress Mario Taracena during a formal event attended by activists and lawmakers last year.

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Among its main provisions, the law creates protections for wildlife, animals used in research and companion animals; bans animal testing for cosmetics; the use of animals in circuses; dog fighting, including participation of spectators in this cruel activity; and establishes an official government platform to address animal welfare. HSI is expanding into the country to work with the Guatemalan government to help implement the new law.

The following lawmakers participated in the legislation:

Diputado Álvaro Enrique Arzú Escobar: Partido Unionista (UN)
Diputado Erick Lainfiesta Cáceres: Partido Encuentro por Guatemala (EG)
Diputado Gabriel Heredia Castro: Partido Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE)
Diputado José Conrado García: Partido Libertad Democrática Renovada (LIDER)
Diputado Juan Manuel Giordano: Partido Frente de Convergencia Nacional (FCN)

Media contact: Raul Arce-Contreras, rcontreras@humanesociety.org, +1 301-721-6440

Humane Society International

Humane Society International calls for new simplified filing system to replace pre-market cosmetic animal test requirement

Humane Society International

  • As many as 83,853 animals may have been used in China for pre-market testing of these cosmetic imports in 2015 alone. Stock image

In a move that provides an opportunity for China to move away from its longstanding animal testing requirement for all imported cosmetics, the China Food and Drug Administration has announced an adjustment to administrative regulations and examinations for general cosmetics imported through Shanghai. The temporary measure will be in place from 1 March 2017 through 21 December 2018, during which times such products may be imported under a simplified filing system.

Although implementation procedures announced thus far by the CFDA do not explicitly mention changes to the animal test requirements for imported cosmetics, the CFDA introduced a similar move in June 2014 leading to a simplified filing scheme for domestically manufactured general cosmetics and subsequently removed mandatory animal testing requirements.” 

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“This change by the CFDA reflects a trend towards further regulatory harmonization with global cosmetic markets,  and presents a real opportunity for China to make additional progress in moving away from mandatory animal testing for cosmetics,” said HSI #BeCrueltyFree Campaign Director Claire Mansfield. “We encourage Chinese officials to waive the new pre-market animal test requirements for this new filing system, just as they did for domestic regular cosmetics in 2014, and then expand the change beyond Shanghai Pudong.”

In 2015, the Chinese government approved 9,317 new imports of general cosmetics. Assuming each product was tested in three different animal studies, each using at least three rabbits in accordance with national regulations, as many as 83,853 animals may have been used in China for pre-market testing of these cosmetic imports in that year alone. This figure does not reflect animal use in the testing of special-use cosmetics, both domestic and imported. 

HSI and its partners have done extensive work in China to support and fund the development of educational resources, hands-on training courses, and high-profile scientific conferences to support increased dialogue and confidence in modern, internationally recognized methods for safety assessment based on validated non-animal technologies. Please donate to help further our campaign.

Humane Society International/India and People for Animals welcome Centre’s decision

Humane Society International

  • Cow Herd, HSI

The Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change today published draft rules prescribing a comprehensive procedure for care, cost, maintenance, veterinary treatment and overall well-being of animals seized from markets and from cases of animal cruelty. The draft rules are now up for public comments for a period of 30 days. 

Humane Society International/India and People for Animals have played a significant role approaching the judiciary for the government to implement these rules.

Every year, tens of thousands of cattle are routinely smuggled across the borders into Nepal for sacrifice and Bangladesh for slaughter. Animals confiscated during such transport are either returned to the accused pending litigation, or auctioned. In both scenarios, the animals return to the trade, defeating the purpose of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. In a similar vein, the absence of regulation means animals in livestock markets are routinely denied access to food, water, veterinary facilities and other basic amenities.

In a petition filed in Supreme Court against smuggling of cattle to Nepal for the Gadhimai sacrifice, the Hon’ble Court sought for recommendations from the stakeholders for preventing such activities. The recommendations included formations of State Animal Welfare Board at state level, Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA) at district level, regulation of livestock markets, establishment of procedures to deal with case property animals among other things. The Hon’ble Court observed the necessity of these aforementioned regulations and recorded the recommendations in its order.

Gauri Maulekhi, trustee at PFA and government liaison for HSI/India said, “We welcome this move of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. If the Government implements these rules, this move will help save indigenous breeds of cattle.These rules will also bring much-needed respite to tens of thousands of animals who are subjected to unthinkable cruelty in livestock markets.”

These rules are being framed in compliance with the directions given by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

Media Contact: Navamita Mukherjee, email: nmukherjee@hsi.org, mobile: 91-9985472760

Fur cruelty: Not in our backyard, so why on our shop shelves? Why Brexit should close UK borders to animal fur

Humane Society International

In the 1980s and 90s, wearing fur became seriously uncool. Stars went naked instead of wearing it, catwalks were boycotted because of it, and the British public, animal welfare experts and politicians got behind a campaign which led the Labour government to ban fur farming in 2000. So why did the UK turn its back on this trade? Two very powerful words: ‘public morality’. In proposing the Bill, the Minister responsible for animal welfare, Elliot Morley, told MPs:

“Morality is important when it comes to the treatment of animals. Fur farming is not consistent with a proper value and respect for animal life. Animal life should not be destroyed in the absence of a sufficient justification in terms of public benefit. Nor should animals be bred for such destruction in the absence of sufficient justification. That is the essence of our argument for applying morality to a Bill of this kind.”[1]

In 1989, long before the ban, the UK’s Farm Animal Welfare Council found that fur farms could not satisfy some of the most basic needs of the (essentially wild) animals kept in them, such as comfort, shelter, and freedom to display normal patterns of behaviour.[2]

The evidence, and the verdict, were unequivocal: fur farming wasn’t humane, couldn’t be made humane, and wasn’t morally justifiable in the UK. All fur farms had to be closed by January 1st 2003. The UK has been free from the cruelty of fur farms for thirteen years. But Britain is sadly not free of fur, far from it.

Today we import fur from countries whose fur farm conditions are as bad, or worse, than those we outlawed in our own country. In fact since 2003, according to government statistics, the UK has imported hundreds of millions of pounds of fur, peaking at £62.6million in fur imports in 2014 (more than half of this value was then re-exported).

With UK opinion polls still indicating consistently high levels of consumer disapproval of fur, where is all this imported fur going? Last year Humane Society International/UK documented the widespread problem of cheap animal fur being mis-sold or mis-labelled as faux, so it’s probable that millions of pounds worth of fur is sold each year to consumers who don’t realise that it’s animal fur, and wouldn’t buy it if they did. And at the other end of the market, fur still defiles the shelves of stores like Harrods and Harvey Nichols. The high-end fur-wearer’s choice grows ever more limited, as more and more designers join the ‘Fur-Free’ list, renowned luxury brand Armani being the latest high-profile example this year.

But can you strip fur from any animal, pop it on a coat hanger and sell it here? No. Public campaigns by HSI and others drove a 2007 EU ban on the import and sale of cat and dog fur, and then a 2009 ban on trade in seal products. In response to a complaint by Norway and Canada, the World Trade Organisation affirmed the seal ban, declaring it necessary to protect European public moral concerns. At present, fur from all other species can be legally traded in the EU and, although a number of countries across Europe have banned fur farming, several still continue to farm animals for their fur.

So, do the views of the Great British public chime with current European regulations, which say that some fur-bearing animals are OK to wear and some are not? It turns out, they don’t. HSI commissioned a YouGov opinion poll [3] listing nine species, including domestic dog, mink, seal, fox and rabbit, and asking people whether or not they found it acceptable for fur from these animals to be bought and sold in this country. Encouragingly, the results show that the British public overwhelmingly reject the fur trade, regardless of species.

Unsurprisingly, less than 10% of people feel it is acceptable to be able to buy and sell products containing domestic dog fur (7%), seal fur (8%), and cat fur (9%), respectively, and indeed such imports are banned by law. But critically the poll also shows similar distaste for fur items from other species that can still be legally sold here – only between 8 and 12% of people said that they found it acceptable to buy or sell fur from foxes (12%), mink (12%), chinchilla (9%), raccoon dogs (8%) and coyotes (8%) (the last of which are not farmed, but wild trapped). Rabbit fur had the highest approval rating, but even so is still only acceptable to one in five people despite being one of the most commonly found fur trim items on the high-street.

So, back full circle to public morality. The UK’s moral compass clearly points away from animal fur in fashion – not just cat, dog and seal fur, but all fur. And now we have an opportunity to make that moral standpoint count. On the Brexit path ahead, the government must now evaluate all EU regulations and decide which to write into UK law, which to lose and which to maintain and amend. So why would the UK, a nation that has outlawed all fur farming as immoral, continue to cherry-pick just cats, dogs and seals and ban trade in their fur, but leave our ports open to fur from other equally maltreated animals?

Shockingly, not only are our borders open to cruel fur products produced in other countries, there’s not even a legal requirement to clearly identify them as “real fur” so that compassionate consumers can avoid inadvertently buying them. Urgent steps need to be taken to ensure that all real animal fur products are clearly labelled. But we can do better than just labelling: Brexit is a clear opportunity for us to ditch fur once and for all, to be a fully fur-free nation and to ensure that we no longer bankroll a trade in products that we deem morally unacceptable to produce within our own borders.

Notes:
[1] Elliot Morley, Hansard (15 May 2000) (London: HMSO, 2000) Vol. 350, No. 99, p. 76; see also pp. 40-

[2] ‘Farm Animal Welfare Council Disapproves of Mink and Fox farming’, Press Notice, 4 April 1989, p. 1

[3] All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2051 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9th and 12th September 2016. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

Humane Society International

Moran Market is South Korea’s largest dog meat market. It supplies one third of all the dog meat consumed in the country, selling an estimated 80,000 dogs—dead or alive—each year.

Now, we welcome an incredible announcement: It’s shutting down.

According to The Korea Herald, all 22 dog meat vendors will start removing slaughter facilities and dog cages next week and will completely move them out by early May.

Seongnam City has agreed to provide financial support for them to refurbish their shops for new businesses—a model very similar to the one HSI has been using to transition dog meat farmers out of the trade.

Although we were not involved in this particular decision, it is clear proof that our model is succeeding and being considered and adopted by government officials as they work to strengthen South Korea’s commitment to safeguarding animals from cruelty. Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, quoting Mahatma Gandhi, told The Korea Herald: “Seongnam City will take the initiative to transform South Korea’s image since ‘the greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.’”

To date, HSI has closed five dog meat farms and rescued and transported 572 dogs to the United States and Canada to be placed in loving new homes. Our team has also been working to change the perception of “meat dogs” as being somehow different from “pet dogs.” Our many happy adoption stories demonstrate to South Korea—where companion animal ownership is rising rapidly—that this is not the case.

Our ultimate goal is a ban on the dog meat trade, and our strategy is to create the right political and societal circumstances to make this possible.

Today, we’re celebrating a remarkable step forward.

Humane Society International

  • Thank you for caring. BM Photography

A gift of appreciated securities like stocks, bonds and mutual funds may be an attractive way for you to support our mission to Celebrate Animals and Confront Cruelty.

Note: If you live in the U.S., when you transfer ownership of securities to Humane Society International, you will receive a charitable deduction for the full market value and incur no capital gains tax subject to IRS deductible limitations.

The process is simple. You need to provide your financial advisor or brokerage firm with the following information.

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DTC# 0443 Pershing, LLC
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Mutual Funds and Foreign Security Gifts

Please contact Jorja Watts at BNY Mellon Capital Markets to check on the ability to accept the mutual fund and coordinate delivery. Phone 412-234-0439 or email jorja.watts@bnymellon.com.

We encourage you to alert us in advance with the details of your appreciated gift so we can properly acknowledge your donation. Electronic security transfers do not necessarily provide us with your information. Please provide the following to Kimberlee Dinn at kdinn@humanesociety.org or 202-536-8690:

  • Your name, address and contact information
  • Name of the security
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  • Approximate transfer date and transferring brokerage firm

Mutual Fund Donations

Mutual fund companies have a variety of different rules when transferring ownership of shares. Please contact your mutual fund company and Kimberlee Dinn at kdinn@humanesociety.org or 202-536-8690 to facilitate the process.

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Executive Director, HSI/Africa

Humane Society International

Audrey Delsink Kettles is the Executive Director of Humane Society International/Africa. She oversees HSI’s campaigns in Africa, including work to champion the protection of wildlife including humane population control alternatives and human-wildlife conflict solutions, and to challenge the captive lion breeding and trophy hunting industry. She is also responsible for HSI’s Back to the Wild program, which facilitates the release of compromised indigenous wildlife, often through confiscations, back to protected preserves. Further, she manages campaigns including farm animal welfare, meat-reduction, dog-fighting and domestic dog vaccination programs to combat zoonotic disease transmission and their spread to endangered wildlife such as the African Painted Dog.

Delsink Kettles has acted as the Field Director for the world-renowned African Elephant Immunocontraception Program since 2000. She has been actively involved in both national, provincial and private elephant management, and together with the immunocontraception research team, has helped to shape policy and legislation regarding wild African elephants in South Africa, most notably through the gazetting of the Norms and Standards of Elephant Management in South Africa (2008). She completed her MSc biology on immunocontraception of African elephants (University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa).

She is a registered Ecologist under the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professionals and worked as the Research Ecologist at the Greater Makalali Private Game Reserve for 18 years. Together with her husband, she managed the 30,000 ha Big Five private nature reserve, and thus has a sound understanding of the challenges and logistics of protected area management. She continues to oversee MSc and PhD research projects on protected reserves, with co-authorship on numerous peer-reviewed publications.

Delsink Kettles is a PhD Candidate at the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Amarula Elephant Research Program (AERP), under Professor Robert Slotow. As an AERP researcher, she explores elephant behaviour as the basis for developing conservation and elephant management strategies in public and private game parks. With her vast elephant conservation and management experience, she is a specialist member of the Elephant Specialist Advisory Group.

She has completed the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council’s Basic Rehabilitation Modules and a South African Intermediate Wildlife Rehabilitation Course. Over the years, Delsink Kettles has facilitated the rescue, rehabilitation and release of numerous indigenous African wildlife species, including Ground Pangolin, Cape Clawless Otter, Caracal, Serval, Black-backed Jackal, African Wildcat, Small and Large Spotted genets and Barn Owl, to name but a few.

Humane Society International

The focus on the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang provided us with the ideal opportunity to raise awareness about the dog meat trade and to urge the government of South Korea to work with HSI to end to the suffering. In conjunction with our local partner groups, we capitalized on the media spotlight to increase the pressure to remove what is increasingly being seen as a stain on the country’s global reputation. We placed eye-catching full page advertisements in some of the country’s leading national newspapers, lobbied policy makers, and took to the road with our mobile ‘virtual dog meat farm’ campaign truck to show Korean people the true nature of dog meat farms. We also welcomed world-famous U.S. Olympic athlete Gus Kenworthy to a dog meat farm closure we were completing during the Games, and his reaction to the conditions made international media headlines.
International criticism alone will not see the demise of this horror. For that, we also need to debunk the commonly-held myths about dogs and dog meat that underpin South Koreans’ defense or tolerance of the trade. We believe that no culture in any country must ever be used as an excuse for cruelty, even if it means includes challenging norms, including in the West. The dog meat trade is an issue of cruelty first and foremost.

Most South Koreans have never seen a dog meat farm and are unaware of the shocking conditions these animal endure. There is also a widespread public misconception about the dogs bred for meat—the myth that these dogs are somehow different from “normal dogs” has fostered a societal indifference to their suffering. But HSI has proven in our campaign that all breeds and types of dogs are used in the dog meat trade, including popular pure-breeds such as golden retrievers, huskies and chihuahuas. Some of the dogs are abandoned former pets or dogs from the pet trade who went unsold. Regarding the potential to be loving companions, there is absolutely no difference between “pet dogs” and “meat dogs.”

Humane Society International

How many dogs are involved?

An estimated 30 million dogs are killed for human consumption each year across Asia in a brutal trade that involves terrible cruelty to animals and often, criminal activity. From 10-20 million dogs are slaughtered in China, up to 1 million in South Korea, 1 million in Indonesia, and around 5 million in Viet Nam; 80,000 or so of this last group are imported from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Accurate figures are impossible to obtain, as the dog meat trade is entirely unregulated and often, illegal.

What countries are involved?

The dog meat trade is most widespread in China, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Nagaland in northern India. This trade is well-organized, with high numbers of dogs being stolen or taken from the streets, transported over long distances and brutally slaughtered. In South Korea, dogs are also intensively farmed for the meat trade in appallingly deprived conditions.

Dogs are also known to be eaten in certain African countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, DRC and Nigeria, and there are reports that dogs are killed for personal consumption by some farmers in remote parts of Switzerland, but nothing compares to the sheer scale of the trade across Asia.

Is it true that some dogs are stolen pets?

In most Asian countries, the majority of dogs killed are either family pets stolen from homes and gardens, roaming “community” dogs or strays snatched from the streets. Dog and cat thieves use a variety of methods, including poison, and sell the animals to traders and restaurant owners. It is quite common to find dogs on trucks headed to slaughterhouses still wearing their collars. The exception to this is South Korea, where most of the dogs are born and reared on farms in an endless cycle of breeding; but some are stolen or relinquished pets, or animals raised for the pet trade but not sold as a puppies.

Do the dogs suffer?

Severe animal suffering is endemic to the dog meat trade. The animals are crammed by the hundreds onto the backs of trucks, packed so tightly in cages that they are unable to move. In Viet Nam, it is not uncommon for dogs to be violently force-fed with a tube down the throat in order to boost their weight before sending them to slaughter. Dogs are typically driven for days or weeks, often sick and injured, and many die from suffocation, dehydration or heatstroke long before they reach their destination.

Dogs on South Korean meat farms are kept locked in small, barren metal cages, left exposed to the elements and given just enough food, water or shelter to keep them alive. HSI has uncovered appalling conditions where disease and mental distress are rampant, with many dogs showing obvious signs of sickness, depression, severe malnutrition and abnormal behavior.

All of these dogs will eventually end up at a slaughterhouse, market or restaurant. The method by which they are killed varies: in South Korea, the most common method for slaughtering a dog is by electrocution, but hanging and beating are also used. In China and Viet Nam, dogs are usually beaten to death with a metal pipe and then bled out from a cut to the throat or groin, but they can also be hanged, or—less commonly—thrown conscious into large drums of boiling water.

Is dog meat widely eaten and popular?

Most people in China do not eat dog meat, and 2016 opinion polls show that 69.5 percent have never tried it. It is not part of mainstream Chinese culinary culture. There is a growing animal protection movement in the country that roundly opposes the dog meat trade, and there are frequent and documented violent clashes between dog thieves and angry dog owners. In 2015, nearly 9 million Chinese citizens signed in support of a legislative proposal to ban the slaughter of dogs and cats, and more than 100,000 people attended a massive rally in Dalian city.

A 2022 poll taken in South Korea revealed that most South Koreans (87.5%) don’t eat dog meat and 56% support a ban. Dog meat is most likely to be consumed by older generations and for perceived health benefits, particularly during the “Bok Nal” days of summer; younger South Koreans are far more likely to shun it. Polls show that the majority of under-30-year-olds have never eaten dog meat. Of those under-30s who do eat dog, the most cited reason is societal pressure, “because family members eat it.” Despite declining participation in dog meat eating, societal acceptance of others’ perceived right to eat it remains relatively strong.

What are the human health risks?

A significant threat to human health, the dog meat trade has been linked to outbreaks of trichinellosis, cholera and rabies. The World Health Organisation estimates that eating dog meat increases the risk of contracting cholera; a number of recent large-scale outbreaks in Viet Nam were directly linked to it. Rabies—which kills around tens of thousands of people across Asia annually—has been found in dogs traded for human consumption in China, Viet Nam and Indonesia.

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