The following resources can assist animal advocates with researching animal welfare/protection laws in their countries and drafting new laws. Humane Society International is also available to work with NGOs on drafting and reforming their countries’ legislation. Contact us here.
Animal Legal and Historical Center, a comprehensive repository of information about animal law, including: over 1200 full text cases (US, historical, and UK), over 1400 US statutes, over 60 topics and comprehensive explanations, legal articles on a variety of animal topics and an international collection.
Animal Protection Index ranks countries on their commitment to protect animals in their legislation, improve animal welfare and recognize animal sentience. (World Animal Protection)
World Animal Net has numerous resources for anyone interested in animal protection legislation, with model language on everything from government structures to cruelty to enforcement
Model Laws offers suggested language that can serve as templates for drafting animal protection legislation. (Animal Law Resource Center)
Police and Dog Encounters: Tactical Strategies and Effective Tools to Keep Our Communities Safe and Humane, a series of training videos and The Problem of Dog-Related Incidents and Encounters, a manual, were created for police officers and law enforcement personnel by the U.S. Department of Justice and are available for free download in English and Spanish from the National Canine Research Council.
First Strike: The Violence Connection, a booklet that discusses the link between animal cruelty and human violence. (The Humane Society of the United States)
Humane Education, an overview covering the definition of humane education, its importance and how to implement a humane education program. (World Animal Net)
Humane education curricula
Protecting Our Tomorrows: A Teacher’s Role in Promoting Child Safety and Animal Welfare, a teacher-training program. (Humane Society International)
The following manuals can be used as part of a humane education program to provide training to schoolteachers. Facilitator’s manual for teacher training: Protecting Our Tomorrows: A Teacher’s Role in Promoting Child Safety and Animal Welfare (with notes to guide the training session).
Teacher/participant’s manual for Protecting Our Tomorrows: A Teacher’s Role in Promoting Child Safety and Animal Welfare.
Sample lesson plans for teachers for Protecting Our Tomorrows: A Teacher’s Role in Promoting Child Safety and Animal Welfare.
Teaching and outreach materials about rabies in multiple languages to help communities, including children, understand the risks and how to stay safe. (Global Alliance for Rabies Control)
The International Companion Animal Management (ICAM) Coalition, of which Humane Society International is a member, has practical tools on how to manage dog and cat populations in the most humane, effective and resource-efficient way possible. These documents are intended for use by any government body or non-governmental organization (NGO) involved in the management of dog and cat populations.
A Blueprint for Canine Rabies Prevention and Control, a free online toolkit that takes you through the process of designing, implementing and evaluating a large scale rabies control program. (Global Alliance for Rabies Control)
Online library of rabies control educational material in many languages. (Global Alliance for Rabies Control
Euthanasia Reference Manual , designed to be the definitive basic education tool for understanding the methods and techniques of performing humane euthanasia. (The Humane Society of the United States)
There are a number of resources, including case studies and articles, regarding community engagement and human behavior change on the website of Human Behaviour Change for Animals.
Iconic Colombian coffee chain commits to sourcing exclusively cage-free eggs
Humane Society International
David Paul Morris
BOGOTÁ—Juan Valdez, with approximately 300 locations in Colombia, announced a new policy to improve animal welfare in its supply chain, committing to sourcing only cage-free eggs. The company worked with Humane Society International, a leading global animal protection organization, on the adoption of this policy. The company will conclude the transition to 100 percent cage-free eggs (including processed eggs and products that contain eggs) no later than 2025.
Juan Valdez’s new animal welfare policy states: “Juan Valdez, concerned with the environment, animal welfare, and as part of its sustainability strategy, announces its commitment to use eggs from 100% cage-free hens, for the manufacturing of all its bakery and pastries that it sells in its stores throughout the country…At Juan Valdez we are committed to sustainability and animal welfare, which is why we’ve committed to switching our entire egg supply chain to 100 percent cage-free throughout our operations in Colombia by 2025.”
Elissa Lane, director of HSI Farm Animals Welfare, stated: “We applaud Juan Valdez for joining hundreds of food companies in Colombia and around the globe in pledging to source only cage-free eggs, and we invite other companies to do the same. Through commitments like these, consumers and the food industry in the country are sending a clear message, that immobilizing egg-laying hens in cages is unacceptable and the days of how animals are treated in the food industry going unquestioned are long gone. The future of egg production is cage-free, and we look forward to continuing to work with Juan Valdez on the implementation of this policy.”
In Colombia, the majority of egg-laying hens are confined in wire cages so small they can barely move or stretch their wings. In contrast, hens raised in cage-free environments are able to walk, lay their eggs in nests, forage, perch and carry out other natural behaviors. More than 30 companies have joined this cage-free egg movement in Colombia, including Colombina, OMA, Crepes & Waffles, Pan Pa’ Ya, Hoteles Estelar, IMC Colombia (J&C Delicias and R.A. Catering), McDonald’s, Grupo Bimbo, Burger King, Alsea (Archie’s and Domino’s), Nestlé, Compass Group and Sodexo.
Humane Society International / Canada
Ask Canadian politicians to shut down the country’s factory fur farms.
Humane Society International
jxfzsy/iStock.com
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a city, suburb, or on a farm, and it doesn’t matter whether you work in an office, a factory, or at home—or whether you don’t work at all. You’re going to come into contact with lots of synthetic chemicals every day, starting with your toothpaste (even your “natural” toothpaste) and shampoo, and going on from there. Synthetic, or human-made, chemicals, along with all of the naturally occurring chemicals, are just a fact of modern life. To make sure those chemicals are used safely, toxicity testing is a fact of modern life, too.
Unfortunately, there are serious problems with the current system of toxicity testing. Some of those problems may not come as a surprise, such as the fact that toxicity testing is extremely expensive, or that it raises tough moral and ethical issues because it harms or kills many animals. But some of the difficulties are less obvious. Like this one: the current approach to toxicity testing just doesn’t work as well as scientists would like.
Animal tests often miss the most important signs of toxicity in humans
When scientists study a chemical, they’re often trying to figure out if it’s safe for a person to be exposed to a very small amount of it for years at a time. After all, you don’t eat a tube of toothpaste every morning and night; you use just a dab, and when you’re done you spit it out. Similarly, you don’t eat the chemicals used to make plastic food containers, but you care about the safety of those chemicals because small amounts may get into your leftovers. In other words, scientists are frequently trying to answer questions about the safety of long-term exposure to low levels of a substance—but it’s impossible to study these long-term effects in animals, since most of them don’t live that long, and toxic effects are usually rare. To try to stake the deck to see these toxic effects, scientists expose animals to much higher doses of chemicals than humans would ever experience – the top dose in experiments generally must show some signs of overdose. Plus, the scientists would like the information much more quickly than an animal’s natural lifetime!
In fact, researchers might use concentrations of the chemical that are thousands of times higher than someone would experience in a typical real-world exposure. The problem is, this approach doesn’t make problems show up thousands of times faster. It makes different problems show up. It’s a little like tossing a rat into a vat of gasoline and then concluding that gasoline causes drowning. The rat dies of other causes before tests can show the neurological damage that can be caused by long-term, low-dose exposure to gasoline. All we can possibly learn from high-dose experiments is what might happen in overdose situations.
Animals are not simply small humans
Another problem with animal testing is that it assumes humans are just giant rats, mice, rabbits, or other experimental animals. Sure, there are some key similarities in basic biology, cells, and organ systems, but there are also differences, and those differences can make a big… well… difference!
Four main factors help determine how chemical exposure will affect an animal: how the chemical is absorbed, distributed throughout the body, metabolized, and eliminated. These ADME processes can vary greatly from species to species – and this can lead to critical differences in the effects of chemical exposure between species. Researchers try to use animals that are a close match to humans in ways that are likely to matter for the chemical being tested. If they’re concerned about potential effects on the heart, for instance, they might choose a dog or pig – because the circulatory systems in these animals are more similar to humans than other animals are. If they’re concerned about the nervous system, they might use cats or monkeys. But even with a relatively good match, differences between species can make it difficult to translate animal results into human risk, especially since small differences in biology can have large effects on ADME processes.
For instance, rats, mice and rabbits have skin that absorbs chemicals quickly—much faster than the skin of humans does. So tests using these animals can overestimate the danger of chemicals that are absorbed through the skin. Even something like how much mucus an animal produces to line its stomach can affect how much and how quickly a chemical is absorbed into the bloodstream.
In practice, researchers’ efforts to find the right animal stand-in frequently fail. Just look at the evidence from the world of medicine – the only place where there is abundant human information for comparison. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, more than 90 percent of promising new compounds fail when they’re tested in humans, either because they don’t work or because they cause too many side effects—but each of those failures had looked good in numerous animal tests, usually in several different species. And everyone has heard of medicines that crash and burn after they make it into drugstores and kitchen cabinets. The arthritis medication Vioxx, the weight-loss drug fenfluramine (the “Fen” in “Fen-Phen”), and the allergy medicine Seldane were all pulled from the market after numerous reports of cardiovascular side effects, such as heart attack, stroke, arrhythmia, and heart disease. Animal tests had given these drugs an all-clear.
Animal tests are time-consuming and expensive, limiting the number of chemicals that can be tested
Animal tests cost a lot of time and money. For example, it takes a about a decade and $3,000,000 to complete all of the animal studies required to register one single pesticide with the US Environmental Protection Agency. And the tests for that single pesticide ingredient will kill up to 10,000 animals – mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and even dogs. Now consider that there are tens of thousands of chemicals lined up for safety testing in countries all over the world – and new laws in some countries that will require more thorough testing of both old and new chemicals. For example, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations in Europe will require animal testing on all new and existing chemicals produced or imported into the EU in large volumes. Evaluation of each chemical could take millions of dollars, many years to complete experiments, and thousands of animal lives. When you do the math, animal tests just don’t make “cents!”
The high price of animal testing also means companies lose a lot of money and time when the tests don’t accurately predict how humans will respond. As we mentioned above, that happens way more than you think: fewer than 10% of potential new drugs make it through human trials. According to an article in Forbes magazine, drug companies spend an average of four billion dollars to develop a new drug. When the drug fails late in the game, that’s billions of dollars lost.
Objections to animal testing
Even as many industries continue to rely on rickety animal tests, others are facing new laws that prohibit testing certain kinds of products on animals. In the European Union, India, Israel, Sao Paulo, Brazil, South Korea, New Zealand, and Turkey have adopted full or partial animal testing and/or sales restrictions on cosmetics. The United Kingdom went a step further and outlawed testing household chemicals (e.g., cleaning and laundry products, air fresheners) on animals. And more countries are likely to adopt these bans, too, as more and more people object to chemical testing on animals.
Humane Society International
Oikeutta Elaimille
How many animals are killed globally on fur farms?
Each year, tens of millions of animals are bred and killed to supply the fashion industry with not only traditional fur coats but, increasingly, real fur trim for hooded jackets, and real fur pompoms used on hats, gloves, shoes and a range of other clothing and accessories. It’s estimated that as many as half of all animals raised for their fur are killed to satisfy the market for fur trim.
The industry has seen a decline in recent years, as consumers, retailers, designers turn their backs on real fur, and politicians vote in favour of fur production bans and, increasingly, fur sales bans.
Annual fur production:
2014: Europe 43.6m, China 87m, North America 7.2m, Russia 1.7m
2018: Europe 38.3m, China 50.4m, North America 4.9m & Russia 1.9m
2021: Europe 12m, China 27m, North America 2.3m & Russia 600,000
2022: Europe 10m, China 22m, North America 2m, & Russia 600,000
(Figures shown are estimates focused on mink, foxes, raccoon dogs, chinchillas and sables. Rabbits and animals trapped for their fur are excluded.)
What about trapping in the wild?
In addition to fur farming, many millions of animals are trapped and killed for their fur in the wild. Most fur from wild-trapped animals comes from the USA, Canada and Russia. In 2018, almost 3 million animals were killed for their pelts by trapping in North America, including 647,000 raccoons and 363,000 coyotes. Traps inflict great pain and anguish, both to the target animals and to unintended victims such as pets and endangered species.
Often left for days, unable to seek shelter, food or water, these animals can cause serious injury to themselves in an attempt to escape. When the trappers finally arrive, they will often stomp or beat the animals to death. We exposed the brutality of trapping animals for fur in an undercover investigation, in collaboration with Born Free USA.
Have any countries banned fur farming?
Yes, over the past two decades, 25 countries have either voted to ban the practice, have prohibited the farming of particular species, or have introduced stricter regulations that have effectively curtailed the practice. The Canadian province of British Columbia has also banned the farming of mink for their fur. Several other countries, including Romania, are also discussing the introduction of bans on fur farming. See the latest list at furfreealliance.com/fur-bans.
Have any countries banned fur sales?
Yes, in 2021 Israel became the first country in the world to ban real fur sales. In the United States, California became the first US state to ban the sale of fur in 2019 (the ban came into effect in January 2023) following similar bans in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley and West Hollywood. To date, 16 towns and cities in the United States have banned fur sales and more US cities and states are looking to follow suit in the future. In the UK, the government is considering action on fur sales.
Is fur farming cruel?
Yes. Animals bred for their fur such as foxes, rabbits, raccoon dogs and mink are confined in small, barren, wire cages for their entire lives. Unable to express their basic natural behaviours such as digging, roaming large territories and, for semi-aquatic mink, swimming and diving, these naturally active and curious animals have been shown to display the stereotypical behaviour of mental distress such as repeated pacing and circling inside their cages. Such confined spaces can also result in animals self-mutilating and fighting with their cage mates.
When their pelts are at their prime, before they are one year old, the animals are gassed, electrocuted, beaten or have their necks broken. In December 2015 HSI filmed foxes on a Chinese fur farm being beaten to death, and rabbits being given a blow to the head before being shackled from their back legs and their throats cut before being skinned. Instances of raccoon dogs being slammed against the ground then skinned whilst still showing signs of consciousness have also been documented in China. (Warning, graphic footage)
Increasingly, international designers, brands, department stores and luxury online retailers are turning their backs on cruel real fur. In recent years, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Moncler, Dolce & Gabbana and Versace have gone fur free, as has well-known former-fur-using brand Canada Goose – to name just a few! By supporting fur-free designers, we can all help to put the business of animal cruelty out of fashion. For a full list, check out the Fur-Free Retailer website at furfreeretailer.com.
Humane Society International
Adam Parascandola/HSI
Worldwide, an estimated 30 million dogs and 10 million cats are slaughtered each year for human consumption. Of those numbers, it is estimated that 10 million dogs and 4 million cats are killed for human consumption each year in China. The dog and cat meat trades in China are, to a significant degree, facilitated by crime, as most of the animals are stolen pets and strays grabbed from backyards and streets. Detection and convictions are extremely rare. Transport to slaughterhouses and markets entails being crammed into wire cages and driven for hours or days to the animals’ destination. They’re often sick or injured, and many die en route from dehydration, shock, suffocation and heatstroke. Those who survive the journey are then beaten to death, sold and served.
Despite the scale of these horrors, dog and cat eating is not widespread in China; the majority of people in China never eat dog or cat meat. Of the 20% who say they do, many will have only eaten dog or cat meat once or twice in their lifetime. China’s dog meat eating mainly centers in three regions: South China, Central China, and Northeast China, although dogs are stolen and transported from all over the country.
Supporting Chinese animal groups
HSI’s official partner group in China is called Vshine, an extremely active, capable and well-respected animal protection organisation based in north China. HSI supports Vshine’s two shelters that care for dogs, cats and other animals – including those rescued from the meat trade – and through Vshine’s extensive network of partner groups and shelters across China, we are able to amplify anti-dog and cat meat efforts in multiple parts of China.
With millions of dogs and cats suffering each year in China, it is simply impossible to rescue our way out of this horrific business, which is why rescue is only one aspect of our strategy in China. We focus on promoting the life-saving work of Chinese animal protection groups and shelters across China that are campaigning, conducting public education, and providing hands-on rescue efforts. Our Chinese partner organisation avoids buying dogs and cats from meat industries, because no matter how well meaning, it risks the unintended consequence of bolstering the supply, which would be counterproductive.
Rescue all year round
For over a decade, HSI has supported the rescue of thousands of dogs and cats from China’s meat trades by working in partnership with Chinese activists and shelter partner Vshine, and supporting the creation of China Animal Protection Power. Chinese activists liaise with local police to pull over trucks illegally trafficking dogs and cats on their way to slaughter, and work with law enforcement when illegal dog slaughterhouses are discovered. These animals are largely illegally acquired and illegally transported across provincial borders without the required paperwork. When rescued animals are brought to Vshine’s veterinary hospital and rehabilitation shelter, HSI supporters’ donations are helping to provide them lifesaving care, treatment, food and shelter.. Through our support of Vshine, HSI also provides expert training and support for other shelters to ensure that they operate to the highest standards in China.
HSI believes it is imperative to promote the efforts of groups across China who are tackling the dog and cat meat trades. These groups are exposing the suffering endured by animals being trafficked in slaughterhouses and markets. Some rescues involve large numbers of animals, such as the 375 cats crammed in wire cages in an illegal slaughterhouse in Tianjin who were saved in 2018 by activists including the China Animal Protection Power team, or the 423 dogs saved by Vshine and other activists in April 2020 from a slaughterhouses in Henan. Other times, raids on illegal slaughterhouses result in small numbers of terrified animals found cowering in fear just in the nick of time. In April 2019 Vshine discovered a group of frightened dogs at a slaughterhouse in Peixian that was supplying restaurants outside Shanghai. In June of 2019, Chinese activists saved 62 dogs from a slaughterhouse in Yulin, many of whom received life-saving veterinary care at a shelter in north China supported by HSI. In 2021, a slaughter truck packed with 68 terrified dogs was stopped before it reached Yulin, and all the dogs rescued, and in 2022 police in the city of Shaanxi together with activists, intercepted a truck of 386 dogs headed for slaughter in Yulin.
Yulin festival
Across China, there are many dog markets and slaughterhouses, where the dogs are sold, killed and slaughtered for their meat, but the annual slaughter of dogs and cats during the summer solstice in Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has come to symbolize the immense cruelty of the trade that sadly takes place every day. Launched in 2010 by Yulin’s dog meat traders to boost flagging sales in the country, and originally promoted as a “festival,” the event has earned domestic and international outrage, even though 72% of Yulin´s population don’t regularly eat dog. HSI has played a key role in shining a global spotlight on the horrors, and thanks largely to the efforts of HSI and our partner groups, this event gradually has become more muted and small scale.
In the face of national and worldwide condemnation of the suffering, officials have cracked down on public displays of slaughter and limited advertisement of dog meat by restaurants.
But the killing still goes on in the backstreets and out-of-town slaughterhouses under the cover of darkness. In 2016, the Yulin government issued its first-ever written pledge to end the event and road checkpoints were set up to prevent dog trucks from entering the city. In 2017, just weeks ahead of this festival, Yulin authorities alerted dog traders that restaurants, street vendors and market traders would be prohibited from selling dog meat with the threat of heavy fines. The prohibition was subsequently relaxed in the face of intense pressure from dog traders, however it was still a highly significant milestone that demonstrated the authorities’ acknowledgement that action is needed. HSI hopes that national and international campaigners can build on this momentum.
Laws and law enforcement
With dog meat bans already in place in many countries and territories throughout Asia, including Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and multiple cities and regencies across Indonesia, achieving an end to the trade in mainland China is not an unrealistic goal, although we know that change can be frustratingly slow. Although China is perhaps the only country of the world’s top industrialized nations that does not have an anti-animal cruelty law, there have been some recent positive developments. In 2020, the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai introduced bans on dog and cat meat consumption, and China’s Ministry of Agriculture declared that dogs are considered companions and not livestock. Local Chinese animal groups advance legislative proposals for a dog and cat meat ban, with the hope that the National People’s Congress will sooner or later support the advancement of robust animal welfare legislation. Vshine, with financial and capacity building support from HSI, also works with local police, for example in Dalian, to promote best practices nationwide so that the standards of animal treatment across the country can be elevated.
Vshine is also active throughout many other parts of China, and HSI recognizes and amplifies its work by helping to raise awareness about Vshine’s rescue and campaign activities and those of other Chinese activists and organizations with whom they collaborate. Although HSI does not have a physical presence in China, our staff take pride in visiting China to promote animal protection. In July 2019, HSI attended and spoke at the China Animal Law Conference, an HSI-sponsored event, and in October 2019 an HSI delegation attended the HSI co-sponsored Asia for Animals Symposium. Our most recent in-person visit occurred just two months before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak ceased all travel to China, but our work has continued through our official Chinese partner group.
In January 2017, China introduced the Foreign NGO Law, which places strong legal restrictions on all foreign NGOs, such as HSI, requiring NGOs to register with the Chinese government in order to continue operating on the ground in China. Registration requires foreign NGOs to have an official local Chinese partner group (in our case, Vshine) which means our activities are focused in north China where they are based.
Vshine is also active throughout many other parts of China, and HSI recognizes and amplifies its work by helping to raise awareness about Vshine’s rescue and campaign activities and those of other Chinese activists and organizations with whom they collaborate. Although HSI does not have a physical presence in China, our staff take pride in visiting China to promote animal protection. In July 2019, HSI attended and spoke at the China Animal Law Conference, an HSI-sponsored event, and in October 2019 an HSI delegation attended the HSI co-sponsored Asia for Animals Symposium. Our most recent in-person visit occurred just two months before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak ceased all travel to China, but our work has continued through our official Chinese partner group.
HSI also works with a large network of local, regional and international organizations throughout other parts of Asia. We have HSI offices or staff-led projects in India, Viet Nam, Indonesia and South Korea. In addition, we are active as a member of several Asia-wide coalitions of organizations fighting the dog meat trade, wildlife trafficking and promoting human-wildlife coexistence. We are proud and grateful to be working together with many organizations and people on the ground in Asia to fight the cruel trade in cats and dogs for meat, and to have been working together so cooperatively and effectively for many years.
