Archive: Terrestrial Wildlife

The Prohibiting Threatened and Endangered Creature Trophies (ProTECT) Act (H.R. 1934) was reintroduced yesterday by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) commends Lieu for continuing to champion this legislation following the death of its long-time sponsor, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX).

The ProTECT Act would prohibit importing a trophy of a species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, as well as ban the killing of a listed species for a trophy within the United States. This reflects the values of American citizens, 86% of whom oppose all big game hunting, according to a 2015 poll.

“Wildlife trafficking must be stopped. When people choose to kill animals to take home as trophies, they’re being selfish and inhumane,” Lieu said. “This is especially true when it comes to endangered species, which are already at perilous risk of going extinct. I am pleased to re-introduce the ProTECT Act to defend both endangered and threatened species from the senseless practice of trophy hunting. I had the privilege of working with the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee on this legislation, and it is in her honor and memory that we will continue to champion this important cause.”

“Species protected under the Endangered Species Act face many grave threats, including habitat loss and climate change. Killing them for sport makes absolutely no sense if we want to save them from extinction,” said Susan Millward, AWI’s executive director and chief executive officer. “Let’s not cater to the interests of wealthy hunters who care more about mounting a dead animal’s head on a wall than protecting disappearing species. Thank you to Representative Lieu for introducing the ProTECT Act, which will ensure that species under federal protection aren’t victimized by trophy hunters.”

There is no credible scientific evidence that trophy hunting provides conservation or economic benefits. Indeed, studies have shown that charismatic species are worth more alive as tourist attractions than dead at the hands of a trophy hunter. Trophy hunting can also hurt the structure and viability of already vulnerable wild populations: Big game hunters target the largest, strongest animals for trophies, and this can result in enormous upheaval for the surviving members of the group, disrupting social bonds and behaviors and having adverse genetic impacts on the population. Many populations of targeted species are already severely depleted due to other threats, and killing more than 100,000 animals for trophies each year only exacerbates the problem.

The ProTECT Act would also ensure that threatened and endangered species cannot be killed for trophies on canned hunting operations within the United States. Known as “shooting preserves” or “game ranches,” these operations allow trophy hunters to shoot animals within fenced-in areas. While it is generally illegal to harm an ESA-listed species, the operators of these ranches receive species permits from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to offer these captive hunts. Such canned hunts perpetuate the market for imperiled species’ trophies, which can encourage poaching of the animals in the wild. This runs contrary to the fundamental purpose of the ESA, which is to conserve wild species—not endanger them further by targeting these animals for trophies.

Today, the Republican-led US House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries considered legislation that would dramatically weaken the widely popular Endangered Species Act and strip protections for gray wolves in 48 states. No vote was taken.

The first bill—the ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R. 1897), introduced by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)—would gut critical protections provided by the ESA to thousands of imperiled species, upend the scientific consultation process (which has been the cornerstone of American species protection for 50 years), and slow listings to a crawl while fast-tracking delistings. Moreover, the bill would allow increased exploitation of threatened species while shifting their management from federal to state authorities—even while these species remain listed under the ESA.

The second bill—the so-called Pet and Livestock Protection Act of 2025 (H.R. 845), introduced by Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Tom Tiffany (R-WI)—would reissue the first Trump administration’s delisting of the gray wolf across most of the United States and bar judicial review of that action. In 2022, a federal court reversed this delisting, after conservation groups challenged it.

In addition to congressional attacks on the ESA and gray wolves, the Trump administration recently terminated hundreds of employees at both the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—agencies that were already critically understaffed. Without these employees, it will be even harder for disappearing vulnerable species to receive crucial protections, and for vitally important ecosystems to remain intact across the United States.

In response to these actions, conservation and animal protection groups from across the country sent a letter to the House subcommittee outlining opposition to the bills. Additionally, members of the the national Endangered Species Coalition, including the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, FOUR PAWS USA, Humane World Action Fund, NYC Plover Project, Sierra Club, Western Watersheds Project, and WildEarth Guardians, have registered their opposition.

“These extreme bills would gut protections for wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. They are being introduced against a backdrop of sudden and indiscriminate firings across the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, robbing these agencies of the experts who implement these crucial protections based on the best available science,” said Susan Millward, AWI’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. “These assaults on wildlife protections come at a time of staggering biodiversity loss, and imperiled species don’t have the luxury of waiting out these political games.”

Late last week, the Department of the Interior reissued a legal opinion that weakens the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by no longer penalizing individuals and corporations for the incidental killing of birds protected under the law. This reinterpretation reverses a decades-long interpretation that the MBTA prohibits both intentional take and incidental killing stemming from an otherwise lawful activity.

Interior reissued this opinion in response to an executive order President Trump signed on his first day in office, directing agencies to suspend certain actions that impact energy development. This opinion was originally issued in 2017 during the first Trump administration. A federal court ruled this policy to be illegal, and it was subsequently rescinded by the Biden administration.

The 1918 MBTA protects over 1,100 species of birds and their eggs from “take” (including killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport) without a permit. Narrowing the MBTA’s scope to prohibit only intentional—not incidental—take is a drastic change in interpretation designed to shield the oil and gas industry and electric utilities from liability for the millions of birds their activities kill each year. Birds die from colliding with these operations’ buildings and infrastructure, being electrocuted by power lines, and being poisoned by oil spills and chemical holding ponds, among other hazards. These industries will now be allowed to forego reasonable and cost-effective precautions to avoid deaths.

“The prohibition on incidental take is a critical aspect of the MBTA and has been enforced for decades to address birds’ deaths from routine industry operations, as well as major environmental disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez oil spills,” said Johanna Hamburger, director and senior attorney of AWI’s Terrestrial Wildlife Program. “This policy removes the incentive for companies to adopt commonsense strategies to reduce threats that their operations pose to birds, and it will likely once again cause the deaths of millions of additional birds in the coming years.”

This loss of protections comes at an already perilous time for birds. A 2019 study found that there are 3 billion fewer birds in North America today compared to 1970, largely due to habitat loss, climate change, pesticides, and other human-caused factors. Birds play an important role in ecosystems, and scientists cite an urgent need to address threats to birds to prevent population collapse and the associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function, and services.

AWI consistently opposed moves to weaken the MBTA during the first Trump administration, and we will continue to do all we can to protect migratory birds from this unlawful policy change. We encourage you to take action to help birds, as well, by improving habitat, stopping window strikes, and adopting other practices around your home to protect our feathered friends.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) applauds yesterday’s reintroduction of the Captive Primate Safety Act (CPSA), which would end the cruel and dangerous pet primate trade in the United States. Nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees, capuchins, and lemurs, suffer enormously when kept as pets. They can also injure or spread disease to the people around them.

Sponsored by Reps. Mike Quigley (D-IL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Julia Brownley (D-CA), and Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), this bill would ban the private possession of nonhuman primates. The prohibition is narrowly focused on pet primates and exempts zoos, research labs, sanctuaries, and universities. Current owners would be grandfathered in and simply be required to register their animals.

“Primates are wild animals, not pets or playthings” said Susan Millward, AWI’s CEO and executive director. “Primates have natural instincts that can make them aggressive and unpredictable toward humans, and nobody wins when they’re kept inside a home. These animals suffer permanent physical and mental trauma when they are mutilated, isolated, caged, and malnourished. The Captive Primate Safety Act would protect primates from a lifetime of cruelty.”

“Chimp Crazy,” the four-part docuseries that premiered last year on HBO Max, highlighted some of the heart-wrenching stories of chimpanzees caught up in the pet trade. Even the most well-meaning owner cannot provide the special care, housing, diet, socialization, and maintenance that these animals require. Many captive primates spend their entire lives in relative isolation, compared to living in the wild in large social groups. They experience physical and psychological suffering when confronted with unrealistic expectations that they will behave like perfectly trained pets or even “little humans.”

Breeders generally sell primates as cute infants on the internet or through out-of-state dealers and auctions without disclosing that these baby animals have been forcibly removed from their mothers, often at only a few days old. As these animals reach sexual maturity, they become larger and more aggressive. They pose a serious threat to the people around them, as evidenced by the hundreds of reported injuries nationwide over the last few decades. Captive primates have mauled neighbors, turned on their owners, and endangered local police officers and emergency personnel, who must expend countless hours and resources responding to escapes, attacks, and cruelty cases.

Primates pose a significant threat to public health because they can carry life-threatening diseases that are communicable to humans, including Ebola, tuberculosis, and the Herpes B virus.

The pet primate trade also contributes to the illegal international wildlife trade. Demand for primates in the United States can incentivize the capture and trafficking of animals from the wild—many of them threatened or endangered species. Primates are smuggled into the United States to meet the demand, with trafficked animals suffering immensely and often dying along the way. While some primates are detected and confiscated at the border, there is no way to know how many more slip through and are sold as pets.

“Monkeys and apes belong in the wild—not in living rooms. This bill will ban private possession of these animals, ensuring that we are safe and primates are able to live freely,” said Quigley, co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus. “As the lead sponsor of the 2022 Big Cat Public Safety Act, I’m proud to sponsor the Captive Primate Safety Act to advance the same protections for primates.”

Today, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed S.B. 25-168 into law to combat wildlife trafficking. The bipartisan legislation, which is unique among states for the number of species covered, establishes criminal penalties for selling, possessing, transporting, importing, or exporting threatened and endangered species found in Colorado, the United States, and globally. It also empowers Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to investigate the impacts of wildlife trafficking.

“The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has supported this legislation from the beginning, and we are thrilled that it is now law in Colorado,” said Lauren McCain, Ph.D., senior policy advisor for AWI’s Terrestrial Wildlife Program and a Colorado resident. “Wildlife trafficking is devastating to imperiled species in Colorado and around the world. It also poses a growing danger to people due to disease transmission and organized crime networks that are killing an unprecedented number of African park rangers. This law will deter poaching and the trade of live and dead animals and their parts into and out of our state. It will help prevent the trafficking of protected species, such as Canada lynx and other wild cats, pronghorn, tortoises, tropical birds, and monkeys, among others.”

Colorado is now a leader among states in the fight to reduce wildlife trafficking. At least 13 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to restrict or ban the trafficking of certain wildlife products within their borders. Most of these laws, however, only cover select, commonly trafficked, foreign species and their parts, such as elephant ivory, rhino horn, and the skin, bones, and fangs of big cats.

S.B. 25-168 is unique among state laws for covering all species listed under the US Endangered Species Act, state-listed threatened and endangered species, and species that appear in Appendix I to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CITES is a global convention that regulates international wildlife trade.

The trafficking of live and dead wildlife and animal parts is a global criminal enterprise that endangers animals around the world. It generates approximately $20 billion a year and is the fourth most lucrative illegal international trade operation, trailing only the trafficking of drugs, humans, and counterfeit goods. Poaching for the illegal wildlife trade is a brutal, bloody practice. Animals are often shot with military-grade weapons, and tusks, horns, and other parts are harvested by mutilating the animals, who are sometimes still alive.

In addition to the devastating welfare and conservation impacts, illegally bringing exotic animals into Colorado risks introducing diseases and invasive species, with potentially catastrophic impacts to the state’s native wildlife. CPW has seen a rise in poaching across Colorado in recent years. Denver International Airport (DIA), for instance, is a hub for wildlife trafficking. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) reported seizing 1,150 parts or products of illegally trafficked wildlife at the airport last year. From October 2023 to March 2025, the parts or products of more than 56 species were seized at DIA, according to USFWS data.

Polis highlighted the need for tougher penalties to crack down on wildlife trafficking during his State of the State speech in January. AWI commends the governor, CPW, and the bill’s co-sponsors—Sens. Scott Bright and Dylan Roberts, and Reps. Ryan Armagost and Cecelia Espenoza—for supporting a legislative solution to protect and preserve wildlife in Colorado and beyond.