Animal Wellness Foundation

This year Animal Wellness Foundation has continued numerous successful campaigns to save lives and ease animal suffering. We continue to rescue dogs and cats off the streets of Los Angeles and assist low-income families with the care of their pets. This is needed now more than ever as the end of the pandemic is causing a massive influx of abandoned pets in shelters. In addition, we are making great strides to abolish animal fighting and greyhound racing and we have helped innumerable dogs and cats in war-torn Ukraine. With our team in Los Angeles and around the nation, we conducted other major campaigns to protect kangaroos from the skin trade, wild horses from government roundups, and wildlife from commercial trade and other imminent threats to animal welfare and survival.Here is a summary of our main 2022 programs:No Pet Left Behind: The nation has ended the pandemic lockdowns and people are returning to the general workforce. Many people working from home are now going back to regular work schedules, leaving their pets behind. Unfortunately, this has caused an influx in behavioral problems among pets experiencing loneliness for the first time. In addition, many people have developed financial hardships from increased gas prices, general inflation, and a changing employment marketplace. Lastly, there had been an increase in adoptions during the pandemic that has lead to more pets being abandoned today. These factors have led to a surge of pets flooding the shelter systems all over the country.Responding to this need, Animal Wellness Foundation has been taking in dogs and cats to help them avoid the overcrowded shelter system while also helping pets stay in loving homes. Free veterinary care for those facing economic hardship: When people find themselves unable to care for their pets, AWF offers free medical services for their companion animals. Our team of veterinarians, and veterinary technicians, work endlessly in order to take in new clients that need assistance. Companion Animal Rescue: In 2022 we continued our rescue work, pulling dogs and cats out of abusive and neglectful environments, socializing and providing every day care to each animal, and placing them into loving forever homes. From extremely neglectful hoarding environments, to injured and lost dogs along city highways, to victims of natural disasters, our team continues to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome.Helping War-Torn Ukraine: It has been estimated that half a million dogs in the Ukraine have become strays as owners abandoned them when fleeing the country. We organized a convoy of volunteers who flew to Poland and crossed the border into the Ukraine delivering vans full of dog and cat food, veterinary medications and medical supplies. We successfully delivered over $40,000 in supplies directly to veterinarians and shelters remaining in the front lines of the war.Big Cat Public Safety Act with Tiger King Star Carole Baskin: AWF has partnered with Carole Baskin to pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act. The measure would ban the practice of cub petting shown in the televised series the Tiger King, and would ban the private ownership of dangerous big cats such as tigers and lions with certain exceptions for zoos and USDA licensed facilities in the ownership provision. All big cats currently privately owned would be grandfathered in and be allowed to live out their lives with their current owners as long as those cats are registered with the USDA so that law enforcement know where they are located. This was signed into law by President Biden in December.Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act: AWF has tirelessly worked to ban the harmful practice of horse soring, the act of altering a horses gait through physical harm. We hope to ban devices known as chains and stacks on any limb of horses at horse shows and exhibitions, end the walking horse show industrys failed self-policing system, and increase the civil and criminal penalties for violations. AWF has long pursued the enactment of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, which passed again on November 14, 2022 by a margin of 304 to 110. AWF has made funding for enforcement of the Horse Protection Act (HPA) to end soring a very high priority and worked with leaders in the Tennessee Walking Horse breed to secure just over $3 million in HPA funding. That's a record-breaking amount of funding that had never been above $705,000 annually.Minks In Narrowly Kept Spaces (MINKS) Are Superspreaders: Mink are the number one superspreader of COVID besides humans, having spawned at least 6 variants at mink farms around the world, including one in the U.S. AWF has been working to ban mink farming in the U.S. and has succeeded in the very first ban of any factory farming sector or animal agriculture sector that has ever passed either chamber of Congress.Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act: AWF played a role in the ban on cutting the fins off of sharks by working to include the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, a ban on shark finning, in the America COMPETES Act that passed both the House and Senate in different versions this Congress. The bill would end the trade in shark fins used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 2022, AWF can proudly say that shark fins are off all menus in the United States.Continuing the Ban on Horse Slaughter: AWF promoted the maintenance of the de facto ban on horse slaughter through defunding the inspection of horse slaughter plants now becoming an automatic, with both the House and Senate bills containing the defund language that keeps horse meat off the table. We are now poised to release the results of a national investigation into horse slaughter in collaboration with Animals Angels.PAWS Act Funding: AWF supported the final house and senate spending package providing more than $3 million for the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act's shelter program, which directs the Secretary of Agriculture to continue coordinating with other federal agencies to efficiently implement the grant program for providing emergency and transitional shelter options for domestic violence survivors with companion animals, that provides some relief for victims with equines as well.Protecting Wild Horses and Burros: Our iconic wild horses and burros on federal lands continue to face the serious threat of being roundup and slaughtered. This abomination will be further exposed in the upcoming documentary AWF and AWA staff members Marty Irby and Scott Beckstead are featured in: Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, produced by Disney Director Ashley Avis. The film is now making the rounds and has been included in half a dozen film festivals across the U.S. this year including the Boston Film Festival where Irby spoke and presented that led to the film being named Best Documentary at the 2022 Boston Film Festival in September. House and Senate appropriations packages now include $11 million for "research on reversible immunocontraceptive fertility control and its administration. This important funding will help prevent the birth of foals who would be subject to roundup with mass helicopter chases by the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro Program staff and contractors who we've seen treat the roundups like their own private rodeos over the past year. We are also working on a program to pair veterans with wild horses on public lands to administer the contraception. Many veterans with PTSD have found therapy in this work with equines.Eliminating Bear Poaching: AWF is working to ban the trade in bear gallbladders to supply Asian folk medicine markets.Lead Endangers Animals Daily: AWF initiated the introduction of the LEAD Act. The measure is to drive rule making with the goal of ending the use of lead ammunition in hunting on lands overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and that rule making process has now begun and is set for final action in 2023.Keeping American Heroes with their pets: An abrupt 2021 action that shuttered the import of dogs into the U.S. from 113 countries left American heroes in the military, diplomats, and citizens stranded without their pets or forced them to leave their pets in other countries. AWF, through the HENRY Act, is attempting to address these regulations.Pigs In Gestation Stalls (PIGS): AWF is fighting to create a national standard for confinement of sows used in the production of pork by helping with the current Supreme Court case that challenges a California ballot measure AWF worked to pass in 2018, and to help hold companies like McDonalds who pledged to go crate free in pork production but have not yet fulfilled that obligationGreyhound Protection Act: We are working on permanently ending Greyhound racing in the U.S. and online gambling over federal lines on Greyhound racing in other countries.Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act: AWF helped conceive and named the ACE Act, that would create an Animal Cruelty Crimes Unit at the Dept. of Justice to better enforce anti-cruelty laws.C