2013
Project Coyote and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) co-lead a meeting of 12 non-governmental wildlife conservation and animal protection organizations with Under Secretary Ed Avalos and members of the Obama Administration to express concerns regarding USDA Wildlife Services’ predator control program. Camilla Fox hand-deliveres a Change.org petition calling for an investigation into the culture of animal cruelty that exists within the USDA’s Wildlife Services agency. The petition, signed by more than 100,000 concerned citizens, also calls for the firing of federal trapper Jamie Olson for egregious abuse and torture of wildlife. The day before the meeting the New York Times publishes a scathing editorial, “Agriculture’s Misnamed Agency,” about the agency’s policies and practices. Read more.
Project Coyote joins the Center for Biological Diversity in formally petitioning the Obama administration to reform the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program by mandating that the agency develop regulations governing its policies and practices. Read more here and here.
Project Coyote and partners release the results of an investigation into an Indiana penning operation, uncovering extreme animal suffering and providing strong evidence that wild coyotes are often illegally confined and killed by hunting dogs in such facilities. Read more.
Following testimony provided by Project Coyote’s Southern California Representative Randi Feilich, the California cities of Calabasas and Malibu pass resolutions opposing the use and sale of rodenticides. Read more.
California Governor Jerry Brown signs AB 789 into law prohibiting inhumane methods of killing wildlife, including drowning, chest-crushing, and injection with chemical solvents. AB 789 also reduces the allowable size of Conibear traps set on land from 10 to 6 inches and requires the use of warning signs on public lands in an effort to protect domestic dogs.
California Governor Jerry Brown takes a historic step toward ending the needless poisoning of wildlife from deadly lead by signing AB 711 into law. AB 711 makes California the first state in the nation to prohibit the use of lead ammunition for hunting, offering much needed protection to the endangered California condor and over 100 other species at risk of lead poisoning. Read more.
California Governor Jerry Brown signs into law AB 1213, the Bobcat Protection Bill, which sets a no-trapping buffer zone around Joshua Tree National Park and other parks where bobcats are protected year-round. Read more.
Project Coyote’s founder and executive director Camilla Fox is named among the “100 Guardian Angels of the Planet.” Read more.