Animal Defenders International (ADI) 2016 Successes
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Animal Defenders International (ADI)
November 2016

Just a few of the successes for animals in 2016!

Ending circus suffering

ADI evidence exposing circus suffering continues to mobilize cities, states and whole countries. Norway recently became the 34th country to ban wild animals in circuses, eleven years after we and our partners launched the campaign in April 2005. Here in the US, 66 jurisdictions have ended circus suffering and in the past 12 months Missoula, MT, Cambridge, MA, Plattsburgh, NY, and Jersey City, NJ have passed ordinances banning wild animal circuses. Austin, TX and California have passed elephant bullhook bans and we hope to develop these into wild animal bans.

The monkeys that will no longer be torn from the wild for the pet trade
At the September conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), we stopped the trade in Barbary macaques for pets, which has threatened their survival.

The lions went home

After two years of battle and heartache in South America, it was a magical day in May as our rescued circus lions stepped from their travel crates onto the African soil. After a 26-hour journey with the lions, we’d arrived! Their terrible, brutal life is over and they are home. There are no more circus animals in Peru – we had saved them ALL!

US bans canned hunting trophies

A year after the brutal killing of Cecil the lion, we went head to head at the CITES Conference with the hunters to demand greater protection for the world’s critically declining wild lion populations. It ended in stalemate, but we work for the next CITES, as individual countries take action. It was a huge victory in October when the US dealt a blow to the canned hunting industry and banned the import of trophies from captive lions.

Cholita to get new neighbor – Dominga

In January, I will be returning to Peru to oversee the rescue and relocation of Dominga, a bald, lady spectacled bear (Paddington bear) just like Cholita. She is currently in a zoo and they have agreed to hand her over to ADI and we have the blessing of Peru’s wildlife authorities. Cholita’s plight and the outpouring of worldwide support even led to a new anticruelty law in Peru and we created the first official sanctuary for rescued bears in the country. Sweet Dominga will never be alone again. We saved Lucho and Sabina from that dreadful zoo in the mountains (and of course, took the opportunity to take away all the other animals too, leaving it empty!).


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