By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson
The Big Cat Public Safety Act forbids keeping huge cats as family pets and prohibits contact in between huge cats and the general public. Meredith Lee/The HSUS
Last night at our Humane Awards occasion on Capitol Hill, we commemorated the work of legislators whose devotion to our cause made 2022 a banner congressional year for animals. In specific, we acknowledged the passage into law of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, and the legislators who led it. This was a critical achievement in the history of animal defense, one that took more than a years to attain.
The Big Cat Public Safety Act prohibits both public contact with huge cats and keeping them as family pets. It assures to end a terrible period, among penalizing cycles of repetitive breeding to produce cubs, taking them from their moms at birth, passing them around constantly for cub-petting or photo-ops, and lastly consigning them to shoddy roadside zoos or in the yards or basements of personal owners.
When we began dealing with this problem, couple of policymakers had actually challenged these practices, however we acknowledged how dishonest it is to treat huge cats in this manner. We worked to alter both the policy space of this problem and the general public understanding of it. For years, our ruthlessness detectives, program professionals, lobbyists and other associates collected the proof of ruthlessness at cub-petting and selfie operations all over the nation, stiring public awareness of the intrinsic ruthlessness of these practices.
No procedure can be successful in the U.S. Congress without strong, devoted and smart politicians, and this was definitely real with the Big Cat Public Safety Act. The Act’s crucial sponsors masterfully shepherded this procedure into law. Our Humane Awards honored the 4 co-leads of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, together with more than 200 other senators and agents for their deal with other animal procedures.
We acknowledged Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Reps. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., as Humane Legislators of the Year for rallying their associates in assistance of the Big Cat Public Safety Act and showing principled management, bipartisan agreement and a sense of seriousness for eliminating practices that demean and maltreat captive wild cats and present hazards to public safety. Their management led to a campaign that produced a House vote of 278-134 for the expense in July and its passage by consentaneous authorization in the Senate in December. President Biden signed the expense into law at the end of 2022.
Kitty Block and Sara Amundson sign up with HSUS and HSLF staff to provide the 2022 Humane Awards to members of Congress on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Kevin Wolf/AP Images for the HSUS
All informed, we acknowledged a bipartisan set of 234 lawmakers for their assistance in 2022, 42 senators and 192 agents including 30 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Together, they assisted to make 2022 a historical year in our federal policy work. This was specifically real for wildlife concerns, as we saw not just the Big Cat Public Safety Act, however likewise the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act and the Eliminate, Neutralize and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Act enter law too.
Throughout the 117th Congress, and specifically in 2022, our 234 honorees also devoted significant efforts to get bills on concerns varying from horse soring, horse massacre and puppy mills to animal screening for cosmetics throughout the goal. While those procedures didn’t pass, they and others have actually already increased to prominence in the 118th Congress, and they’re definitely concerns for our 2023 federal program.
Public policy that assists and safeguards animals is an essential aspect in building a more gentle society. This awards event was a heartening suggestion that the assistance of a devoted group of lawmakers who comprehend the seriousness of our cause can make all the distinction for animals.
Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.
Categories
Public Policy (Legal/Legislative), Wildlife/Marine Mammals
