Animal Welfare Institute

MISSION

While AWI’s mission is to alleviate suffering of nonhuman animals, the principle followed by AWI of compassion and nonviolence applies to human animals as well as nonhuman animals.

Since its founding in 1951, AWI has sought to alleviate the suffering inflicted on animals by people. In the organization's early years, our particular emphasis was on the desperate needs of animals used for experimentation. In the decades that followed, we expanded the scope of our work to address many other areas of animal suffering.

Today, one of our greatest areas of emphasis is cruel animal factories, which raise and slaughter pigs, cows, chickens and other animals. The biggest are in our country, and they are expanding worldwide.

WHERE YOUR SUPPORT GOES

AWI continues its work to protect animals in laboratories including promotion of development of non-animal testing methods and prevention of painful experiments on animals by high school students. Representatives of AWI regularly attend meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to fight for protection of threatened and endangered species. Similarly, they attend meetings of the International Whaling Commission to preserve the ban on commercial whaling, and we work to protect all marine life against the proliferation of human-generated ocean noise including active sonar and seismic air guns.

THE RESULTS

Through engagement with policymakers, scientists, industry, and the public, AWI seeks to:

• Abolish factory farms, support high-welfare family farms, and achieve humane slaughter for animals raised for food;
• Improve the housing and handling of animals in research, and encourage the development and implementation of alternatives to experimentation on live animals;
• End the use of steel-jaw leghold traps and reform other brutal methods of capturing and killing wildlife;
• Preserve species threatened with extinction, and protect wildlife from harmful exploitation and destruction of critical habitat;
• Protect companion animals from cruelty and violence, including appalling conditions in commercial trade; and
• Prevent injury and death of animals caused by harsh transport conditions.