Animals

Forty six nations around the world are signatories of the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare, a series of principles designed to protect the welfare of animals.¹ The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) estimates that 26,500 species are threatened by extinction of an assessment of 96,900 species around the world.² Forty percent of endangered species are amphibians, 25 percent are mammals and 14 percent are birds.³ Trade, poaching and habitat destruction are some of the leading causes of animal population reduction and endangerment.⁴ Over 10,000 zoos exist around the world, and the United States Department of Agriculture has 2,400 licensed animal exhibitors around the nation. In 2002, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) completed over 2,000 projects in the pursuit of conserving animal habitats and populations, 50 percent of which were carried out in 80 different nations.⁵ Zoos and aquariums worldwide collectively spend over $350 million on animal conservation efforts each year, and generate over 700 million visitors in a given year.⁶ Six and a half million domestic animals enter shelters in the United States each year — 3.3 million dogs and 3.2 million cats. Just over half of animals in shelters are adopted annually — around 3.2 million — and 1.5 million are euthanized. Of animals admitted into shelters, approximately 700,000 are eventually returned to their original homes, most of which are dogs.⁷