Friends of Animals, Inc.

Background Statement

Friends of Animals (FoA) is a non-profit, international animal advocacy organization established in 1957. Our goal is to free animals both wild and domestic from cruelty and institutionalized exploitation around the world.

The organization has grown from its beginnings as the most comprehensive low-cost spay neuter program in the country, facilitating more than 2.8 million spay/neuter procedures to date. It has evolved as well and now places critical habitat, wildlife protection and veganism at the core of animal advocacy.

Our advocacy work includes legal initiatives by our Wildlife Law Program as well as policy and legislative outreach on such issues as banning fur sales and prohibiting trophy imports of Africa's Big 5 animals.

Through its Colorado-based Wildlife Law Program, Friends of Animals has become the leading national wild horse protection organization. We have brought and won more than a dozen cases to protect wild horses, ensuring that herds remain with their families on the range instead of being ripped from federal public lands through cruel roundups.

Our lawsuits have stopped the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from needlessly rounding up thousands of horses in Wyoming, from limiting a Montana wild horse herd size to an outdated, low population target, and from attempting to loosen restrictions on the sale of thousands of wild horses to private parties who frequently sell them for slaughter. All the cases have revealed that the BLM, which caters to cattle and sheep ranchers, is cutting corners and knowingly violating the National Environmental Policy Act.

As BLM repeatedly tries to commodify our public lands by catering to the meat industry and other polluters and commercial interests, our lawsuits to protect wild horses and burros are more important than ever.

FoA is on the frontlines of providing sanctuary for animals that were victims of exploitation in the exotic pet trade, research and entertainment industry, operating Primarily Primates in San Antonio, which cares for more than 300 animals including many chimps.

Our reach also extends overseas with two important projects in Africa: the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project in The Gambia and our work in Senegal where FoA has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining a recovery program for the Scimitar-horned Oryx and Dama Gazelle. FoA is also working to restore the critically endangered North African red-necked Ostrich (Struthio camelus camelus), the largest bird on earth.