American Humane Association

The American Humane Association (AHA) is an organization founded in 1877, dedicated to the welfare of animals and children. It was previously called the International Humane Association, before changing its name in 1878. In 1940, it became the sole monitoring body for the humane treatment of animals on the sets of Hollywood films and other broadcast productions. AHA is best known for its trademarked certification "No Animals Were Harmed", which appears at the end of film or television credits. It has also run the Red Star Animal Emergency Services since 1916. In 2000, AHA formed the Farm Animal Services program, an animal welfare label system for food products. The Association is currently headquartered in Washington D.C. It is a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Early history

The American Humane Association began on October 9, 1877, as "The International Humane Association," with the amalgamation of 27 organizations from across the US after a meeting at the Kennard House in Cleveland, Ohio. The invitation to the other groups came from the Illinois Humane Society, sent on September 15, 1877, to discuss the specific problem of farm animal maltreatment during their transport between the eastern and western US. Groups attending the meeting included associations from the State of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. A group from Minnesota also pledge its support to the forthcoming results of the conference, though they could not attend, and a group from the Province of Quebec in Canada requested the proceedings be sent to them following the proceedings.

No Animals Were Harmed (book)

No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse is a 2011 book by Peter Laufer. It is the third book in his untitled animal trilogy, following Forbidden Creatures in 2010 and The Dangerous World of Butterflies in 2009. The book explores what those who work with animals believe to be the line between using animals for entertainment purposes and abusing them. Meanwhile, the author recounts how his own opinions changed about that line when he talks to the different people about their beliefs.

Overview

Peter Laufer talks to those who work with animals for various purpose, such as a self-taught lion tamer, a slaughterhouse owner, and a scientist who fights crickets as part of his job, and asks them when using an animal for the purpose of entertainment, food, or science becomes abusing the creature. Meanwhile, Laufer recounts his own experiences on this topic, such as a voray into veganism and looking at killing ants on the kitchen counter in a different light. Laufer also searches for a cockfight throughout the course of the book and examines laws on cockfighting in various places in the United States.

Animal

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa). All animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently, at some point in their lives. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs: they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance.

Most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals are divided into various sub-groups, some of which are: vertebrates (birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish); molluscs (clams, oysters, octopuses, squid, snails); arthropods (millipedes, centipedes, insects, spiders, scorpions, crabs, lobsters, shrimp); annelids (earthworms, leeches); sponges; and jellyfish.

Etymology

The word "animal" comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, having soul or living being. In everyday non-scientific usage the word excludes humans – that is, "animal" is often used to refer only to non-human members of the kingdom Animalia; often, only closer relatives of humans such as mammals, or mammals and other vertebrates, are meant. The biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans.