2025 year in review

Two decades ago, 98% of America’s egg-laying hens were trapped in wire cages so cramped they couldn't even spread their wings. They lived and died in darkness, their cries unheard. But activists dared to dream of a better world.

Today, you’re making that dream a reality. This year, you flooded Subway’s phone lines and inboxes until executives agreed to spare hens from cages across North America. After six years of silence from Best Western, you pushed the hospitality giant to report progress. You pressured The Cheesecake Factory to fulfill its cage-free commitment six years early. And when Viking Cruises couldn’t ignore your call for change, they became the first major cruise line to pledge cage-free worldwide.

As The Humane League celebrates twenty years, nearly half of all hens in the United States are now free from extreme confinement. Your advocacy in 2025 will spare 145 million hens from life in a cage—every single year—when these commitments are fulfilled. So keep dreaming. Keep pushing. The greatest change is still ahead of us.

The Open Wing Alliance (OWA) is a global coalition spanning over 70 countries, founded by The Humane League and now leading the charge to end caged cruelty worldwide. In the world’s largest undercover investigation into egg farms, brave OWA advocates trudged into factory farms in 37 countries—armed only with courage and cameras—to document the horrific reality of life in a cage. Their footage awakened consciences and sent ripples through corporate boardrooms worldwide.

The investigation drove giants like Groupe Pomona, Jacquet Brossard, and Compass Group to report cage-free progress. Groupe Holder and Melco Resorts eliminated cages years ahead of schedule—sparing thousands of hens from the misery of confinement.

From dark cage corners to corporate fine print, you made sure cruelty had nowhere to hide. The 2025 Eggsposé report, powered by your support, pulled back the curtain on empty corporate promises. Meanwhile, the OWA’s Cage-Free Fulfillment Report revealed a stunning 92% of 2024 cage-free egg commitments have been fulfilled—and 3.3 million hens benefited from progress in 2024 alone.

Standing with 106,000 new supporters around the globe, you helped send an astounding 1,145,749 messages to decision-makers—each one demanding an end to extreme animal cruelty. Your fierce advocacy influenced some of the world’s biggest food companies, securing cage-free commitments and progress reporting that will transform millions of lives.

You showed up in every way imaginable—marching through rain on city sidewalks, staging peaceful protests outside corporate headquarters, filling executive voicemails with passionate pleas for change. You shouted until your voice was hoarse and held signs in the cold until your fingers were numb. You wrote letters, signed petitions, and clicked “share” on stories of suffering that couldn’t be ignored. You proved that compassion, paired with collective power, is unstoppable.

It’s no exaggeration to call this the most important policy battle our movement has ever fought. As the industry continued fighting to overturn laws against extreme cruelty, you sent thousands of messages to Congress this year—holding back the floodgates to keep millions of animals out of cages. Thanks to your advocacy, 224 Members of Congress have signed a letter in defense of laws protecting chickens, cows, and pigs. And in the face of a Department of Justice lawsuit against Proposition 12, the strongest animal protection law in the nation, your support has enabled The Humane League to stand alongside California in defending the law.

In partnership with the Animal Policy Alliance, a coalition of organizations driving grassroots policy change, you fueled groundbreaking new policy wins across America. In Brookline, Massachusetts, you helped end the sale of foie gras, a shockingly cruel product made through force-feeding geese and ducks. When industrial farming threatened Connecticut’s rabbits, you stood firm and defeated the bill. In Missouri, your advocacy led to passage of HB 2134, holding slaughterhouses accountable for their waste. And remarkably, California became the first state to ban octopus farming, sparking a nationwide movement that’s reaching all the way to the Senate.

This year, you joined hands across continents, united by a shared vision of freedom for all animals. In Africa, your support helped secure an unprecedented 52 cage-free commitments, more than triple last year’s victories—and the result of systemic coordination across nations from Kenya to Zimbabwe. In Colombia, AnimaNaturalis began transforming the country's largest grocery chains. Across Europe, your advocacy has helped protect over 260 million birds from extreme crowding and rapid growth rates. In the United Kingdom, your years of persistent advocacy have helped spare four of every five hens from cages.

And this is still just the beginning. Your support of the Open Wing Alliance is helping to equip the next generation of advocates with crucial skills—from corporate negotiation tactics to strategic planning. At the Open Wing Alliance Global Summit in Poland, advocates from 38 countries gathered with one goal: collaborating on bigger, bolder tactics to end the suffering of animals worldwide. And with four regional summits planned across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa next year, this movement gets stronger every day.

We know the life-changing value of every voice and every dollar committed to protect animals from suffering. That’s why we’re honored to have been selected as a recommended charity by Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) since 2014.

Every year, ACE evaluates organizations around the world who are fighting to reduce the suffering of the greatest number of animals. We’re proud to have been recognized as one of the top-performing charities in the world every single year that ACE has performed their evaluations. Every dollar you give goes as far as possible to help end the worst forms of animal cruelty on factory farms—a commitment that has earned us top ratings from Charity Navigator, Candid, and Charity Watch.

All this progress began with a dream. A dream of a world where every animal is recognized as a living, feeling being worthy of compassion. A dream of kindness being the norm, not cruelty. Over two decades, you and our collective community have shown that anything is possible when we unite. Thank you for daring to dream with us, and thank you for everything you did for the animals in 2025.