Create the Perfect Format for Billing Client for Animal Science

Format for billing client for Animal science

I'm Kathy Hessler I'm the assistant Dean for animal legal education at the GW law school and I'm delighted to be here to moderate the first panel this is our 30th Anniversary animal law conference and I'd like to welcome you to this conference before we begin I'd like to offer special thanks to our Platinum sponsors the Brooks Institute for animal rights law and policy in Carroll House Furniture and before we get to begin our wonderful panel with these great speakers we have a special treat we have I'm thrilled to share some very special welcome remarks from Dr Jane Goodall on video so join me in enjoying this hello this is Jane Goodall and thank you for asking me to say a few words on this the 30th anniversary of the animal law conference seldom does a day go by without a story of shocking abuse of animals those in factory farms Research Laboratories puppy mills horse and dog racing neglected pets training sports hunting Rodeo the list is very long and this creates feelings of Despair and anger in those who are fighting to prevent cruelty to animals such as all of you people often ask me if I have any hope that things will improve so let me explain why despite the continuing abuse I do indeed have hope for a better future first during my lifetime and I'm 88 years old now I've seen many changes for the better when I went to Cambridge to work for a PhD despite having no undergraduate degree I'd been with the chimpanzees two years studying them in the wild I was nervous imagine how I felt when I was told I'd done everything wrong I shouldn't have named the chimpanzees they should have had numbers I couldn't talk about their personality mind and emotions those were unique to humans but I had a wonderful teacher when I was a child and I knew that in this respect these erudite professors were wrong that teacher was my dog Rusty now more and more people understand that we are not the only sentient beings on the planet it's a characteristic we share not only with our closest living relatives the great apes and monkeys and with other big brain mammals such as elephants whales and dolphins but with all mammals and with birds reptiles octopuses and so on and I can't resist sharing that a recent scientific study indicates that jumping spiders May perhaps like octopuses have dreams more and more countries have introduced legislation that criminalizes cruelty to animals some factory farms research Labs puppy mills and so on that have been proved to have violated anti-cruelty laws to animals have been shut down in other cases the owners have been fined there has been increasing investigation into the way horses are trained investigation into the docking of tales in horses dogs and pigs and it's now illegal in many countries many countries too have now banned animal performances in circuses and other entertainments there are whistleblowers risking their jobs to expose the shocking cruelty with which animals in factory farms Laboratories and so on are so often treated as a result all around the world an increasing number of people join demonstrations and risk imprisonment because of their actions to save animals from harm as I understand it animal lawyers gather the facts and file lawsuits on behalf of some Animal Welfare groups or concerned members of the public against individuals or companies guilty of breaking some law designed to protect animals from such abuse with the hope of course that the guilty party will be punished us a lawyer a law is of little use unless it's enforced and there are powerful lobbies agriculture pharmaceutical and so on that are prepared to pay a great deal of money to throw out lawsuits that threaten their business interests but then there are there are an increasing number of animal welfare and animal rights groups as well as thousands of concerned citizens prepared to join campaigns demonstrations and so on on behalf of the animals I want to highlight the importance of Education it's really encouraging to find that more and more of the most prestigious universities in more and more countries offer courses in animal law I would like to see also courses in animal ethics stressing the fact that animals are sentient beings tailored for children of different ages the general institute's roots and shoots program is a humanitarian and environmental program with members from preschool through University where it's very strong this program requires each group to choose at least one project to help animals and it has active groups in 65 countries and growing this is creating a network of people around the world who care about animals and the number of roots and cutes members are now studying animal law the last point I want to make is to emphasize the importance of collaboration and the need to accept that because of the widespread nature of animal abuse it's necessary to involve everyone in the struggle to make this a better world for them there are the activists who organized demonstrations and share facts about reports of Cruelty from whistleblowers there are the people who work to educate the general public and the children about animal sentience and then there's all of you animal lawyers who work often pro bono to protect animals from cruelty through the legal system we need to pull out all the stops to protect animals in the wild and in captivity and I just congratulate all of you involved in animal law but the major contributions that you have made thank you so much we thank Dr Goodall for those wonderful welcoming remarks that are so apt as we talk about the theme of the conference today building a better future and she's a great um example of the youth the powerful and positive use of Science in legal and other advocacy for animals which is a great tie-in to our panel this morning so we have three wonderful speakers on our panel and our panel is titled using science for Progressive legal outcomes for Animals science is not something taught in law schools which ends up being a problem legal and non-legal Advocates need to understand and use science they need to know what good science is how to find it and most importantly how to use it and so our panel today will help us explore some of those questions they'll then take questions from the audience both in person and online so if you're watching online you can submit a question in the chat icon the Q a icon I'm sorry the bottom of your screen so now I'd like to introduce our wonderful panelists first speaking will be Christopher Rhone Christopher is a partner at the Canadian firm Branch McMaster and has substantial experience in criminal animal cruelty cases he's represented the British Columbia Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals since 2002 including the Omer bcspca case which went before British Columbia's highest court and sets out the test for interpreting British Columbia's animal protection legislation next we have Dr Rebecca Rebecca Ledger who's an animal behavior and Animal Welfare scientist and those are topics she teaches along with teaching animal law Veterinary forensics and the link between human and non-human violence she's a frequent expert witness and also runs a clinic focused on companion animals with behavioral issues and then we'll have Dr Mourinho Dr Mourinho is a neuroscientist an expert in animal behavior intelligence and self-awareness she taught at Emory University for 20 years and is the founder and president of the whale Sanctuary product project and executive director of the Camella Center for scholarship-based animal advocacy she's published extensively co-authored a groundbreaking study demonstrating the first conclusive evidence for mere self-recognition endolphins and has been increasingly called as an expert witness so we have a wonderful panel please join me in welcoming them foreign so thank you very much I think this is the first time I've spoken to a large group of people since uh well probably about three years ago so um it's good to be here and and thank you everybody for coming so the what I what I'll be talking about is I'll sort of be introducing the legal aspect of the expert and how how do we use them why do we use them and then we'll have the actual expert speak so the first uh issue is the admissibility of the expert opinion uh which which you might also call why do we need the expert why is it important for the court to have an expert in a given case that informs uh your explanation to the court as to why you need that expert so this is just simple common law test it's it's uh it makes sense as well so whether you're in Canada in the United States yeah that this is the applicable test so first of all obviously the opinion has to be relevant to the issues just as any evidence has to be relevant to the issues the evidence the opinion evidence has to be necessary to assist the Trier of fact I'll go into that in a little bit more detail next absence of an exclusionary rule I won't I won't go into the into that at this point qualifications of the proposed experts and finally as often I think happens in animal cases is the is the evidence reliable and so sometimes you're talking about areas that are Maybe a little bit esoteric so is your expert able to explain to the court that what they are saying is a reliable opinion that should be accepted by the court so this is the necessity point B from from the the previous slide so This concerns whether the expert opinion is necessary and there's a Supreme Court of Canada case which distills the issue down and this is a popular uh case in Canada and it's a similar U.S case losses the same type of thing so the expert opinion evidence is necessary to assist the Trier of fact when the factual matter in dispute is such that the ordinary people are unlikely to form a correct judgment about it if unassisted by persons with special knowledge and then what is the special knowledge well it's acquired by the expert through study training or experience so you always have to have that curriculum vitae that resume from the expert showing this is what I've done this is why I'm an expert in this particular field that I will now be giving an opinion to The Cordon now the expert as well of course is paid by the party that has retained them but they're giving their evidence to the court so that ties into the qualification of the expert are they qualified in the sense that they're not biased that they're not just simply helping the person that's paying them and that's something that the the experts here will talk about a little bit later but essentially they have to be impartial and they have to be giving independent and unbiased opinions to the court otherwise their opinion won't be accepted a lot of times in court you're arguing that this expert is actually biased that they're not giving a full picture to the court and that as a result the court shouldn't accept what they're saying so I'll just go through a few of the types of cases that we do rely on Experts for so first of all animal cruelty seizure of animals by authorities that are entitled to do so that's the bulk of what I do so the bcspca has the ability to take an animal away from an owner when that animal is in distress when they're being treated in an inhumane way subjected to Cruelty and so experts are called upon in those cases to say what is in the best interest of the animal because the owner can dispute the seizure of the animal before the Tribunal hey I'd like my animal back I wasn't mistreating it well what does the expert have to say about that criminal law of course typically in the criminal context the prosecutor has to prove that the animal actually was treated and accrual and inhumane way that it was in a situation of distress and oftentimes you need the animal can't speak can't say what happened to it you need an expert to be able to explain that this physical injury was caused not by accident but by but by the acts of the owner or that the animal's behavior is such that yes we can tell that this animal was neglected and treated in an inhumane way beaten or what what not other cases include animal custody disputes which comes up in family law uh where where the uh spouses may be arguing as to who should have that animal and sometimes these aren't particularly common cases but sometimes there can be a debate as to what's in the best interest of the animal similar to what happens with children in in a divorce situation uh Wildlife cases as well what's the environmental impact I'll touch on one of those cases uh shortly we also see this coming up just in in typical tort cases so uh a dog bite case what's the behavior that this dog displayed was it something that was predictable by the owner or not and there can be cases where you need to call on an expert to describe that another can be an accident caused by an escaping bull and and so you'll have to have us you may have to have a standard of care expert in those cases to describe how to properly keep the bowl so those are perhaps a little bit rarer cases and of course there's Veterinary malpractice cases where an animal was harmed by a veterinarian during a procedure and so you want to show that the veterinarian had breached the standard of care if you're on for the plaintiff so with respect to the animal seizure cases as I mentioned one of my clients is the BC SPCA and they're authorized by Statute to seize animals that are in distress they secure a warrant and they go in and they take the animal away now the owners used to go in front of the court to dispute these but the BC SPCA is very adamant about enforcing it and enforcing the animal rights legislation in British Columbia and there were so many of these cases that the the provincial government decided well we're going to actually shunt these over to a tribunal instead to hear these cases so that's where they're now occurring and it's a fairly quick process we do have to use experts quite often to inform the tribunal who are not Experts of course inform the tribunal about the situation of the animals so just as one example uh there was a fairly recent decision that I did called McGaw and the bcspca this was a individual who is a dog sled operator and the allegation there was that he was keeping the dogs in completely inhumane conditions they were short-haired dogs they were kept in little dog houses that weren't elevated from the ground they were cold shivering some of them were going hypothermic there were numerous uh obviously it's a dog sled operation so there were numerous dogs they were not fed properly um you know all I said I suppose in a way to keep costs down they weren't exercised regularly they were just chained up next to their individual dog houses and they were displaying strange Behavior circling what they call stereotypic behaviors uh just barking for no reason and and so forth there was deep gouges in the ground from where they would Circle and circle throughout the day and now the owner had experts he had a Dr Reynolds Who Doctor of veterinary medicine based in Alaska he has his PhD from Cornell University and he's board certified American College of Veterinary nutrition used to work for Purina um also had Dr Alina Baum who was a veterinarian or is a veterinarian another American and uh they they were both uh lovers of dog sled operations I suppose you could say and came across as biased during the hearing uh We've we found a number so this is part of what what you have to do as a lawyer well you have to do your research we found a number of text messages and and bulletin board postings online by Dr Baum in particular which were criticizing this particular case and what the bcspca had done in this case in taking the dogs away from the person so that was kind of fun to cross-examine her on that um so from the from our side we had a veterinarian Dr Walton who oftentimes does uh testify in these sorts of cases concerning the the treatment of the dogs he had tested the dogs at the time of the seizure and found that their body temperatures were were too low so in other words they were they were hypothermic and we had Dr Karen Van haften who's a veterinarian as well and she has a three-year residency in clinical Behavior so she was able to speak to the the behavior of the dogs and identify that what they were that these behaviors that we had videotape evidence of were in fact atypical so the tribunal here's a couple of the findings that they said so you can see how these tribunals or courts will treat the expert evidence Society video from the day of the seizure the society is the bcspca show a number of dogs demonstrating stereotypic circling Behavior the appellant that's the owner argues that the dogs were exhibiting typical behavior for sled dogs and were not in distress Dr Reynolds and Dr Baum support this argument in their testimony saying it is natural for dogs to bark and get agitated when strangers arrive the panel prefers the evidence of Dr Van haften who had the opportunity to spend hours with the dogs in their environment we find that the video evidence supports Dr Van halfton's description of repetitive behaviors being carried out identically over and over again over time and so these American to American experts that testified in the case never actually saw the dogs and in contrast Dr Van haften and as well as Dr Walton did see the dogs and that made a difference so if you have an expert make sure that they have all of the facts all of the evidence before them it'll show that they're not biased well it will help show they're not biased and and they will then have the preferred opinion the one other case I'll touch on is the wildlife case that we had now there's a bcsbc Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and one of the I mean they do many things to rehabilitate animals but one thing they were doing was releasing non-native eastern gray squirrels that were found harmed or injured brought into them rehabilitated they were putting them back into the Western environment now these squirrels have actually been on the west coast of British Columbia for for hundreds of years so it's not a new animal that's just there recently but they do compete with the with the local squirrels so the issue was well if we're if we're uh sterilizing them and releasing them will that be detrimental to the habitat the ministry was for many years allowing them to do this that that's the the government organization that had the authority over this and then suddenly yanked the permit away so they're getting these squirrels come in and then what are they supposed to do with them kill them uh so they hired me to to go in front of the tribunal and argue that they should be allowed to release them so that was an unusual case where we had a wildlife biologist Dr farcar Who gave evidence that the release of non-native squirrels was actually not detrimental in the environment when they were sterilized and the The Province argued that no you should give no way to him it's what he's saying is is not backed up by the science but of course he had numerous scientific studies to back up what he said he himself had done research in the area was able to demonstrate the data and so his opinion was preferred and the the ministry decision was set aside so just to summarize then when when you have an expert make sure they're qualified to give their opinion work with them so that you make sure that the opinion they're giving is actually in with what their expertise is demonstrate that they're not biased help them to make sure they're not biased and that their opinion is something that goes beyond the scope of what are what a lay person would would be able to testify to that way they're assisting the Tribunal so with those uh comments I will end my discussion thank you very much foreign hello thank you Chris um Chris and I have worked together on a few cases with the SPCA and I think you've always won I think it's very good so I appreciate that he's here to to give some some thoughts on using experts um my name is Rebecca Ledger and you can tell from my accent I'm originally British um am I pressing the right button there's a little bit here about my background I'm better without my glasses I've been in Canada since 2002. I'm a biologist and I came to Canada just for a year sabbatical at UBC I was a visiting Prof in animal behavior in Animal Welfare at the University of British Columbia um and 20 years later I'm still there and partly it's because I've had this opportunity to be retained as an expert in some very interesting and exciting animal cases um I found Canada is has been the laws are very open to being interpreted and there's been a lot of opportunity to progress the welfare of animals and the standard of a care um because of um that opportunity that the spcas and and municipalities have provided to animal experts to interpret um the legislation so I we've made some very Progressive and exciting um set some very Progressive legal precedence in Canada over the last uh 10 years at least and I want to share some of those with you I also just want to point out that and judges make this mistake all the time I go to court and I go through my qualifications and they always think I'm a veterinarian and I'm not a veterinarian and Laurie's not a veterinarian there you don't have to be a veterinarian in order to provide courts with um insight and information that's going to help them understand an issue okay in fact there is an entire discipline an entire uh professional bodies of Animal Welfare scientists that may be veterinarians or may not be veterinarians but Animal Welfare science is in itself its own discipline we study Neuroscience we study biology we study ethology we study animal behavior we study all sorts of things that are relevant to being able to assess and interpret the welfare of animals that and we don't know how to treat ear infections and it doesn't matter okay so uh I've um I work on all sorts of cases across Canada um I um I work for individuals I would I'm often retained by individuals who have had their dogs seized by municipalities who've been considered aggressive and people want their dogs back or they want them off death row they want to they don't want their dogs euthanized I'm also retained by municipalities when they're trying to make a case for destroying dogs and I also am retained by many Humane organizations across Canada as well in cases that involve animal cruelty this is just some of them uh I've been retained on over 185 cases to date um and Chris has already kind of sort of helped us sort of understand the the the variety of cases that um animal experts might be involved in um dangerous dog cases pet custody disputes animal cruelty cases private prosecutions civil suits and um sometimes animal experts were also invited by municipalities or the provincial or the federal government to provide thoughts and expertise when it comes to developing new policies or new legislation as well and that's something I think Laurie is just fantastic at okay all right so this is um Chris emphasized the importance of experts being impartial and unbiased it is something even though I grew up with animals and I'm vegetarian and I have a house full of pets and I do love animals very much it is still very important that the information that I provide to the Trier of fact is unbiased and is impartial and um so and because as Chris mentioned if it comes across that we are just trying to sort of say whatever would suit um whoever happens to be paying us whoever's retained us then our opinion or the weight that's put on our opinion is very quickly diminished so this is a statement that I put at the beginning of all of my expert reports and I live and die by this statement um I am aware of my duty to assist the court and not assume the role of advocate for any party and I certify that this report is made in Conformity with that Duty and that if called upon to give testimony I will do so in Conformity with that Duty okay so the thing is is that I I can't change my opinion or just say what whoever's happens to whoever's retained me I'm not going to say whatever they want me to say however there is I believe it's called expert shopping does happen where I'm only actually going to be retained finally by somebody who does who's who accepts that my opinion is going to be favorable to their case okay so I do inevitably turn down a lot of cases where my opinion is not what the possible the person who's possibly going to retain me is going to want to hear or see um it's also important that when I'm in court and am I hearing all the evidence and that's something that sometimes I just want to give you everybody a bit of a heads up that that's something that sometimes is discussed prior to a case is well she's an she's a witness is she allowed in the courtroom is she allowed to hear all the evidence and it's argued well yes because she's the expert she has to hear all of the evidence and if something new is discussed or is raised in the courtroom the expert needs to be able to possibly change her opinion or or give and be flexible in that so it is important that the experts are in the courtroom um who involved fully in the case they're provided with all the particulars so that they um so that they can change their opinion if needed okay because our role my role it doesn't matter who's paying me my role is to help the trial of fact or the the court to make a good decision okay and the good thing is is that we have so much information so much scientific information regarding the welfare of animals and and that I I don't have to lie the science is pretty clear when it comes to how and why animals suffer um I'm just going to mention um I've only been involved in one private prosecution this is kind of a hot off the press kind of a case so I thought you'd all be interested in it it involves them pretty big actors a lady a retired lawyer in Ontario called Sandra Schnur set up an organization called Canadians for animal protection and in 2019 she launched a private prosecution where she basically took and these are big companies Walmart Home Depot Home Hardware and Canadian Tire and lows to court because they were selling glue board traps so I'm sure most of you here are familiar with what these are but for those that aren't they're pieces of cardboard effectively that are covered in a very sticky resin and if you have a rat or a mouse problem in your home you can lay these boards in the sort of the routes that these rodents would typically take and of course as the rodents are trying to go from A to B if they move over the boards they get stuck in the best case scenario for these animals is that whoever laid the Trap gets there quickly and they are able to release they can release the Animal by wetting them and release the animal Outdoors so that it's no longer inside the home but the worst case scenario is that these animals are left to die on these board traps for days they die of starvation they die of dehydration sometimes they chew their own limbs off in order to escape the blue board sometimes they struggle so much they rip the skin and the fur from their own bodies sometimes they die of asphyxiation because of the resin and the glue gets stuck in their nasal cavity but these are currently sold by these large organizations um so these obviously are not kind methods and and that's the key is that it's a method but it there are more Humane ways to do that or at least less inhumane ways in order to deal with your rodent problem and that was the craps of the case so when Sandra retained me to assist with this case we went through the science and we looked at the nature of suffering that rodents experience when they are controlled using all sorts of methods various methods and what we were very clearly to demonstrate based on many peer-reviewed scientific papers was that this is probably one of the most inhumane methods it's therefore unnecessary to use these methods because there are other methods to control rodents that cause less suffering hence this is unnecessary now she's had um she she made some progress and then she had a bit of a setback with the courts um so initially Superior Court justice lawn sosin um said of the case several of the issues raised by Canadians for animal protection have Merit and deserve to be heard before a court those seeking public interest standing must meet three criteria by demonstrating that one they are raising a genuine issue of Justice two they have a real stake of interest in the subject and three they are using Court resources properly by raising an issue that can be effectively addressed in that setting so um the um the the first two parts of the test the uh Justice sosin agreed had been met but not the third she said that uh Sandra had failed on the third grounds that she had not yet had yet to pursue the matter through other channels what she said was that you know you did you report this to the SPCA did you go to the police before you do a private prosecution did you explore these other methods these other Solutions so actually and it's literally hot off the press so I just um she did that she basically called the police and they said well we're not going to deal with this and she spoke to the SPCA and they said I'm not sure we know how to go about this either so she went back to the court and she said look we've explored these other avenues now what do we do um and just a few weeks or two weeks ago less than two weeks ago a peace world world Michael delivered his decision um and what he said was that unfortunately he ruled that he could not proceed with the charges based on two points one that to change to charge someone with aiding and a betting a principal offender must be identified and secondly that we needed to show that these retailers had sold the glue traps that caused the suffering described in our evidence so the science is there but unfortunately just because of these legal loopholes and such um this is uh now people this case is not able to proceed so um and I believe that she can't appeal and that there's no written decision so we're not exactly clear on the reasons why either so it's really unfortunate because we thought this was a very interesting backdoor way into making some legal changes quite quickly anyway so um but let's go back to some some happier stories um I I want to talk about a couple of the cases that I've done that I think will be of uh that are more novel that are more um uh hopefully sort of inspiring to those of you who have knocks or who've considered similar cases before but weren't sure whether or not you could proceed with them and these are cases where uh we see often with video evidence or there's a Whitman statement that describes that an animal has been subjected to harm and the SPCA may go and investigate and seize the animal but find that there's no physical injury there's no broken bones there's no uh there's no Cuts there's no bruising there's no blood there's no malnutrition there's no dehydration physically the animal is fine and yet we see a video of an animal being kicked or beaten or yelled at or yanked harshly by a leash or have a shot collar used on it these kind of things um and one such case came to light in 2014 where a gentleman named Desmond Hague was the CCTV footage has kind of been a bit of a gift in animal cruelty cases over the last few years because people are captured doing all sorts of things when they don't realize it but um what came to light was CCTV footage of this of this gentleman in an elevator in a building in Vancouver he was going up the elevator as he got in he had a Doberman Pinscher puppy with him called charde this is her um and in the video he's seen yanking her on the leash uh kicking her kind of pulling her up by the leash and letting her collapse to the floor there's no audio but it appears that he's yelling her as well and the dog's Behavior suggests that she is very scared that she's very anxious that she's afraid so this got leaked to the press and there was a lot of pressure from the public for the SPCA to do something um they went and visited the dog in the home and they found that They seized Sharde there was no physical evidence of any harm um but they felt that they needed to do something and they'd never yet prosecuted a case where there was no physical evidence of harm so um I think I've got one minute I'm about a third of the way through my slides which I thought might happen so I'm just gonna kind of jump a little bit here um so uh so the SPCA retained me as an expert in that case as an expert in animal behavior to interpret first of all the conditions that shardy was subjected to that may lead to suffering and also um the nature of the suffering what would she experience so what we know in Animal Welfare science is that there's at least 32 different ways an animal can suffer and this is within the the legislation I think the criminal code it it states that everyone commits an offense who willfully causes or being the owner willfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain suffering or injury to an animal or a bird um historically the emphasis or the cases were prosecuted when there was evidence of pain or injury but not suffering and suffering was kind of an add-on but no one was ever interpreting it and I do a bit of a funny test for people just not to show people up that just to demonstrate when I meet people in this field you know can you just tell me what you think suffering means can you define it no one has ever been able to Define suffering for me in this kind of forum but the scientists we have a definition and the definition is pretty simple it means an unpleasant State of Mind okay it's a term that refers to the fact that the animal has this having an unpleasant experience and we can uh and all mammals are capable of at least 32 different negative emotions and Sensations that constitute suffering so regardless of whether or not charde was injured she was suffering she was suffering from anxiety we could demonstrate that based on the conditions that she was experiencing and also her behavior during the incident So based on that I'm just going to flip through this this is something called the five domains model this is a scientific framework that we use to determine um the the nature of suffering in animals in these cases Mr Hague pled guilty uh he was given a five thousand dollar fine and boned for banned from owning an animal for three years the judge considered other factors in sentencing such as the personal ramifications for Mr Hague who no longer had a job after this whole thing went viral on social media um and this was really groundbreaking this was the first case in uh in Canada where somebody was found guilty of animal cruelty where there was no physical evidence of harm so I just want to let you know that that kind of thing can happen and a good chunk of 185 cases I've done over the last six years eight years have involved these kind of scenarios so I just want you to be open Don't dismiss those cases where there is no physical harm where the vet says the dog's fine the cat's fine I can see nothing physically wrong with this okay talk to a behaviorist and not just any behaviorist talk to Laurie talk to me don't talk to a dog trainer don't necessarily believe your veterinarian unless they have some kind of board certification in Behavior as well okay it is beyond a Layman field of study it is a science and the judges have huge respect for us in courtrooms we have huge successes they put a lot of weight on our testimony um and um so we look forward to hearing from you okay thank you thank you for the Civil scroll through the 50 slides I did not do there we go well thank you everyone and welcome everyone uh I am very happy to be here uh today I'd like to talk about uh three basic things at a at a sort of more General level one reiterating the fact that science plays a foundational role in animal log policy that scholar advocacy is a very important component of that and that of course there are circumstances and I mean as scientists need always be unbiased always unbiased but that doesn't mean they can't be an advocate for the animals and so I want to talk about scholar advocacy or scientist advocacy and finally I want to tell you something very exciting about uh the new animal law and science project at gwu that Kathy and I are are working on so first science plays a foundational role in animal law because it is the the body of knowledge that animal legal Scholars and practitioners draw upon to to do their work the task of arguing for the rights and protection of other animals depends upon being able to reflect who they are so all the things you're hearing about what's cruel what's inhumane was we need to understand who other animals are and that information comes from the scientific literature Animal Advocates of all kinds legal and otherwise need to be able to utilize that science in the most effective way so here are some examples of Science and legal efforts for animals that depend very much upon science and scientific expertise that I have participated in and will be participating in uh one of them uh comes from Canada and as you know uh there was a bill that was introduced several years ago uh that bill s 203 the ending of captivity for whales and dolphins act um that eventually passed in 2019 and uh that bill involved a lot of wrangling and debate and between Witnesses eyewitnesses scientists who brought to bear um a lot of the scientifically based empirically based data and arguments on why dolphins and whales cannot thrive in in Marine parks and concrete tanks and I was one of several next to me there you see how Whitehead who's one of the most prominent rheumatologist in the world and um we talked about the science not just the science of who dolphins and whales are although that was very important but also um the the the claims made by the dolphin and whale industry about how educational it is to see dolphins jumping up at the air and concrete tanks and and how there was very little evidence for those kinds of claims so what we did is uh took an empirical scientific approach um and uh that was a foundational to to uh the whole issue of whether or not this bill which would phase out dolphins in whales would pass it was a four-year struggle um this morning we saw a a brief talk by uh Dr Jane Goodall and um in that in that uh bill which is now making the rounds in Canada uh there's it would extend uh basically all of all of the a lot of the work that uh Bill s203 did but to uh many other animals including elephants in captivity and that's one of the really exciting aspects of this is the fact that if bill s218 passes then um it would phase out captive elephants in Canada just as it would uh uh for for other animals as well um again the science is the basis for what um this bill is doing and it will require testimony from scientists about great apes elephants and big cats scientists telling people who these animals are who they are there's another act that I've been involved with that's in here in the United States the swims act and this is a really exciting uh piece of legislation it was introduced uh very recently in August 2022 by representative Adam Schiff and by Dianne Feinstein in the senate in the swims act would amends The Marine Mammal protection act as well as the Animal Welfare act and it would amend them in two very simple ways it would prohibit taking uh importing and exporting whales for the purpose of public display or entertainment and it will prohibited breathing of the whales for public display and every as you may know breeding that is that's what has to stop that's what has to stop um in order for these exploitive industries to to stop doing what they're doing um and of course it would allow exemptions for animals to go to a sanctuary such as the one that we're creating in Nova Scotia um but uh what this act would do was would basically do those two things for orcas beluga whales uh pilot whales a number of other species it leaves out bottlenose dolphins which is you know that it's because they're the most plentiful in the tanks but the ones that do the worst in the tanks the orcas and the belugas those are the ones that are targeted by the swim sap so um those are the ones that are included um it is based entirely on the premise that is now an empirical fact that whales and dolphins cannot thrive in the type of captivity that we see in Marine parks and the science supports this issue um and so we are at the very beginning of this but we are going to be moving this through we'll see how far it gets it's just an example of some of the things that scientists are intimately involved with here's one of my main points scientists can be the most effective advocates for Animals As a scientist a neuroscientist I taught at Emory University for 20 years and I watched as students who are told you cannot be a scientist and an animal Advocate you can't do it choose how unfair is that and what does that do to our ability the ability of people like you to go and Advocate legally for the animals so the whole system is set up to create scientists who are afraid to be advocates for Animals I'm here to tell you that's baloney in fact scientists can be the most effective advocates for the animals because we spent our lives studying who these animals are and that is why many years ago I set up this Camellia Center first scholarship-based animal advocacy to bring these two together there is no inherent conflict between science and advocacy now don't mistake advocacy for being biased there are two very different things two very different things and as a scientist you have an obligation to stick to the facts but that does not mean that you cannot use your knowledge to advocate for a better world for other animals there is an entire domain in which scientists play an important role in legal advocacy for Animals As we've seen on this panel and science scholar advocacy is about developing and expanding that domain so how do we Empower legal Scholars and practitioners with science and that leaves me to the last point that I want to make which is the most important all of you recognize this lady here Kathy Hessler and I want to talk about the fact that Kathy and I have been working for a few years on a project where we bring together science and animal law in a more formal way and this project uh has been supported in the past by the Brooks Institute is now has a beautiful home at George Washington University where Kathy is and it is part of the animal legal education initiative supported by aldf and it's a new project that brings together animal law Scholars and practitioners policy makers and experts in the natural and social sciences and the whole premise of this project is what can science do for you what can science do for animal beagle Scholars and practitioners what do you need from people like me to be even more successful in your work so more formally what would a legal system properly informed by scientific understanding about animals and the harms of their usage look like and our goal is to create new Pathways of collaboration so what will we be doing initially well we have a team of people who are involved with this some of them are here um we are going to begin with some very introductory uh educational resources that we are going to create webinars animal law for scientists and science for animal lawyers and by science I mean two different kinds of science one the science of who other animals are and the science of how our minds work because we're animals and we have a specific psychology and that psychology has to be understood when you're arguing uh for other animals because it comes into play um we're going to be creating glossaries of terms directories of scientific experts who are willing to step into the arena or step up as I'd like to say we're going to be increasing our presence in science and animal law conferences and eventually creating courses and curricula and we now have a list third um at GW law and here is the link to it and Kathy and I can make that available to you as well but uh send a blank email there and you'll get a confirmation email and this is the beginning of not only this project the GW but also a really formal conversation between science and animal law so thank you very much thank you Lori and all our speakers and I have to tell you I made a mistake for Lori's slides thank you um so we've just started two new list from said TW one is the animal environmental one and I gave that information to Lori and one is the animal law and science one so we can get that too so just email us my apologies that's entirely my fault so thank you for these wonderful presentations we have two microphones set up for question and answer period right now so folks can come on up to the microphone if you're online you can put your question in the Q a and we'll get it read out um to you here um I want to just tell you while people are thinking about the questions they might have um that the video recording of This will be available in about a week and you'll be able to find that on the online platform um to review the recording you can go to the agenda page find the session and click watch On Demand um so questions for our panel yes please hi uh Jane McBride oh no I have been involved with cruelty neglect for about 20 years in the prosecution of the same as well as an environmental law so I've had the Science Background a bit I'm very interested in the animal Wells Animal Welfare Science World how available are these experts the other problem for us this of course is the cost of getting these experts available you're thinking about addressing that question for Chris about exclusion of witnesses it shouldn't be a problem but it is of the inner lands have you had to deal with that or maybe not um and so just would like to get some feel for that we tend to use dog trainers so not Animal Welfare profession you know Animal Welfare scientists and so um as this is a wonderful effort but uh way ahead of what's going on in the most prosecutions offices so um and as we work on our advocacy bill which we've got one in the Opera in Illinois all of this is going to be incredibly important as we train these Advocates to to be helpful in the prosecution its offices so just kind of interested in how we're going to inch it up and make these people available uh well so lucky to have people like Rebecca here in British Columbia and uh numerous veterinarians as well for physical injuries I haven't had a difficulty finding experts for the bcsvca cases that I do in terms of qualifying the expert before the tribunal or the court again it's I think educating the tribunal that there is a field of in particular animal behavior because so much of it comes down to the fact that the animal can't speak for itself you don't have a physical injury demonstrating itself on on the animal as as Rebecca said and so how do you establish that that animal was actually in distress that it has been treated in an inhumane way uh and and and that's where the animal behavior expert comes in uh in order to explain first of all what do they do what's their what's their background what's the field of study because it's something that the average person doesn't even know exists and so explaining that you know look there are actual academics people with a PhD who've studied this area and can now explain to the tribunal to the court what's happening it's been accepted in every case that I've done I've I've never had an issue with it be it a board-certified animal behavior veterinarian or uh or an academic PhD in the field so um I haven't had an issue there that there there are debates obviously between the experts which we see for example with the housing of animals what size of a crate I don't think there should be any crate but what size of a crate can you keep a cat in for example debates between experts on those sorts of things have have come up but um I haven't had a had an issue with respect to having a good roster of experts to call upon a lot of people want to help out the bcsvc a lot of experts so so it becomes quite easy in that way um I don't actually do prosecution so that's in in British Columbia that's uh well throughout Canada it's the Crown Council that takes over there I interact with the Crown Council and the prosecutions but I actually defend the bcspca when their decision to seize an animal is is being called into question I can add a bit if I'm switched on um there aren't that many of us and there's actually even fewer who are willing to do this kind of work because it's pretty intimidating honestly being cross-examined and um you know even some judges haven't heard of this discipline and they'll joke about Dr Doolittle's about to walk into the dock or whatever you know it's um it is off-putting and also there are a lot of universities who don't want their staff acting as experts I've referred a lot of prosecutors to people at universities to speak to some of the most eminent Animal Welfare scientists and they want to help out that their Deans say no um it's it is um it it can be hard depending on what um what your case is for sure I think and I think Chris is lucky because you know we've established this kind of um approach to animal law in BC like five miles from his office so of course he doesn't have a problem finding experts but I know other people do um also a lot of veterinarians they don't want to participate either because they're like well I've got clients booked all afternoon I don't want to sit outside a courtroom waiting to be called you know and you know who's paying me so it's um it can be tough uh but it's um but it also comes the other way I've talked to a lot of scientific conferences where I'm trying to help you guys out I'm trying to say to the Animal Welfare scientists by the way look I'm doing this if you just see a case covered on the news you know like there's this poor lion in a cage and someone whacks it over the head with a stick and you know all about Lion Welfare and you know that's wrong call the prosecutor tell them them hey I'm here I can give you a formal opinion on this I can help out you know because right now we don't have this this network we don't have this roster of experts who can who you can reach out to uh we have to find each other but there's ways to do it and I think my one of the key things I wanted you to know was that these people do exist you might have to do a bit of digging you can call me you can call Lori we can tell you who we would recommend um but these people are out there thank you so much I just wanted to ask um I'm from Zimbabwe and um um so far I'm the only animal lawyer um who's resident in Zimbabwe and also I'm new five years old learning this um would would I qualify as an animal law expert because the field is still new especially in Africa where we have maybe just one lawyer one person who has learned this particular field of Law and you are the only person who's a little bit knowledgeable in that particular jurisdiction but of course when I'm here I'm probably the the most uh infant or the most Junior person when it comes to this so is it jurisdiction based or um how yeah well I think I think there's two aspects to that so one is is the area that you're that you're wanting to do so for example if you're advocating for changes in law and so forth that would be something that that you could do I think in any jurisdiction um if you're advocating within a courtroom then then you would have to be called to that local bar to be able to do it um so for example what Lori was talking about a lot of what she does is advocating for change to laws or bringing in to force new laws so she comes to Canada and is doing that and that's the type of thing that you could do regardless of where you're called to the call to the bar right you know that we have an online person who judges how do judges of the Court navigate sign now the judges in the courtroom navigate fire how do judges in the court navigate scientific evidence that they do not have the training to interpret and assess what happens that's the role of the expert right yeah that's that's exactly what we're there to do is to help them understand the science you know our jobs are to be communicators and they are it is to explain and we have to be able to do that in layman terms that's also a requirement of the expert is to sort of translate all of that information all of those key values and data that's in the journals into a format that the judges can understand but that is exactly our role it isn't to say who's right who's wrong we can't answer the ultimate questions in court it's there to help the judge understand what they need to know and what scientists know in order to make a good decision yeah agree with that and and then there's certainly you know this is very complex because the judge is a person comes into the courtroom with a human brain that has all the biases and fears and psychology in there and how you say something really matters and you can trigger a judge one way or the other by using a certain word or so I mean we've seen this has seen over and over again um I've done a tremendous amount of work with the non-un rights project and so when you say the word person people go nuts they just go insane and the judge and so you know this is something that you have to Grapple with what are the terms you're using are they appropriate um and you know in the case of personhood for certain animals there's a very specific legal reason why that's used and that is appropriate but just understanding that everybody in the courtroom is a human being they're not a blank slave they come in with fears and biases and psychology um and uh you have to think about how what you say might impact their motivations or their their decisions sometimes the biases are good though our first question in a dangerous dog case is the judge got a dog pitbulls well that's true too it can work both ways yeah just saying uh yeah I have a question for Dr Marino um your work on Orca culture has been like a huge inspiration to me to like continue you to use animal law to try to End Market captivity and I'm just wondering if um you know drawing That explicit connection uh between like the culturallost that orc is experiencing culture in in captivity and the like impact on their health like if that's uh like bringing an explicit talk about Orca culture and just animal culture in general is something that you would feel confident like doing before a judge or before lawmakers thank you can somebody um reiterate that question so I have all the details it was echoey I couldn't hear it either I couldn't sorry maybe Kathy if you could just I could try this check go to this um if you can just tighten it a little bit and just um yeah just because I don't want to put words in your mouth you want to try it again yeah yeah I was just wondering if um talking about animal culture like for example was orcas if that's something that you would feel confident talking about before a judge um you know like a judge is looking for like hard science if that's like something you could like show like hard science for and like make that compelling argument to a judge sure so I think what you're asking is would I or someone feel comfortable talking about animal culture um in a courtroom uh particularly with regard to Orcas for instance yes absolutely so many years ago to talk about animal culture was to be laughed out of the room but we have now a very solid empirical evidence to show that orpas and many other non-human beings have culture in the true sense of the word not in some weird animal-like sense but in a true sense of uh transgenerational transmission um and so yes absolutely um and it really would depend upon for instance what the actual question was or the context but sure that's that's there and there are people uh who would be much better than I am at talking about that like Hal Whitehead or Luke Grendel or a number of my colleagues who actually have done the the studies the long-term studies to show us yeah thank you and I think it would be fair to say that you consider that a science I certainly certainly yeah yeah we have another question hi um I was wondering are there any qualifications other than education that we should look for when uh identifying animal behavioral experts uh for well for the courtroom I would say it's obviously good if if that expert has testified previously um that will give them more respect and Credence in the courtroom what are their Publications if necessary have they are have they actually worked in the field so somebody could just be fresh out of University just had their PHD they may not be the expert you want uh you know is it somebody that's actually been doing that that work for some time because you want somebody who has the experience as well as the qualification and what are the routes that we can we get to identify those experts I mean looking at scientific Publications or contacting universities yeah so you can I mean most universities have good description so if you go on there you can you can see who their professors are for example take a look at their CV how long have they been doing it what is their research what what what are they actually getting their hands dirty doing and so that's one way to do it of course you want to have a discussion with them in advance probe them a little bit because that's going to happen to them on the stand the other side will do that um and obviously they have to be somebody that's interested in wanting to go into the courtroom and give that testimony or go into the legislature and talk to lawmakers and so on that's not for everybody so you want to find the person who's enthusiastic and interested in doing it uh coupled with the necessary qualifications and experience actually doing what they what their professed expertise is thank you and I just wanted to add that you know one of the things that we'll be doing uh with the animal law and science project at gwu is trying to create a directory of people who we can who you can go to scientists who are willing um to loan their expertise to Legal efforts for animals and make it a little bit easier for you to find those people who are actually out there I say one's a good thing about covid is that that list of availability of people's gotten better because pre-covered I always had to appear in the courtroom in order to give a give an opinion then during covet holder there's a big hole doesn't there in cases and then we start we went to doing that doing it over the phone or through uh teleconferencing so now we can help people across the other side of the country or the other side of the world so likewise your experts might be the other side of the world they don't have to be in the same state as you obviously you have to look and see what you know your your your your local courts prefer or acquire in terms of whether or not they want a hot body in the room or somebody on a TV screen is sufficient um but yeah I mean I've done I've testified on my bed in a hotel room once the other side of while everyone was scared in Whistler and I you know it can it can happen it's it's much easier now to find just the right expert and you're not quite so limited by where they're living geographically and I think we all have time only for one more quick question I know there are a couple of other folks waiting I think Gladys was waiting first but I'm not positive is that right oh okay okay and so then we'll ask the other two folks to to talk with our speakers during the break okay can I ask Blake is that okay sorry Hi um my name's Sophia I'm here with Brooklyn law school I'm very excited to be here um in my former life I was a pre-veterinary student and I was going to be a vet that was what I was going to do and then I went to a very production farming focused pre-veterinary program for undergrad and this is where I am now um and I'm still friends with a lot of those people that are vets and I'm wondering how you guys see future collaborations with veterinarians especially as like production farming Industries they're kind of getting wise to us all and I they the certain things that are taught in that schools are uh maybe not necessarily the most ethical and it is like what works for production farming um but I'm wondering how you guys see that expanding like and how that's going to change with veterinarians are saying one thing and then we're saying another thing well there's a lot of veterinarians studying Animal Welfare in agricultural departments universities all over the world so you know it isn't it isn't a them and US necessarily yeah and and there's such a strong link between improving the welfare of animals in Farm industry settings and productivity increases you know better milk yield higher lower mortality rate of Offspring and that sort of thing so they're not necessarily you know conflicting yeah um you can find people who are you know have that middle ground and um so sorry though yeah no I I agree with that I would say though that keep in mind that there's an obvious difference between animal welfare and animal rights and whereas you are more likely to find veterinarians working with farmed animals who are into animal welfare and they claim that they are the the question of whether or not you know the we should be doing this in the first place is is really a question that's not often interrogated and um that that's where you have an issue finding veterinarians who say you know we shouldn't be doing this in the first place they have a right not to have a hole punched in their side yeah you know um and those kinds of things so it is depends depends upon welfare versus rights and what the one thing I'll add is with veterinarians as you saw in that one case I had you can find a veterinarian that will say you know two veterinarians that will say polar opposite things when i