Webinar presenters Emily Lewis and David Rosengard answered a number of your questions after their presentation, The Status of Animals in Criminal Cruelty Animal Cases. Here are just a few of their responses.

Audience Question: You mentioned earlier that ALDF can provide training for veterinarians, who do we talk to about that kind of training? 

Emily Lewis: Yeah, thank you for that question and anyone who is interested in that could go ahead and e-mail the address that’s up on the screen now, and that will get routed to the correct person to coordinate that for you.

Audience Question: You mentioned grants and how do we apply for those to help us out with our prosecutions? 

David Rosengard: The process is the same. Email that email address. The information that we need to fit our various funding sources and grant requirements is to know that they’re used, in fact, a criminal case involved. Yeah, we need to know what sort of, purposes the grants going forward is this cost of care. Is it forensic exams, etc. But if you start off by e-mailing that e-mail address on your screen, we can start getting the details from you and getting to work on it.

Audience Question: You mentioned confidentiality agreements and training, is at the same e-mail address do they e-mail that that e-mail address on the screen to get a sample of a confidentiality agreement or to learn more about training first for staff and volunteers? 

Emily Lewis: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Audience Question: How do you handle out of sight of the public when you’re dealing with farm animals? Do you have any advice?  

Emily Lewis: The other side of the public is when was primarily referring to when you have a shelter that is also open to the public for adoptions, meaning that you don’t want to intermingle your evidence animals with your animals that are available for adoption. When it comes to livestock, because of where the pastures you have might be located, it’s less intended for that purpose. I was referring primarily to where, where you have adoptions and the public coming in a routine basis.

David Rosengard: Another issue that, another way you can deal with livestock is if the cruelty situation is not about the conditions, the physical land they’re living on. It’s just about, for example, lack of food. You could do a shelter in place order where the animals stay in the pasture they were in, but the state takes over responsibility for providing them with food, medical care, and so forth. That just gets you around the question of where do you put 50 cows?

Audience Question: Do you have any similar organizations or partner organizations who can help guide law enforcement with legal issues in Canada, for animals, or do you work in Canada by chance? 

David Rosengard: We do not work in Canada, given the difference of the legal systems. We maintain a focus on the United States, because that’s what we’re trained hard and competent to exercise the law. There are organizations in Canada that do this work. I will need to double-check and see what their scope is. If I could just, if you want to just shoot me that person’s contact info. If we have it, I will look it up and get the answer.

Click Here to Watch a Recording of The Status of Animals in Criminal Cruelty Animal Cases.