Cotati-based Animal Legal Defense Fund steps up for wildlife

Would a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border sidestep important environmental and animal protection laws, cause flooding along the Rio Grande Valley, compromise public wildlife preserves, block wildlife migration trails, disrupt breeding patterns and jeopardize more than 100 endangered or threatened species like the ocelot, jaguarundi and aplomado falcon?

Attorneys at the Cotati-based Animal Legal Defense Fund believe it will, and in 2018 they joined with two other national conservation groups to sue the Trump administration. One of the lawsuits has been dismissed; the other two are ongoing.

“Construction of a wall will have disastrous effects on wildlife near the border,” said Stephen Wells, the defense fund’s executive director. “To thrive, animals need the full range of their habitats. The proposed wall could push dozens of species to extinction.”

The cause is in keeping with the organization’s core mission - harnessing the power of the legal system to protect and advance the interests of all animals. And while these lawsuits have made national news, they’re not the first. The Animal Legal Defense Fund also has garnered headlines by attempting to protect farm animals, caged animals and mistreated racehorses and greyhounds, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

“We’re unique in that we’re the only animal protection organization that’s focused totally on the law and legal protection for all animals,” said Wells, 54.

After 40 years, the organization’s reach is more wide-ranging than ever as it works directly with law enforcement and prosecutors on animal cruelty cases, collaborates with lawmakers on stronger animal protection laws, and maintains a growing network of chapters on U.S. law school campuses. And that’s just the start.

“What makes our legal work so important,” Wells said, “is that when we win a case we’re not just protecting the animals involved in that case, we’re also moving the law forward. Future advocates can use those laws and precedents to protect animals.”

Although he has always loved wilderness and wildlife, Wells didn’t set out to become an advocate for change on behalf of animals. Instead, as a kid in Illinois, he was fascinated by devices and how they worked.

“I was always taking things apart,” he said. “If something didn’t work, I figured out how to break it down, fix it and put it back together.”

That led him to a part-time, after-school job repairing and calibrating industrial measurement equipment. He was so good at the work that at 19 he took out a Small Business Administration loan and founded the Chicago-based Precise Instrument Repair Company. The business was successful, but after five years he sold the company and in 1989 set out for Alaska’s wilds, hoping to kindle his passion.

Wells arrived on the heels of the second-largest oil spill to occur in U.S. waters, 10.8 million gallons of crude oil that poured into remote Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef.

He volunteered to help clean the toxic mess that covered the pristine waters and beaches that served as a haven for seabirds, seals, sea otters, salmon and other wildlife, a life changing experience.

“I knew then that I wanted to protect all that was wild,” he said.

He returned to school, studying journalism and public communications at the University of Alaska before taking a full-time job with Anchorage-based Alaska Wildlife Alliance. He ultimately became the organization’s executive director, developing a reputation for protecting Alaska’s wild places and wildlife, particularly wolves and bears.

Wells relocated to California with plans to start an animal sanctuary but instead was hired by Joyce Tischler, the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s co-founder, who is often called “the Mother of Animal Law.”

His first goals included expanding the number of student chapters in law schools (there were six at the time), and increasing the number of law schools that teach animal law. “Today,” he said, “we have student chapters in virtually every law school in the country, and every law school now teaches at least one animal law class.”

Wells became CEO in 2006, and has presided over exponential growth. “We had 17 full-time people on the staff when I took over, and now we have 66 employees,” he said. “Our budget back then was under $4 million, and now it’s about $12 million. We take no government money and no corporate funding. All of our work is made possible by individual donors.”

The Animal Legal Defense Fund also has had great success attracting attorneys for pro bono work. “We have about 2,200 individual attorneys from 450 law firms,” Wells said. “Last year they donated about $4 million of pro bono work, which allows us to handle a great many more cases and be involved in more legislative matters.”

A glance at the organization’s website reveals a vast array of nationwide legal efforts to protect animals that range from egg-laying chickens and slaughterhouse pigs to dogs bred in puppy mills and animals hunted for their “trophy” parts.

Among the myriad issues are “Ag-Gag” laws, which punish undercover activists and potential whistleblowers for recording footage of animal cruelty in animal agriculture. Earlier this month, for example, a U.S. District Court in Iowa struck down that state’s Ag-Gag law, ruling that the ban on undercover investigations at factory farms and slaughterhouses violates the First Amendment. Similar laws have been struck down in Idaho and Utah; litigation in North Carolina is ongoing.

Other core issues include large-scale commercial dog-breeding operations, or puppy mills; “canned hunts,” in which threatened or endangered species are imported or bred on game ranches for trophy hunters to kill; and efforts to recognize legal status for animals as living things rather than property.

It 2018 alone, the Animal Legal Defense Fund offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who killed an 8-month-old chihuahua in Santa Rosa and worked with a coalition to pass California Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, which won in November with 61 percent of the vote.

The organization also hit close to home in 2012 by filing a class-action lawsuit against Petaluma Farms, accusing the egg farm of deceptive advertising because Judy’s Eggs brand packaging depicted hens on a grassy field and stated that the hens were “raised in wide open spaces in Sonoma Valley.”

In reality, the hens were raised inside farm buildings. The case was settled in 2014, with Petaluma Farms agreeing to remove the objectionable advertising and donating $44,000 to nonprofits that included the Sonoma Humane Society. Similar lawsuits have been filed against Hormel Foods Corp., Trader Joe’s and Handsome Brook Farm.

The organization’s concern for animals doesn’t stop at the California border. Last year it filed a lawsuit to shut down black market backyard slaughter operations in Fort Myers, Florida; submitted complaints to Puerto Rican officials about animal cruelty violations at the country’s Rivero National Zoological Park; and partnered with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to address judicial response to animal cruelty.

Even when they lose cases, Wells said, publicity surrounding the case can move animal law forward. That’s what happened in 2018 with a $100,000 lawsuit that was filed in Oregon on behalf of Justice, an 8-year-old horse. The lawsuit sought to get Justice’s former owner to cover the costs of ongoing medical care for the horse’s pain and suffering. It was dismissed in August by a county circuit judge, but not until the case was written about in People, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the National Review, and on TV news stations across the country.

“The bottom line,” said Wells, “is that animals can’t speak for themselves in court. From small town animal cruelty cases to groundbreaking federal lawsuits that protect animals, we may be the only lawyers on Earth whose clients are completely innocent.”

More information about the Animal Legal Defense Fund can be found at aldf.org.