 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's the nine o'clock clock on a given Tuesday. This is Stank Tech. I'm Jay Fidel, and that's Danielle Kessler, and she is the United States Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and we are delighted to have her on the show. Good morning, Danielle. Good morning. So let's talk about, you know, I think his name is David Attenborough, and he makes movies, and one of the points he makes in all his environment movies is that we're all in this together. Every animal, every insect, every microbe, we form the world, and we cannot afford to drop anything out of the chain. And any animal that goes extinct is the threat to humanity, because it means the world is less secure and it's ecological integrity. And he talks about that in his movies. What do you think about when you think about animal welfare? I mean, I think David Attenborough has it absolutely right. We are all inextricably linked. We, as humans, obviously depend on things like the clean air and water and things that healthy ecosystems can provide to us. But even beyond that, we know too that just biodiversity, being in nature, seeing animals contributes significantly just to human well-being, to our very attitudes for our spirits. We need nature. We need it for actual life and to feel alive too. Right. As a species, we're part of the chain, so to speak. We're making a movie now about the relationship of COVID and climate change. And one of the most interesting things we get from our eight scientists who we're collaborating with on this is that bats, although they transmitted COVID probably back a year ago or more, bats are important to us because they're part of the animal ecology. So we can't say, get rid of all the bats. No more than you can say, get rid of all the sharks. You can't do that. Every animal has a place in our world. It took a long time for nature to create this world. Then we cannot punch holes in it at any level. So anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about how you got involved in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In my mind's eye, I always wanted to do that. So why did you do it? Did you study it in school? Did you wake up one morning and decided that your mission in life was to protect fish and wildlife? Really, I did. I was always a kid that was fascinated by wildlife. I grew up in Pennsylvania, sort of a rural area of Pennsylvania, loved to be out in nature, loved to watch TV in the nature specials and go and visit the zoo. My first sort of experience and venture into conservation was working at zoos and aquariums, working, you know, understanding the animals and educating the public. So I really enjoyed that aspect of taking the animals that were in front of you and talking about how you, as you fall in love with these animals, can really work to protect them in the wild. And so I decided to again that work and said, I don't want to just talk to the public and just talk to kids and things as wonderful as they are and as the biggest change makers there. I always wanted to talk to the policymakers and I want to be able to drive policy level change on this. And so when back, I actually was started with International Fund for Animal Welfare back when I was in graduate school more than a decade ago and started working with them on some really fantastic campaigns on protecting big activity, saving whales, saving the right North Atlantic right whale in particular. And then took some of that nonprofit experience and said, I want to go see what it's like to work on the government side of this. Because so much of what we were doing in the nonprofit sector was trying to influence government decisions on this and trying to say here's how you should do it. And I said, I don't understand how to be really influential if I don't understand how things work on that other side. And so I went to the US Fish and Wildlife Service and spent a wonderful seven years there working in their international wildlife trade area and international conservation. And then just decided it was time to go back to the NGO sector and see what I could do over there too. So it's been a journey and encountered so many different perspectives and conservation along the way, all of which have been really informative. And I think there are there's just so many threads of things that we all can agree on and that we all can move forward in terms of conservation and animal protection. Yeah, no, for those people who are watching who want to apply and get your job, what is your study in that graduate program? So I did an interdisciplinary graduate program. It was called Conservation Biology and Sustainable Sustainable Development. And it was a bit of my undergraduate was in biology. And then for my graduate, it had conservation biology, but we also did environmental economics and public policy. And then I also studied a bit of communication. So it was very much applied sort of graduate degree to take all of those different elements together. How exciting. So the jump from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to the IFAW, the International Fund for Animal Welfare. What was that like? All of a sudden, it's you're not limited to the United States, although you're the US director, but you're interested in more more global things. Am I right? How did how did that expand your horizons? Yeah, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is one of the agencies within Department of Interior. And so I really enjoyed and loved the work there, but you know, you're obviously confined by working with the government, you know, and so there's only so much you can do in terms of communications and, you know, really thinking like you're an implementer of the laws that are before you and you are implementing the laws as they are written. So, you know, a bit less of an ability to be sort of an influencer of change to a point that you have those confines. And so then stepping to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, it's given me an ability to work on a lot different campaigns. You know, some days are spent working on talking, as I mentioned, about saving North Atlantic right whales. We're working very closely with the lobster industry there to get some innovative fishing technologies and gear technologies in place. And then some days it's working on wildlife crime, and we're talking more about how to reduce demand and working with companies, technology platforms in the US about how to remove wildlife products that are illegal from our platforms. Sometimes we're talking about big cats and captivity, which tends to get lots of media attention sometimes when there's big cats that escape and things like that. And we work a bit on that a lot actually on big cats and captivity. And so it's enjoyable to have multiple sort of campaigns and species that I'm working on at once. Yeah, you know, people are very passionate about this. I don't know whether it's, you know, an extension of your feelings about your house bet, or really they see it as a global issue. I know one woman and she's a philanthropist, and she spends a lot of time in Southeast Asia. I don't know about right now, right now, maybe complicated, but she spends a lot of time protecting tigers. And she's so dedicated, so passionate about that. Just the one thing, just tigers. But it's okay. It's okay to adopt the species of tiger. It's okay and see them flourish, hopefully. But one, you know, one thing I know you're interested in, and that's what our show is about, is the illegal trade in wildlife. Very concerning. And I guess the first thing is, who would do that? Who would do that? And why would they do it? Apparently from money. And I just like you to describe to us the nature of that quote, industry end quote. Yeah, so it depends on what part of the chain that you're looking at in terms of why they would do something like that. So when we talk about a legal wildlife trade, we're talking about the entire trade chain, which starts with the poaching of an animal, the poaching or illegal taking, illegal hunting or illegal killing of an animal, all the way through to the time that it is purchased or consumed or whatever the end use of that might be. So, you know, when we're looking at that earlier part of the trade chain, you know, the poachers and things. So we do see an element of organized crime in illegal wildlife trade. And so we oftentimes see these criminal networks that deal in illegal wildlife, also dealing in drugs, arms, human trafficking, they're dealing in other types of crime as well. Wildlife crime, wildlife trafficking is particularly relative to other forms of trafficking, fairly low risk and high reward. So you're getting, you know, significant cash sales, whatever it might be for a relatively low risk, because the crimes just aren't often prosecuted at sort of the level of severity of others. And so for some organized crime groups, this could be exactly, it's low risk, high reward for the poachers, for the folks who might be, you know, actually engaging in the legal killing. I mean, it depends on where they're at. It may be a matter of this is the job, this is the livelihood that is easiest for them to pursue, and they just need to provide for their family. It depends on the area there. So you have to really, we can't characterize sort of all of the motivations for illegal wildlife trade the same. It's dependent on the location that is taking place. It depends on the species that is being harvested, what those various things are. And then down to, you know, the consumer who's actually getting these, consuming these things. Again, that depends on the species. When we talk about illegal wildlife trade, the products vary widely. Sometimes it's live animals for the pet trade. Sometimes it is animals for human consumption, because there's exotic foods and things. Sometimes it's medicinal. It may be home decor items. It could be pretty little trinkets. It's collectibles. It's, you know, rugs or ivory trinkets and things like that. So the range of products is vast and the range of species that are impacted by it is even more vast. And so consumers from the consumers for those things can range from, you know, someone who is a hobbyist and wants to own them the rarest reptile and, you know, could be from somebody who wants to just be a collector and get a, you know, a high value trinket or product. And some of them are intentional from consumers. Others are just uninformed. We can talk a little about, you know, sort of that, those different levels that some people just don't know what they're. Okay, that's really helpful to understand exactly what motivates people. And it's nuanced. It's various things. But what about the scenario where somebody observes the illegal trade? They see it happening. They see the poachers. I mean, let's take it, one scenario we all know about is poachers killing elephants in Africa for their tusks in the ivory and so forth. So I see this happen. I'm just a tourist or I'm just a resident. I don't do it. I just see it. Can you talk about the chain of complaint? Can you talk about what happens when this person decides that he or she wants to make this known and bring in organizations like the IFAW to try to stop it? Yeah, so it depends on where you would witness something like that. I mean, likely if you're a tourist, if you're traveling in an area where you might see poaching, you know, if you're traveling overseas in an area like that, you're likely in a preserve and somewhere that should be a protected area. And so many of those protected areas, when you go into them, you're going to get your handouts, your maps, your things about the park and have some sort of way to report an incident when you're there. So, you know, looking to that local authority that might be able to provide you with some assistance. You know, the same thing with Stanford here in the US, if you were, you know, because there are native species. There was just recently a fairly significant prosecution related to collection of native turtles. So there is a significant raid in collection of native turtle species, which are protected and export of those. So, you know, if you would see something like that, you would contact likely the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or otherwise, you know, if you're in a state park or something and saw that your state wildlife agency. You know, you talk about an international effort. And the first thing that comes to mind is 92 countries out there. And this might be happening in a number of them, but they all have different laws. This is correct me if I'm wrong, but this is not a United Nations kind of area. This is country by country, organization by organization, and maybe some nonprofits like IFAW. But the laws will differ, and the regulators will differ, and the enforcement will differ. So you don't know what you're going to get when you make that call. Yeah, that's right. There is a global framework to internet for a two wildlife trade. It's called SITES. It's a convention on international trade and endangered species of wild fauna in Florida. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but we call it SITES for a short. And SITES protects more than 35,000 different species that are in trade. So what SITES is not, it's not a list of species that are endangered or species that are threatened necessarily. That's not the only criteria to get onto a SITES appendix. SITES is about protecting species that are at risk due to being traded and perhaps many of them being traded. And so it's a protection from that. So it's a regulation of trade. So once a species goes into a SITES, and there's 183 parties to SITES now, so there's only a couple of countries that are not parties to SITES, and it sets up a permitting system. So every single country that is a member of a SITES, if you are importing, if you're exporting any species that are protected by that and any product of that species, right? So if it's a species that part of it is an ingredient in a facial cream, then that needs to be permitted, and you've got to apply to your SITES authorities to get the proper permits for that. So there is an international framework, and then it's up to each of those countries who's a party to it to make sure that it's implemented. And it's frankly up to do the NGOs to the nonprofits that are working in those phases to make sure that the countries are implementing it, to be following up with them, making sure that they're putting regulations into place, making sure that they're funding it, making sure that they're not corrupting along the lines. Do you do that? Yes, we absolutely engage on SITES. We're very active in that SITES work. It's a public process in that you can help to suggest species that might make sense to be listed. So for example, I thought it looked at, we do a lot of monitoring of online trade. So we've seen, just as most commerce, because there's been a significant shift to online market places versus physical market places. And so we started more than 17 years ago actually looking at online wildlife trade and sort of tracking and monitoring what was happening there. And so as we see different trends, so for example, if we saw a spike in certain species of reptiles or certain species of birds, and we will be able to take that information and that data that we've selected in data countries or data parties, societies, this is something that we see increasing that could potentially be a risk or a detriment to this species. This needs to be considered for protection. Because again, it's not, it's not a ban on trade, it's saying we've got to regulate this and watch that. And so we are doing the data collection and monitoring helping form those decisions and say, this is the trend we see. This is something we need, this is actually we need to take now. Do you individually get involved in that? Well, I individually involved that. I used to. So when I was at US Special Malday Service, I served on the delegation to the CITES meeting. So we worked, yeah, I worked directly on it then, but we were, it was fantastic actually. We were part of a delegation that Pangolins uplisted. So Pangolins are protected globally now via the CITES appendices. So yeah, they did work on that directly. Pangolins are suspected as bats are suspected of carrying the COVID-19 virus. I don't know if that's been proven, but it takes me to a question I really wanted to ask you, and that's this. We have a world so complex in terms of our physical environment and our animal environment. It is so complex. All these species out there, all these variations on the seam, they're everywhere in every country, and they've been developing for eons, and by the process of natural selection, before humanity became so aggressive and hunted them down, fact is that they were in balance. Nature had created an ecological and an animal species balance of sorts. Now we're protecting some because we decide those are the ones we should protect. We're not necessarily protecting others. It's like maybe the decision on culling the herd. I say, you hunters, you can go out there and shoot some deer and we'll try to identify how many deer you can shoot and then your license will reflect that. And so many other species, which we allow people to cull the herd, or we turn the other way, if you will, when we know that there's damage to the herd. But aren't we getting in the way of nature? Aren't we getting in the way of the organic process by which all of life on this planet has been and should be organized? Do you go to a scientist, for example, and say, look, we're thinking of protecting this species, but not that one. We're worried about the extinction of this one, but not that one. Does anybody make those larger ecological, scientific, habitat type decisions before anyone gets involved in trying to enforce these rules? Yeah. So there's certainly biodiversity maps that are out there. We know the hot spots for biodiversity. And oftentimes, there's a lot of species that are serving as sort of umbrella species, if you will. So this species is being protected, so the habitat that it's within is protected, and that's a biodiversity. And so a lot of the sort of species specific conservation has a ripple effect. And if you're conserving that one particular species, you are in essence conserving a lot of the ecosystem. That being said, in some ways, it is like a point, though, in that this sort of selective protection is an interesting approach. And there is more talk, particularly with COVID-19 and the recent pandemic and the talk of zoonotic disease and our realization. I mean, as you said before, the answer is not to get rid of all that. And we've seen that happen in other pandemics that have broken out, I think it was Gambian Pelfrats at one point that carried it, that were a disease vector, and it was like, we've got to eliminate that. Our point is, that's not the solution. The solution is not to eliminate a species that could be, the solution is to change how we interact with those animals, which is why there's been a push for closing down the wet markets and making sure that the animals aren't put into these conditions. That would be a breeding source for zoonotic disease risk. And the thing is too, a lot of this is meant to be those animals were never meant to be brought out into the wild or humans were never meant to be in that close contact with them. They were meant to be in sort of protected areas that didn't have human interaction. So we have to think about how we interact with the animals overall. But as we're looking at the zoonotic disease risk, there is more of a push to say, okay, is it, we reverse this? Because oftentimes we're doing, you know, Endangered Species Act, CITES, we're saying, here's a thing that's a problem. Let's list this one species and we'll take care of that. Whereas what if we sort of reverse that script and said everything's protected and you can't trade in it or you can't do these things with it until we say that it is sustainable, that it doesn't present a zoonotic disease risk, that this species can reproduce quickly enough that some trade in it is fine and it's not going to affect the species as a whole, you know, that sort of much more precautionary principle of no until you can prove that it's not going to be detrimental. One of the things we've learned in talking to these scientists, I suppose you're really one of them actually, is that climate change forces animals out of their natural habitat and they wind up going places where they haven't lived before. And that's often closer to humanity, to civilized areas and cities and inhabited places. At the same time, you know, you have people who now are exposed to those same animals and there's a proximity, you know, and this kind of explains some of that zoonotic spillover transmission of disease. Because we are, we, the humans, are closer to the animals than we were before. The animals are closer to us and so we're living maybe too close to them. We're getting closer all the time because of the increase in population and the fact that people move and animal moves, animals move because of climate change. The result is, you know, that we have the risk of COVID not only now, but on into the future. And it depends on our relationship with the animal world. Have you heard that? Do you agree with that? Yeah, I agree with that. I would say that, you know, still being, being just in close proximity with an animal doesn't necessarily increase your disease risk from like that. So, for example, if you're, I think everyone's probably seen an increase. I know I have in like my urban neighborhood, you know, how to black bear in a neighbor's backyard. And I saw a coyote walking down like a four-lane road. So there has been, particularly in this time when humans have sort of retreated to their home, we've seen nature coming out in droves. And we've seen animals that, you know, have been in our backyards all along, but we frankly didn't really even realize it because they were kind of staying away from us. And so we at Eifel have been looking for a long time, but have also been putting a lot of information about how to coexist with wildlife. So, you know, if you do have these animals that are in your backyard, and if they are, that's good, right? They're keeping, you know, the coyotes are keeping the rodent populations down. And so they're keeping in some way that balance of making sure that you don't have additional disease vectors around. They're keeping everything balanced, but we have to, you know, do simple things like keep a tight lid on your garage. Make sure that you don't feed these animals. A lot of people still, you know, think that it's a good idea to go out and let me give them my leftovers. Don't find food in the natural sources and, you know, promoting feeding wildlife and things is going to promote them to come closer and in proximities that we don't necessarily want them. So responsible coexistence with animals, not necessarily a disease risk, but capturing those animals, putting them into close quarters alongside animals they shouldn't be with or otherwise interacting with them in ways that we shouldn't be is where you really get in. Yeah, that's complicated. You know, and if you go, if you go to a wet market, you're much more at risk with, you know, hunted animals or even hunted factory animals that you, you know, could be carrying something. Anyway, I want to, I want to move to one great pet peeve. And that is, you know, the ability of any international NGO like yours to actually enforce the law. You know, we have shows here on think tech involving human rights and war crimes and atrocities that are happening right now. And there are many people who many organizations that would like to stop those things. They are increasing in the world. There are many people who would like to fund those organizations to stop those things. And the problem is that not every country has the same rules. Sometimes it's virtually impossible to get a given government to take action. Sometimes you have to go to a third party country, and you have to find those who would fund the illegal activities and try to stop them there. So, you know, it's, this is not dissimilar, I think, from organizations that would like to stop atrocities and war crimes and violations of human rights. How do you do that? These people may be paying off, you know, in some kind of corrupt relation with the local governments and who are not going to stop them. How do you stop them? Yeah, so I'm going to go. So here within the US we don't have the ability to enforce or get engaged. We're not a law enforcement. There have been times where I said, I really just want to make up an alias and, you know, go investigate this online group and I want to do some undercover investigations. That's not something that's within my purview or something that I can do. But that means that in other areas where we work, for example, you know, we do a lot of anti-coaching work. We're working along the border of Malawi and Zambia to secure some protected areas in there. And so we are training range of controls. So the law enforcement that we're able to provide is support for law enforcement. And so we're able to supply things like uniforms and rations and equipment that they might need and help fulfill those costs that they need to do their law enforcement job, help provide them with specialized training. So we have a whole series of trainings we do where we work individually with countries to identify their needs. One thing we've been looking at a lot lately is live animals seized in trade. So oftentimes when we talk about illegal wildlife trade, people think of ivory or they think of tiger skins or something like that, which aren't a big deal when you see them, what to do with them. When you see them, you, you know, put them into a warehouse for education or you destroy them, something like that. But when you see live animals that are being traded for the pet trade or else wise, what do you do with those live animals? And so these, you know, law enforcement agents suddenly, if they are starting to crack down on wildlife trafficking, may encounter themselves in a situation where they have a shipment of chimpanzees or squirrel monkeys that they don't really know what to do with. That wasn't in their job description. And so what we can do is give them pools, give them training, let them know how to take care of those animals and in and around how to find a, you know, a housing and appropriate housing and care for them to ensure that they don't go back into illegal wildlife trade, right? We don't have them finding like any person to take care of them that says, hey, I know how to take care of this. And then suddenly it's going into their hands and directly back into illegal wildlife trade. It just came out of. So a lot of what we do is providing that support, technical expertise, as well as resources to support law enforcement. I'm just wondering, Danielle, if I, if I buy through illicit channels, an animal which is protected, say it's come from another country or continent, and I'm an American citizen and I possess that animal. Let's say, I don't know, let's, I don't know, this is illegal, but a chimpanzee, for example, I buy one. And does anybody treat that as an illegal act to possess the animal that has been through in illegal trafficking circumstance? Yeah. So for anything that would be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the sale or purchase of that is, is illegal, depending, right? There's lots of nuances that I won't go into. But yeah, that is, that is something that would be considered illegal if you're purchasing a protected species. And that being said, there is, you know, like you mentioned before, there, there are times when we know that people may be an unaware of, you know, as a buyer, you know, so that's going to go to law enforcement discretion as to how they approach that. But, you know, certainly finding out, it may not be the purchaser unless you're, you know, purposely collecting large quantities of wildlife products. But, you know, where did that come from? What store did it come from? Where is the trafficker that does actually know that they're participating in illegal wildlife trafficking? I mean, there have been incidents in New York. There was an instance fairly close to me in Virginia of stores, of antique stores, of, you know, having a lot of other legal activity taking place in them, but having this illegal trade running alongside it. So you can walk into a store that looks like a perfectly normal storefront, same as with online, and they're actually illegal wildlife products there. Are you being successful? Is there any way we can measure your success at achieving this mission? I mean, it's always, I think there is, but it is always hard to know where this would be without these efforts, right? So we have seen, we've been looking at illegal online wildlife trade for 17 years. It's still happening. It's certainly still happening. It's still happening in large volume. I don't think we've seen that with the growth of the Internet. I don't think we've seen as much expansion of it as there is relative to the Internet. But, you know, again, I think that we are getting attention to the issue. We see government funding that's going into this. We see money being put on the ground for this. We see prosecutions happening so that, you know, that this becomes, I mean, ultimately this has to become more of a high risk crime, lower reward, right, for this. And so, and we are seeing, you know, legislation that makes this more of a serious crime and prosecutions that treat this seriously. And so I think there are definitely a lot of this thing all. Good. Happy to hear that. So what's your website that we could look at? And also, how can we get to be part of your funding sources? Yeah, that's a great question. So our website is www.isaw.org, and if you visit our website, you can see all of the different projects and programs that we work on. You can sign up for our listserv there if you're interested in hearing more about our advocacy actions and also how to support us via donation. Thank you. Danielle Kessler, the U.S. Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. I admire your work. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you so much, Jair. I enjoyed it.