HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT FISHES
Animal Justice Academy Panel
with Jonathan Balcombe, Chiawen Chiang, Ben Delanghe, Angela Fernandez, & Sophika Kostyniuk
7 - 8:30pm ET

2.2 billion fishes are killed each DAY by humans worldwide. Meanwhile, there's NO legislation or standards to prevent the extreme suffering of aquatic animals whether they are taken from the ocean or raised in fish farms.

In order to change the tide on this travesty, we need to get people to stop thinking of fishes as the bottom of the food chain and instead as sentient individuals who suffer greatly.

In this panel, scientists, lawyers, and campaigners will equip us with the facts, anecdotes, and resources to effectively advocate for fishes.

We'll explore what seems to be breaking through the wall of apathy most people have in regards to fishes.

We'll discuss:

• how to best demonstrate fish sentience and their capacity for pain
• effectively communicating the depth and scale of suffering that the consumption of marine life causes
• approaches, messaging, and campaigns that are breaking through cultural and corporate programming around fishes 

We'll also be sharing about a very exciting new campaign Animal Justice is doing around fishes.

*We invite folks to have their video on during this event to enhance the sense of community, but it’s not mandatory

About Our Guests: 

Jonathan Balcombe has a PhD in ethology (animal behaviour) from the University of Tennessee. He has published over 60 scientific papers on animal behaviour and animal protection. He is the author of six books, including: What a Fish Knows (a New York Times bestseller available in 16 foreign editions), Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, The Exultant Ark, Super Fly (winner of the National Outdoor Book Award), and the children’s book Jake and Ava: A Boy and a Fish.

Chiawen Chiang is a Fish Behavior and Welfare Researcher and Lab Manager of the WATR-lab, which uses science-based scholarship to advance animal welfare and reveal multispecies interests. She is also pursuing an M.A. in Animal Studies at New York University. Prior to joining the program, she was the Project Manager of Fish Welfare Initiative’s Philippines program, where she led projects to explore and implement interventions that raise aquaculture standards for farmed fish welfare in the country. Her research focuses on highlighting the complex lives of aquatic animals, and how their welfare is impacted in aquaculture systems.

Ben Delanghe is Investigations Counsel and a Staff Lawyer at Animal Justice. He's been practicing law in Canada and the U.S. since 2009. Ben considers his biggest wins to be those fought on behalf of the vulnerable populations. Within the scope of animal rights advocacy, Ben has a particular interest in the utility of direct action to achieve change. Ben is ever grateful to have the opportunity to advance animal rights both inside, and outside, of the courtroom.

Angela Fernandez is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, where she is cross-appointed to the Department of History. In addition to teaching animal law, Angela runs a Working Group on Animals in the Law & Humanities. In collaboration with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights, Law & Policy, she supervises the production of the Brooks Animal Law Digest: Canada Edition. From 2020-2023 she worked with Brooks and Animal Justice Canada to organize the North American Animal Law Conference and the Canadian Animal Law Conference. She sits on the Board of Advisors of Animal Justice, was the 2023 inaugural Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Distinguished Animal Law Scholar in the Animal Law & Policy Institute, and she has been a Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics since 2018. Angela is the author of numerous books and articles, including Pierson v. Post, the Hunt for the Fox: Law and Professionalization in American Legal Culture and “Not Quite Property, Not Quite Persons: A ‘Quasi’ Approach for Nonhuman Animals”. Her other publications include a book chapter on a large-scale mass mortality event on fish farms in Newfoundland in 2019: “Fish Farms in Canada: Where is the Law?” in James Gacek & Richard Jochelson eds., Green Criminology and the Law. She is currently working on a book project about a nineteenth-century Supreme Court of Canada fishing case, R v. Gerring, which grapples with questions of fish welfare and the environmental impact of industrial fishing, specifically purse seine fishing. Angela grew up in St. John’s Newfoundland. 

Sophika Kostyniuk is the Managing Director of Aquatic Life Institute that strives to catalyse significant positive change in certification schemes, government legislation and producer practices. An ecologist by training, she has 20+ years experience in the ocean and forest conservation sectors. Sophika has driven change through global supply chains by creating deep partnerships with diverse networks of actors and engineering practical, actionable solutions for businesses and governments alike.  Sophika has moved the sustainability needle forward on sourcing practices with the likes of Target, Levi Strauss, Hearst Publishing and Safeway, as well as the Government of California on seafood labeling.

Moderator: 

Kimberly Carroll is a coach for changemakers, campaigns strategist with Animal Justice, director of Animal Justice Academy, and a director with the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank. With over 13 years as a coach and 18 years as an activist, Kimberly works with mission-driven leaders, social entrepreneurs, and activists on the inner shifts, high-performance habits, and strategies to make them unstoppable. She’s helped empower thousands of activists and counseled those in high-stress positions like undercover investigators. Prior to her current roles in animal advocacy, Kimberly co-created the original “Why love one but eat the other?” multi-year transit ad campaign in Canada and was one of the founders of Mercy For Animals Canada -- helping bring the first undercover farmed animal investigations to television in Canada. She’s also passionate about environmental activism, democratic reform, and amplifying Indigenous and Black voices.