All right, so our first presenter of the day is Amber Wallyn. Thank you for joining us at the junction.

Thank you.

Can you start by telling us about your background and how it relates to the field of veterinary forensics?

So my background has always been in animal enforcement with animal laws. Um, I've been doing animal cruelty investigations for the last 16 years. And like I said in the, in the speech, it's, it's progressed from that paper, pen and paper to computers. So. That's my background.

And you are located here in Florida?

I am. I'm in Lake County.

Excellent. So what was the topic of your talk today?

It was Best Practices for Animal Cruelty Investigations.

How would you describe your role as an animal control investigator during an animal cruelty investigation?

Right, so usually, um, we'll have officers or law enforcement first arrive on scene and then they'll call me out, um, once they know that they have an actual case, whether it's criminal, civil, whatever it is, um, and from that point on we investigate it from the start to the finish, um, and work with other agencies.

So I wanted to discuss that because you brought up a big point about collaboration. What is the importance of collaboration and how it helps you during these cases?

You have to have collaboration. Like I said earlier, it, it, I know what I'm talking about. Veterinarians, they proof that we know what we're talking about. Um, they're the experts in their field when it comes to forensic or even just the animal itself and doing well being checks to law enforcement, to legal professionals. If you don't have the legal professionals on board with you, it's extremely hard to make it through to prosecution.

What would you say are the struggles that you face as an animal cruelty investigator when you are looking at these cases.

So there's a couple different things, um, cultural issues. A lot of times, um, that's how we did it, you know, back home or, you know, wherever it is. And so that's one of the hardest ones is working around that and just Explaining some people that it is intentional. Sometimes it's not. It's just neglect and they had no clue. You know what it is, but that's probably the hardest.

What are what are gonna be like the barriers that you face when trying to prosecute and how can you strengthen your cases?

Lack of evidence. I know it's It's, and it's no, we talked about education and furthering education. Sometimes the first people on scene don't know what they're looking at and it's just closed out and now you have a record saying there's no validity to the complaint or you know whatever it is, but those are probably the biggest hurdles is actually getting hands on with the case and getting it to the state attorney's office.

So another thing that you brought up that, that really hit home is I worked with a cruelty investigator once that kind of was reluctant to learn anymore because she figured that she knew everything that she was talking about and you talked about the importance of education. So what can you say about that?

So that's, that's my huge thing. Even with my kids, like never stop learning. It doesn't matter if I've been doing it for 16 years or 50 years, you're always going to learn something new and it's, especially with animal cruelty or animal crimes in general, they're ever evolving. Um, whether it's the legal professionals, the veterinarians, the pathologists, anybody involved in a cruelty investigation, you have to continue that education. Whether it's learning a new trick or learning a new way to collect the evidence or looking at it in a different way. Um, and like I said, some of the, some of the classes you take are going to be monotonous. It's going to be the same thing over and over again, but at best it's a reminder of what you need to do.

So social media, in some of the cases that I have worked, social media has actually been bad because people are kind of like saying things that they shouldn't, but social media can also be beneficial, right? So how can social media help us in cruelty investigation?

Yeah, no, um, and I totally get the negative side of that. I'm a firm believer that you're innocent until proven guilty, and it's our job to prove that. that they're guilty. Um, and people will share it everywhere. But the good side of social media is the way the evidence is collected. Um, I can pull just about anything from social media accounts of you with an animal or proving that you were in care and custody of that animal to, you know, cockfighting or dogfighting to where they have these all over their, their social media pages. And it's a very powerful piece of evidence because like I said, in the, in the, um, discussion is, you know, people, they showboat and they need to be seen, they need to be heard. So it's going to be put out there. So it can be very, very beneficial.

So we have a really broad audience for this podcast and some of our audience is just people that love animals and want to do best. So how can the public help in animal cruelty investigations?

Um, I think the best way, and there's a lot of different ways, um, from start to if you see something, say something. That is the easiest thing. If you think, even if you think, hey, this might be an issue. I know my agency and the officers that I work with day in and day out, they have no problem to go check it. And if it's unfounded, fine. It is what it is. We checked it. Now we, we talked to somebody in person. Now we have a name for that address in case something does arise in the future, but that's the biggest, if you see something, say something. And then down to, um, like our shelters, volunteering, helping with the animals. Um, sometimes we bring one animal in, sometimes we'll bring 200 animals in and that puts a little, a lot of strain on some of these county facilities or rescues.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for this interview and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you.