Thank

you so much.

As we gather here to shine a light on animal testing, it's hard for me not to think of yesterday's gathering to commemorate the victims of 9-11.

Friends and family members reminded us of the many qualities and personalities of the people killed.

For more than a few, we were told they especially loved their adopted pets.

and among the victims were many animal rescuers themselves.

There were heroes among them, people who shepherded their workmates down flights of stairs after the planes hit.

It's the rolling

Fill us in.

Well, listen, thank you so much for, for allowing me to, uh, visit with you and your, and your listeners.

I just arrived in Los Angeles.

I'm here for a couple of purposes.

Uh, one is...

And, Mark, some of these things are very obscure, right? Most people have no idea, a lot of people had no idea that dog fighting was a big thing until the Michael Vick case.

That that was a morally settled issue.

Exactly, yeah.

Absolutely.

It's in- it's incalculable.

What is the price of clean air? What is the, what is the price of the availability of water? What is the value of soil? These things are the fundamentals of all life systems, for us as individuals, for our economy, as well as all the other species.

This is not an issue of humans versus animals and nature.

We're all animals.

We're all part of this ecosystem.

And to destroy these habitats, this is why the Endangered Species Act, one of the most important laws ever enacted.

Yeah, like the wing, even the head sometimes, yes.

I mean, does any of this make sense that the federal government, through the Federal Fish and Wildlife Agency, has a plan in which they plan to shoot 450,000 barred owls over the next 30 years at the cost of about $1.3 billion, and they say they're doing it in the name of saving wildlife?

Lars, you have targeted a lot of stupid government programs, but this one takes the case.

It does.

Barred owls, which are a North American species, native only to North America, they now live in Washington, Oregon, and California, and they live in the same habitats as the northern spotted owl, which is listed as threatened.

So the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, in its infinite stupidity, is saying, we're going to manage social relationships between barred owls and spotted owls.

That is not the job of the U.S.

But if one animal is superior to the other animal, you know, from a survival standpoint, then why not just let nature take its course?

I can't even believe I could see such a thing in my day.

Well, listen, it's, it's appalling.

And gosh, though, as I hear your setup and talk about our dear friend, late friend, Jerry, thank you for the tributes to him because he would have been all over this, as you know.

And, uh, He would not tolerate any cruelty to animals.

And to see this sea lion who was watched by people every day, and then suddenly somebody comes up to the sea lion and kicks him in the face.

He's going to go, what the hell is going on? What's wrong with this person? Fortunately, he fled.

But I'm so glad that these kids who were attempting to make fun of this incident and this act of cruelty...

What does it say?

Wayne, I can't even believe I could see such a thing in my day.

Well, listen, it's, it's appalling.

And gosh, though, as I hear your setup and talk about our dear friend, late friend, Jerry, thank you for the tributes to him, because he would have been all over this, as you know, and, uh, he would not tolerate any cruelty to animals.

And to see this sea lion who was watched by people every day, and then suddenly somebody comes up to the sea lion and kicks him in the face, he's gonna...

What the hell is going on? What's wrong with this person? Fortunately, he fled, but, uh, I'm so glad that these kids who were attempting to, you know, make fun of this incident and this act of cruelty, they documented their crimes, so now there's been recourse, and hopefully he'll be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

What does it say?

Well, it says that people are looking to get what they think is a laugh or to get some clicks, uh, rather than to behave in a way that is kind of a norm in our society.

I mean, cruelty to animals has been a, a felony, uh, in every state for many years.

You have three states, multiple reservations, private land, six national parks.

Are they going to seriously talk about sending in shooters into Olympic National Park, into Crater Lake National Park? I mean, is there not going to be a tremendous public backlash to that? [upbeat music]

But-

Everything is human-caused at this point because our, our footprint is ubiquitous.

Native Americans were burning forests, and created, you know, greater grasslands, which made it more difficult for forest owls to hopscotch across the country.

But when that burning stopped, then there were more trees.

Then, because of climate change, you know, barred owls adapted and moved farther north, and they found a boreal forest that was a continuous forest from east to west for thousands of miles.

This has been going on for decades.

How did this hit you?

Well, it hit me because of your outlet, the Cowboy Daily newspaper.

And I read it.

I read the paper every day, listen to your show.

And I was concerned that this was really outside the norms, right? I mean, occasionally you have people who shoot a dog in a dangerous animal situation, you know, if an animal's coming at you or if an animal's attacking livestock, you can understand that's more of a defensive maneuver.

We don't have all the details.

You know, I read the news reporting from the Cowboy State Daily, and I thought, you know, with the mutilation, And with the owners basically saying, you know, this is a horror show, I felt like this was a warranted situation for us to put up a reward for information that leads to the arrest and successful prosecution of a perpetrator.

So if somebody's trying to cover it up, we do have someone who has come forward and we'll just wait and see now that your organization did offer a reward for any information, animal wellness action did.

At what point did you step in and say, "We are going to do something about this"?

Well, Steve, thank you, and I think you're right to emphasize that this is really a, a very special moment in our movement and, and definitely a special moment in the life of the Center for Humane Economy, which, which was the lead, uh, agency, organization that, that hatched this plan.

It was a tough, it was a tough negotiation with Ridgeland Farms, and it really started months ago.

Before the first kind of major protest that you mentioned broke into the national news, we were talking to them because local activists have, for many months, uh, been, you know, working to, uh, highlight this problem of, of dogs at Ridgeland.

There was a special prosecutor appointed, [smacks lips] um, after the, uh, Denver Law School got involved, um, with this, with this issue and, and looking at Wisconsin law.

And a special prosecutor, and this was really, Steve, the, the trigger for me.

The special prosecutor, um, basically, uh, reached a settlement with Ridgeland, uh, over its care of the animals to say, "Listen, we won't charge you with felony cruelty to animals and mistreatment of animals if you agree to stop selling dogs to research facilities, uh, by July 1, 2026." So I'm not in the business, Steve, as you know, you know me well, we know each other very well, of giving money to corporations that, that are doing things that, you know, I don't agree with with animals, and then allowing those companies to be enriched so they can perpetuate that practice.

Is that what you're hearing from others who have adopted these dogs? And by the way, hooray for PAWS Chicago for taking some of these dogs, as many other organizations in the Midwest have done, Wayne.

Is there, are there charges pending?

Charges are pending.

I, I credit the district attorney in Sublette County after quite a long time.

Um, he, uh, pulled together a grand jury, and, uh, this man, Cody Roberts, was indicted.

Um, I'll note that he was a trophy hunter of mountain lions.

Uh, he used packs of dogs.

Um, he was very familiar with killing wildlife in very unsporting and kind of intentionally cruel ways.

Public land should be for all the public.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And he knew like 70 or so ASL signs.

He could communicate with Nim.

And it's like there's somebody home here, right? You look into his eyes and you're thinking about, okay, this is a very complex creature.

And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is one of our federal life sciences health agencies, just announced late last week that it's ending the use of primates in all of its testing programs.

And this really comes three years after I worked on a bill in the US Congress to eliminate an animal testing requirement for all new drug development protocols that had been in place in the United States since 1938.

Well, generally speaking, like all jokes aside, like this is this is big news, especially if the science leans that way.

Uh, I wanted to have you on to talk about the Trump administration's moves to cancel so much of these horrible beagle experiments, but also just more broadly, uh, particularly your organization's kind of been tracking, um, how the Trump administration really has been revolutionary in terms of weeding out, cutting out animal testing, at least here in the United States.

Yeah.

Natalie, I'm glad to be with you and your audience.

I'm president of Animal Wellness Action, and I think what's happened recently in the month of April with Jay Bhattacharya, the appointee to direct the National Institutes of Health, and then Dr. Marty Makary to be commissioner of FDA, is the biggest gain on animal testing in the 150-year history of animal testing and vivisection.

And so much credit is due to, uh, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., uh, obviously President Trump.

Now, I've been working with Lara Trump on this issue for years.

She and I were calling lawmakers, uh, with the FDA Modernization Act that Rand Paul led in the Senate.

Obviously, the Trump administration has made great strides, but where would you say they, you know, in conjunction with Congress, what, what do they have left to do to, you think, really, you know, seal the deal on this issue?