We are in person at the 2024 Animal Forensic Conference in Gainesville, Florida! Dr. G will be interviewing several of the speakers to give our audience a bit of the knowledge gained through the presentations. We will be releasing each interview individually to allow our listeners to find topics of interest.

This episode is the first interview of the conference, and we have Amber Wallyn, Animal Cruelty Investigator in Lake County, Florida. She will discuss best practices in an animal crimes investigation to build a strong case. This episode is valuable to all individuals involved in the case, from veterinarians to ACOs and law enforcement.

We would also like to invite our listeners involved in animal cruelty

investigations to visit and join the International Society for Animal Forensic

Sciences https://isafs.org/

Mentioned in this episode:

Keep it Humane Podcast Network

The Animal Welfare Junction is part of the Keep It Humane Podcast Network. Visit keepithumane.com/podcastnetwork to find us and our amazing animal welfare podcast partners.

All right, so our first presenter of the day is Amber Wallyn.

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Thank you for joining us at the junction.

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Amber Wallyn: Thank you.

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DrG: Can you start by telling us about

your background and how it relates

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to the field of veterinary forensics?

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Amber Wallyn: So my background

has always been in animal

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enforcement with animal laws.

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Um, I've been doing animal cruelty

investigations for the last 16 years.

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And like I said in the, in the speech,

it's, it's progressed from that

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paper, pen and paper to computers.

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So.

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That's my background.

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DrG: And you are located here in Florida?

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Amber Wallyn: I am.

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I'm in Lake County.

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DrG: Excellent.

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So what was the topic of your talk today?

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Amber Wallyn: It was Best Practices

for Animal Cruelty Investigations.

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DrG: How would you describe your role

as an animal control investigator

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during an animal cruelty investigation?

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Amber Wallyn: Right, so usually, um, we'll

have officers or law enforcement first

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arrive on scene and then they'll call me

out, um, once they know that they have an

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actual case, whether it's criminal, civil,

whatever it is, um, and from that point

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on we investigate it from the start to the

finish, um, and work with other agencies.

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DrG: So I wanted to discuss

that because you brought up a

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big point about collaboration.

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What is the importance of collaboration

and how it helps you during these cases?

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Amber Wallyn: You have

to have collaboration.

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Like I said earlier, it, it,

I know what I'm talking about.

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Veterinarians, they proof that

we know what we're talking about.

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Um, they're the experts in their

field when it comes to forensic

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or even just the animal itself

and doing well being checks to law

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enforcement, to legal professionals.

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If you don't have the legal professionals

on board with you, it's extremely hard

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to make it through to prosecution.

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DrG: What would you say are the

struggles that you face as an

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animal cruelty investigator when

you are looking at these cases.

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Amber Wallyn: So there's a couple

different things, um, cultural issues.

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A lot of times, um, that's how

we did it, you know, back home

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or, you know, wherever it is.

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And so that's one of the hardest ones is

working around that and just Explaining

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some people that it is intentional.

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Sometimes it's not.

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It's just neglect and they had no clue.

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You know what it is, but

that's probably the hardest.

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DrG: What are what are gonna be

like the barriers that you face

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when trying to prosecute and how

can you strengthen your cases?

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Amber Wallyn: Lack of evidence.

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I know it's It's, and it's no, we talked

about education and furthering education.

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Sometimes the first people on scene

don't know what they're looking at and

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it's just closed out and now you have

a record saying there's no validity

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to the complaint or you know whatever

it is, but those are probably the

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biggest hurdles is actually getting

hands on with the case and getting

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it to the state attorney's office.

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DrG: So another thing that you brought

up that, that really hit home is I worked

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with a cruelty investigator once that kind

of was reluctant to learn anymore because

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she figured that she knew everything

that she was talking about and you

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talked about the importance of education.

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So what can you say about that?

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Amber Wallyn: So that's,

that's my huge thing.

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Even with my kids, like

never stop learning.

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It doesn't matter if I've been doing it

for 16 years or 50 years, you're always

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going to learn something new and it's,

especially with animal cruelty or animal

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crimes in general, they're ever evolving.

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Um, whether it's the legal

professionals, the veterinarians,

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the pathologists, anybody involved

in a cruelty investigation, you

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have to continue that education.

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Whether it's learning a new trick or

learning a new way to collect the evidence

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or looking at it in a different way.

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Um, and like I said, some of

the, some of the classes you

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take are going to be monotonous.

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It's going to be the same thing over

and over again, but at best it's

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a reminder of what you need to do.

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DrG: So social media, in some of

the cases that I have worked, social

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media has actually been bad because

people are kind of like saying things

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that they shouldn't, but social

media can also be beneficial, right?

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So how can social media help

us in cruelty investigation?

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Amber Wallyn: Yeah, no, um, and I

totally get the negative side of that.

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I'm a firm believer that you're

innocent until proven guilty,

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and it's our job to prove that.

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that they're guilty.

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Um, and people will share it everywhere.

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But the good side of social media is

the way the evidence is collected.

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Um, I can pull just about anything

from social media accounts of you with

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an animal or proving that you were in

care and custody of that animal to,

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you know, cockfighting or dogfighting

to where they have these all over

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their, their social media pages.

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And it's a very powerful piece of

evidence because like I said, in the,

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in the, um, discussion is, you know,

people, they showboat and they need

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to be seen, they need to be heard.

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So it's going to be put out there.

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So it can be very, very beneficial.

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DrG: So we have a really broad

audience for this podcast and some

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of our audience is just people that

love animals and want to do best.

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So how can the public help in

animal cruelty investigations?

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Amber Wallyn: Um, I think the best

way, and there's a lot of different

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ways, um, from start to if you

see something, say something.

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That is the easiest thing.

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If you think, even if you think,

hey, this might be an issue.

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I know my agency and the officers

that I work with day in and day out,

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they have no problem to go check it.

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And if it's unfounded, fine.

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It is what it is.

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We checked it.

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Now we, we talked to somebody in person.

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Now we have a name for that address

in case something does arise in the

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future, but that's the biggest, if

you see something, say something.

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And then down to, um, like our shelters,

volunteering, helping with the animals.

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Um, sometimes we bring one animal

in, sometimes we'll bring 200

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animals in and that puts a little,

a lot of strain on some of these

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county facilities or rescues.

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DrG: Excellent.

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Well, thank you so much for

this interview and thank you

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for the work that you're doing.

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Amber Wallyn: Thank you.