Saving Wildlife Tourism & Fashion Reimagined - Tricia Croasdell, Global CEO, World Animal Protection
Hello and thanks so much for joining. I'm incredibly excited that Tricia Croasdell, Global Chief Executive Officer of World Animal Protection, joins us today. Welcome to the podcast Tricia, so excited to have you here. Hey Erin, thank you so much, I'm so excited as well. Wonderful. To kick things off, can you share a bit about your background, and what inspired you to take on the role of Global CEO of World Animal Protection? Yeah, sure I think, I can do the usual kind of career highlights. I joined World Animal
Protection in 2022. I've spent my time in in politics, [00:02:00] in government, and before moving into the kind of environment and animal welfare sectors. But really for me, it started a lot longer than that. I grew up in South Africa. I was born in Zimbabwe. And I spent the early part of my childhood in
South Africa, just for folks listening in who know it, north of Durban in KwaZulu Natal, a place where, is rich in biodiversity and nature and wildlife. And I think for me, that early stages of your life when you spend it and you see wildlife in the wild, just, roaming around, it has a transformational effect on you, and I think it's never left me. And so I think I knew all the way through my career to this point that I would end up working with animals in some way, shape or form, and so when the opportunity arose to take on the role, I just jumped at it, really.
Amazing. [00:03:00] And I hear you --I think for so many of us, experiencing wildlife helps us to connect to the importance of protecting animals, of protecting nature and their environments, and for you to discover that so early on in your life and find that calling is incredibly inspiring. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I just think that you can make a change as an individual and small amounts of people can change the world. You don't need entire sort of millions and millions, although that helps. But so for me, it's been a kind of a journey to this
point that has really allowed me to value, evaluate what is important in my life. And, I feel like I am finally in the position where I'm doing a job that I care deeply about that speaks very much to my values and my passion, but it also speaks to that kind of like global change and that transformational change we need to make. And for me [00:04:00] personally, that transformational change we need to make for animals because we have to be their voice. And that's really where my kind of heart lies in, in doing this role and being part of the World Animal Protection family. Wonderful. And I absolutely hear you and agree. With any podcast discussion,
we're trying to make sure that we're talking about at least some ideas for how anyone listening can make a small change, ideally within the week, ideally, personally or professionally. We certainly want to make sure we come back to that as we discuss some of the areas of focus, and that's a perfect segue to talk a little bit about, as you've stepped into your new role, what are some of the key priorities that you see for World Animal Protection for this year? For the next few years? And how you're thinking about defining and measuring success? Yeah. So, yeah, I'm a little over two months, I think, in this role, but two years in World Animal Protection. And really as an organization, [00:05:00] we are focused on two global goals. And one, if you can break it down into a pithy form, is to take the factory out of farming, to really take that intensity out of our food system and move to a more nature-based, more plant-based diet, but also move to a Healthy, Humane, Equitable Food System. And that's one of our goals. And the other goal is to really stop wild animals from being cruelly
exploited for profit, which I know we're going to dive into today. And so, for me, those are, if you like, the big focuses. And what it means in the next few years on the food systems work, it's making sure that the animal welfare voice is right in the center of the just transition around our food system, right in the center of how, by removing animal cruelty, you can create a system that is more equitable, that is more humane, that is more sustainable, that is [00:06:00] more in line with nature, environment, our climate -- all of those incredible things. And part of that work is by really helping the public see the way in which meat-producing companies are destroying the earth, as well as creating lives of misery for millions and millions of animals. And the second part of our work is really trying to transform, and educate, around the system that involves wildlife farming -- involves the use of animals in exploitative ways for profit -- whether that is in fashion, whether that's in traditional medicine, or whether that's in tourism. And I think for us, we see an opportunity in the next year or so to really, really push on the tourism front and really get some of the last big beasts of the Northern Hemisphere tourism and travel companies to move in a way that we know consumers are demanding and [00:07:00] consumers are starting to vote with their feet.
So underlying all of that is, is a kind of education of the problem. But the success measures really are about moving the system. So, for us as an organization, we talk about systemic change. And so making those lasting changes for animals. And I think that's where we have to educate people to that point where they understand that they have a role as a consumer and they have choices as a consumer, whether it's in the food systems and/or within the kind of tourism, fashion, that there's so much power in that individual consumer choice that I feel like but it's so hard sometimes to unlock that because people are bombarded by so much information.
So for us as an organization, it's really trying to cut through and target in on some of those areas we feel like we can move in the next couple of years. And to your point about success indicators, you know, I'd like to see in the next year or so, the likes of [00:08:00] TUI or GetYourGuide, or Klook, tourist companies, travel companies that that have not yet moved to animal welfare friendly policies. We'd really like to see them move and join the likes of Expedia and British Airways and Virgin Holidays and easyJet and Jet2. So many are already on the table, so many have moved in the last few
years. These seem like the sort of the, the antiquated beasts that need to move with it. And then as I said on the food system side, really making sure that animal welfare is in that just transition of the food system so that we can treat animals in a much, much better way and actually have a lot less farmed animals on this planet being born into a life of kind of cruelty and suffering. So much to what you just said. I want to make sure that I heard a couple things correctly and that we elevate these for our listeners, because I think your point about being bombarded with lots of information is absolutely true. And there are times when it can almost seem
like [00:09:00] there are so many different things to focus on, how do we pick, right? And do particular issues come into collision or conflict or competition with one another? If I'm hearing you correctly, what you're elevating is that animal welfare is a key part of many conversations, of issues, that people are already focused on and are already championing and those include more equitable and just food systems for humans and those include efforts to protect our planet, to support nature, to address climate concerns and more -- that these issues not only go hand in hand, but that by including animals as constituents, as part of that conversation, we're actually able to advance these other issues more comprehensively. Is that a fair statement? Absolutely. I think it's about, if you put animals at the center of this, the treatment of animals, at the center of this, it runs into so many different areas. It runs into [00:10:00] the
environment, into climate change impacts. It runs into the way in which economies focus. It runs into human health impacts. So it's really, if you take a kind of animal welfare-centrist viewpoint, you can see how a change in animal welfare policy has these incredible benefits elsewhere to us as humans, but also to our planet, and to the restoration of nature. Absolutely. And you mentioned several of your key areas of focus. We'll make sure we include links
for those so that our listeners can learn more about the decisions that they can make when it comes to travel and tourism, supporting these companies that have made positive advances, and more. And as you mentioned, for our time today, we're going to focus specifically on the issue that you mentioned of wildlife farming, which we know you have developed and the organization has developed very robust reports, not only on the state of wildlife farming, but how to chart a path forward in terms of ending [00:11:00] wildlife farming worldwide. So for our listeners who are new to this topic, let's start out with what is wildlife farming? And why is it particularly problematic for animals, people, and the planet? So wildlife farming is the breeding and raising of wild animals, usually to sell the animals or their parts or their products from them for profit. And as you said, World Animal Protection has done a number of reports and research into this. And most recently we did a research project into the global scale of wildlife farming. The report of it is Bred for Profit. And we estimate that around 5. 5 billion billion wild animals are bred and reared on wildlife farms for commercial exploitation.
So that's 5. 5 billion. Some of these wildlife farms hold more than 50, 000 animals. However, the industry data is [00:12:00] scarce, and governments weren't actually able to provide that requested data, and I suppose what was for us was expected, but an astonishing lack of transparency, and by a result, an inadequate monitoring across the industry, which is deeply unsettling to us. The things to consider about wildlife and keeping wild animals in a kind of farm system is that they can suffer from disease, malnourishment, stress-induced behavior. We saw signs in our research of cannibalism, physical abnormalities caused by inbreeding, and premature death. And even in well-managed facilities, higher volumes of animals, the focus was on profits, not on wild animal animal welfare. And I think there's three key areas to this
that that are problematic. And they are public health, they're the argument around wildlife [00:13:00] conservation, and about biodiversity loss. So if I take public health to begin with, these wild animals are in highly stressful, highly unnatural, and poorly regulated conditions. And what that means, if we know if we put any kind of animal in close quarters in cramped, unsanitary conditions, it creates this ideal environment that is their breeding ground for disease. And it's when these unknown or new disease kind of jump to humans, you see catastrophic effects. And
zoonotic disease outbreaks have thought to cause 2 million human deaths every year. And they're responsible for significantly more human illness. Of the zoonotic diseases in the human population that have come about since 1940 to 2004, 72 percent of them were from wildlife in origin. And
these, you know, there's stuff that we know now, household names like Salmonella, Tuberculosis, [00:14:00] Pneumonia. Some others that we may not have heard so much about, like West Nile Virus, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, you know, all these delicious diseases. And, you know, including Avian Flu, which we hear about more regularly. These are just some of the diseases that have been spread
from wildlife to people. So it has a significant impact. It's not just something that's unseen. The other part of the argument that we are often talked about in terms of public information is businesses try and make out that actually they're part of a wildlife conservation effort, and who would want to criticize that? And they justify it as they're providing local livelihoods and that there's, there's a very important need to it. But none of the data stacks up on this. We actually just see the wildlife farms being used to be bred for further exploitative practices. And if you look at the, a sort of third of the species that were reported [00:15:00] to be on wildlife farms between 2000 and 2020, a third of them are listed as threatened or near threatened on the IUCN red list, as people might know it. And some others are listed on CITES, which is around the kind of regulation of international trade. And so what I'd say to your listeners is whilst
a lot of wildlife trade is still legal, this kind of breeding and wildlife farm has been known to lead to demand and fueling of products that would otherwise not be known about. And it also gives opportunity for people to use that kind of like legal route to pass illegal products and launder those kind of products through those legal trade routes. So that's why it's such an important thing to highlight. And then finally, I mentioned biodiversity loss. There's countless species that are being decimated by the wildlife trade, [00:16:00] elephants, rhinos, pangolins, and when you overexploit any animal or plant, it disrupts the balance of our ecosystem. So, anything like an overpopulation or underpopulation or an inbreeding, it can really disrupt it. And what we see in kind of wildlife farming,
but also across the piece in the treatment of wild animals, is that their habitats are being destroyed. And then there's this further argument to move into this wildlife conservation. But actually it's all underlying the same problem, that wild animals being treated as kind of items of profit. And so, it's that cycle that we're needing to undermine and break. Absolutely. And so just to recap, essentially what I'm hearing you say is not only do we have major issues in terms of the way animals are treated and essentially the lives that they're living, the conditions they're living under. We also have very real disease concerns for animals and humans. We have [00:17:00]
biodiversity loss. We have impacts on the planet. So when we come back to the first point that you made in terms of the issues for human beings, in terms of just and equitable systems, in terms of the impact on the planet, in terms of climate, that these spaces are directly related, and that the lack of transparency, the lack of reporting has led to a situation where many industry players may speak to conservation, but when you dig into your own data, when you investigate the practices that are actually being followed, and the lack of transparency around the space certainly plays a key role here, that essentially there are innumerable problems, as you just mentioned, and very few, if any, benefits when it comes to conservation. Is that a fair statement? That's correct. That's correct.
So, when we first kicked off the discussion, you mentioned a few different examples, but just to delve into these more [00:18:00] directly, when we think about taking it a step further and the actual industries involved, how does wildlife farming supply industries including the pet trade, tourism, traditional Asian medicine, and fashion? As we said in our report, we've estimated that there's 5. 5 billion wild animals currently being farmed globally, and that this is a kind of best conservative estimate based on the industry's lack of available data. That kind of breaks down into 525 million amphibians, so tree frogs, salamanders, toads, newts.
Then it breaks down into 171 million, approximately, birds from 246 species. Then 900 million mammals, so tigers, lions, macaws, dolphins, and then 441 million reptiles, so crocodiles bred for skin and [00:19:00] meat. And just in those names of species, you can see there plays into the exotic pet trade, explains, plays into the birds and also feathers that are used for fashion. And then the mammals you can see in lions, tigers, and dolphins. And so, and then the reptiles also for kind of fashion products, as well as exotic meat or wildlife meat that, that we see happening.
If I take one example, the tourism industry is exploiting wild animals on a global scale. Lions, dolphins, elephants are all used in kind of fee paying tourism industries. And I think for me, the thing that I find saddest is that people who go and see a dolphin show, or they might go and wash an elephant, they don't realize the contribution they're making to a kind of lifetime of suffering. And, in the case of dolphins, they've either been bred in captivity, as an example, or they've been caught. And you only need to go and spend a couple of [00:20:00] minutes on social media that you can see how those dolphins are caught and separated from their pods. One of the cases that I've seen more recently is a family member has gone to Thailand and they sent me a little video of a baby elephant at the side of the road. And what they didn't
realize when they were sending it to me was that that baby elephant was in something called 'the crush'. And that is when it's in restraints to break its spirit so that it will stand for hours docilely and allow it to be touched. And I just think this, there's so many ways that, that we inadvertently cause pain without realizing it. But I think if you can witness and you can also make different choices, I think people would make different choices if they knew that. And this is sent to me by a family member of, "this is really sad, this little baby elephant's on its own", but actually they didn't really realize what they were witnessing.
And it was only through watching it, it's heartbreaking. And I think [00:21:00] that's where those industries are playing into these things where they're using animals in a way that is not -- it's just not right. I don't know a different way to say it, to be honest, it's just not right. And, we see the same, maybe with animals that some people find less friendly, crocodiles and such, they're being bred in farms to become product, to become fashion items. And I just think, we're living in a world now where you can make different choices. And I think that's really where I think the kind of education piece is, that there are these industries that are still profiting and driving to some extent, the demand for such kind of products or such sort of experiences. Thank you so much for sharing those examples. And I've talked a little
bit about this before. I just want to say this out loud again for our listeners who may be listening and realizing that there are things that they have chosen to do that fall in these categories [00:22:00] and that would be harmful or supporting practices that are harmful to the animal because that can be a very difficult realization to come to. And I don't like talking about this. It causes me pain every time, but I talk about it to try to ease that process for other people. I have a degree in animal welfare and I am someone that, at
one time, rode an elephant and swam with a dolphin and, was certainly not always vegan, had very few dietary restrictions, but, I wanna say at one point I was served alligator at a very young age. There are things that we experience, whether as children or adults, and we may even be someone that gravitates toward animals, and that's why we wanted to see an animal while on vacation, or engage in a particular activity, and we don't know what has gone into that animal's suffering, and we can't change the past, right? But we can't let the past continue [00:23:00] to remain part of our decision-making if we can take a look at the problems and if we can change course. Myself, it's very difficult to talk about riding an elephant because I was in an age where on some level, I knew that this elephant is not in the wild, right? This elephant is not in an environment that we would normally find an animal experiencing positive welfare. And, I talk about it so that, as we include links for others in terms of being empowered to make choices while traveling, being empowered to make choices on a day-to-day basis in terms of the companies we support, we may have made decisions in the past that we wouldn't make again, but it's our opportunity to change course and to make changes that do have a big impact.
I really appreciate you sharing that and I'm so glad that you found your calling early in life. And for those of us that have not always made the best decisions for animals, there is always an opportunity to do better. And this is an opportunity for [00:24:00] us to talk about some spaces -- I think there's very little transparency in some cases. There's, there's little understanding in terms of the animals in supply chains, in the production environments that you're talking about. But I hope that our listeners, no matter what their past experiences are,
can look at this as an opportunity to make different choices moving forward. Absolutely, I think, and Erin, thank you for sharing it, because I think we've all got those experiences. When I was a lot younger, there used to be a dolphin show in Durban. That doesn't exist any longer, and it doesn't,
I don't know if it doesn't exist in Durban, but it doesn't exist in the UK, and I remember going to it and thinking, it was kind of entertaining, but it's also reflecting back now how weird and strange and sad, and I now know so much more about dolphins in captivity. I think there's always that chance for it to be a lesson. And I think actually you talking about it, and other people talking about their experiences, not as a way of blaming ourselves, but as a way of what we know now, and I think [00:25:00] that's where we need to be. We need to be much more positive about
everyone is moving on their own journey, and what you know now can make a difference in the future. And I think sometimes those things that we experience when we're younger or we take part in, and then we realize, actually, I don't feel that comfortable about it now. Actually, those are the kind of lessons in life that are so beneficial. And I think,
for the most people, outside of our world who don't spend hours spending, thinking, about animal welfare, you are sold things in a way that you may not realize. We've seen it. If I can take TUI as an example, as a travel company, the way in which they sell their dolphin experiences at the moment, it's like, "once in a lifetime ticket off your bucket list. You'll never forget it." They sell you this idea of fun and entertainment and you're on holiday with your family and wouldn't the kids love it? And like you say, [00:26:00] I was obsessed by animals as a kid, so I always wanted to go and see them. You didn't necessarily know whether you were in the right attraction or the right place, but you need to also just remember that as a consumer, you're also being sold certain things based on guilt, on family, on love, on all of these things, but it's just trying to look beneath the surface, particularly when it comes to animal experiences. Just really look and see and think: if it isn't in a natural environment, if it isn't behaving in a natural way, make a different choice. That's the opportunity you have today. Absolutely agree. And I'm glad that we'll share
some resources to help empower listeners with that decision. I think one key part of what you're describing is the planning aspect. So being able to make decisions in advance to do that digging under the hood in advance, as opposed to in the moment, helps to reduce some of those pressures as well. And we can talk more about strategies,
but absolutely -- the focusing on the natural environment is a good, [00:27:00] helpful way to filter through those opportunities. Absolutely. So when we think about these spaces, was there anything you wanted to address before we move on? We talked about the pet trade and tourism a bit. I think your report also digs into traditional Asian medicine and fashion. I think on those, we're working in that space in traditional medicine to try and offer alternatives to the industry, to offer non-animal product alternatives. And likewise, we're very involved with the likes of Collective Fashion Justice and, London Fashion Week earlier this year announced the no use of fur on the runway, which I know we've been trying for for a long time, and it's the first of the big fashion weeks that has announced it. And now we move on to no feather, no skins. We keep iterating until we have an animal product-free fashion week, and not just for London, but for [00:28:00] all the other kind of fashion weeks. So, all of these,
especially things like the fashion industry, if you see it in, on one of the runways, the likelihood is it kind of filters down into commercial stops on your High Street. So that's where we try and play at the area, or focus on the area where we'll have the most effect because of the ripple down that it might happen. But they're all, to some extent, still involved in that kind of wildlife farming and the farming of animals for product. But I think, we'll probably get into it further down.
2024-11-11 07:42
