Kendra Coulter's "Defending Animals"

Kendra Coulter is Professor in Management and Organizational Studies at Huron University College at Western University and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.

She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Defending Animals: Finding Hope on the Front Lines of Animal Protection, and reported the following:

Page 99 takes readers into Colombia to hear from the country’s leading forensic veterinarian, Dr. Julio Aguirre. It is very much a real-life example of what you could call “CSI: Animals.” We learn about the motivations for his courageous and path-making work on the front lines and how it connects with the evolution of national animal protection laws.

Page 99 is a good illustration of the texture and significance of the book, and how real people’s stories bring the animal protection landscape in all its diversity to life. Although most of the frontline work highlighted in Defending Animals is in North America, global examples, like the Colombian case, enrich readers’ understandings of how efforts in communities and parliaments can work together to strengthen how animals are protected in powerful ways. Plus, the country’s strategies and the lessons they offer will surprise many! A particularly powerful dimension is that Aguirre’s team provides its expert veterinary forensic diagnostics free of charge to many families who are living in poverty so there can be justice for their animals too. The importance of acting in solidarity with both people and animal is a central theme in Defending Animals.

Defending Animals highlights the remarkable work being done in communities, courtrooms, and boardrooms to build a more humane future. It highlights the accomplishments as well as where we could be building bridges and creating new or better approaches to ensure animals – and people – are treated with greater care. It was truly an honor to write this book and amplify the voices of animals and those at work defending them. I hope that wherever people are in their educational and career journeys, Defending Animals will offer food for thought and action -- and inspiration.

Learn more about Defending Animals at the MIT Press website and follow Kendra Coulter on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue