346: What if you risked your freedom to liberate the animals?
This Is Actually Happening
The Struggle for Animal Liberation
This chapter explores the vital role of animal cruelty investigators dedicated to rescuing animals from abusive situations. Through personal stories, it highlights the emotional challenges and ethical dilemmas faced in their pursuit of justice for animals.
A bullied boy finds companionship in his animal friends, but as he grows up and finds himself trapped in a soulless career, he discovers a new purpose: freeing animals from captivity and facing the dire consequences.
Today’s episode featured Wayne Hsiung. You can reach out to Wayne at info@simpleheart.org or on Instagram, YouTube and Substack @waynehhsiung.
Wayne Hsiung is an animal cruelty investigator, former faculty member at Northwestern School of Law, and co-founder and Executive Director of The Simple Heart Initiative. He has led teams that have investigated and rescued animals from factory farms and slaughterhouses across the nation – challenging unconstitutional “ag-gag” laws in the process – and has organized successful campaigns to ban fur in San Francisco and California. He served as lead counsel (and, sometimes, defendant) in four “right to rescue” trials in which activists were prosecuted after being charged for giving aid to sick and dying animals in factory farms, garnering media attention from The New York Times. He is also a co-founder and former lead organizer of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere.
Wayne’s work has been covered by WIRED, ABC’s Nightline, and on The Ezra Klein Show.
He has published on the right to rescue in Harvard Law Review and climate change’s impact on animals in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Prior to his work as an animal advocate, Wayne practiced law at two national firms and studied law and economics at the University of Chicago, where he was an Olin Law and Economics Fellow, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He is the proud parent of Oliver, who was rescued from the dog meat trade.
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Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew Waits, Jason Blalock
Content/Trigger Warnings: bullying, animal cruelty/abuse/torture/killing, domestic animals as food, breaking and entering, arrest/jail/interrogation, explicit language
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Instagram: @actuallyhappening
Twitter: @TIAHPodcast
Website: thisisactuallyhappening.com
Website for Andrew Waits: andrdewwaits.com
Website for Jason Blalock: jasonblalock.com
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Intro Music: "Illabye" – Tipper
Music Bed: Cylinder Four
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