Melanie Cole, MS (Host): The Veterinary Forensic Sciences Team at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine provides a cross-disciplinary approach to the pursuit of justice in cases involving animal abuse.

Melanie Cole, MS: Welcome to UF Vet Med Voice with the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. I'm Melanie Cole. And joining me today is Dr. Adam Stern. He's a Professor of Forensic Pathology in the Department of Comparative Diagnostic and Population Medicine at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, and he's here to tell us today about Animal CSI, advocating for animal welfare through veterinary forensic science.

Dr. Stern, thank you so much for joining us today. I'd like you to start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this very unique field.

Dr. Adam Stern: I'm a board-certified veterinary pathologist, and I am using my specialty to help give a voice to the voiceless, so animals that are victims of animal cruelty. And what I do is essentially the same thing that a medical examiner does for a human victim of a crime or of a natural disease. I am applying the same sort of science to the animal. So, I trained as a veterinary pathologist and decided during my training that these animals needed a voice. And so, I took it on myself, got a large amount of training so that I can do what needed to be done for them in the legal criminal justice system. So in the end, I do autopsies of animals and then I present my findings to the court so that the judge and jury can essentially do their job making a decision on guilt or innocence of a person who may have been charged with a crime.

Melanie Cole, MS: What great work you're doing, Dr. Stern. Not many people might have the stomach to do what you do, but it's such important work in pursuing justice for victims of animal abuse through veterinary forensic science. It's like CSI, as I said in my intro. Can you tell us how animal cruelty is also linked to many forms of interpersonal violence, including child abuse, elder abuse and domestic violence? We're putting this together here.

Dr. Adam Stern: So, animal abuse 30 years ago was sort of looked at in a silo by itself and so was elder abuse, child abuse and spousal abuse or domestic violence. So, they were all separate. And then over the years, we started to realize through different scientific studies that there was relationships between all of these types of interpersonal violence.

And so now, we actually look at them together and we call it the link. It's that association between all of these different types of interpersonal violence and animal abuse. The other thing that we also see in today's day, although it's a very sad topic, for example, school shootings, we are also noticing that school shooters have also been abusing animals in their past as well. So, there's a lot of connections between all sorts of interpersonal violence.

Melanie Cole, MS: That makes so much sense, Dr. Stern. As the veterinary forensic pathologist provides significant information pertaining to the death of an animal as the animal's voice in court, really that's what you're doing, can you tell us about key programs implemented collaboratively with animal shelters, law enforcement, attorneys? As you're here heightening awareness of animal abuse issues and providing your forensic science services, tell us how you work together with all of these agencies.

Dr. Adam Stern: So, we work with a large number of agencies. We work with the investigators, so that could be law enforcement, could be the local police department, the sheriff's office; code enforcement in some areas might be the sort of lead investigator. We work with attorneys, so state's attorneys, for example. They are using us potentially as an expert witness in their case. And then, we also work with veterinarians and the public. So, maybe someone brings their animal to the veterinarian and the animal does not survive its injuries, we might be working with them directly, so that we can tell them what happened to their animal and then we might report it to law enforcement. So, there's all these different connections that we do. We do this through agreements between different agencies. We also are heavily involved in animal cruelty task forces. We have one here in central Florida that I co-lead. And so, it's a group of law enforcement, prosecutors and veterinarians from a five-county area here in central Florida, and we meet on a regular basis to discuss cases to provide education to other task force members so that they can go out and actually improve the cases that they're already doing so well, but giving them new tools and new tactics that they can use to enhance their cases.

Melanie Cole, MS: What a help to the community. Can you tell us, Dr. Stern, about some of your research and how that's really working to improve the ability to answer questions of forensic significance? Tell us about any research that you're doing that you'd like other providers to know about.

Dr. Adam Stern: Sure. So, a lot of the research that we do really is sort of placing an emphasis on identifying and documenting cases of animal cruelty better. So for example, when we have cases of starvation where someone potentially is not feeding an animal the appropriate amount of food or even feeding them at all, we are doing some studies on bone marrow, so that we can further characterize the starvation. So in an animal, let's say a dog or a horse, the last place of fat that an animal uses up when they are in that starved condition is going to be their bone marrow. And so, we are trying to explore new ways to better document this, that would be available to more facilities rather than just one or two specialized facilities. So, we're doing some work there.

We're also doing work with some toxicology, because forensic toxicology is definitely a component of the work that we do with animal cruelty because some of these animals are being poisoned. So, we're working with different toxins that we have cases of and developing better ways to either rapidly test for them or just improve our diagnostic capabilities.

So again, just emphasizing documentation is so important. We can't just walk into court and say, "Here's the diagnosis." We actually have to provide validated methods to the judge and jury, so that the attorneys can present it to the court and so that everyone can make their decisions. But we can't just say it's a poison because that's not helpful for anybody. We need to be able to diagnose it and document it really well. So, that's some of the stuff that we're doing on the research side.

Melanie Cole, MS: What an inspiration you are, Dr. Stern. You're out there doing such hard work. Can you tell us how you might envision your work and your research, how it could translate to care for human abuses from veterinary medicine and vice versa? We said at the beginning that this is linked to various forms of domestic violence and other forms of cruelty. Can you tell us how you might think that this could cross over and that this type of forensic pathology and science could help really around the globe?

Dr. Adam Stern: Sure. So when we identify cases of animal cruelty, they can be standalone cases where animal cruelty is the only thing that's going on, but we already know that there's this link between other kinds of interpersonal violence. So if we actually diagnose and document injuries to an animal, and we determine through our work and the work of investigators that, say, this is a case of non-accidental trauma, basically someone did this to this animal, we can actually use that as a tip of the iceberg in some ways, because further investigation might uncover some other interpersonal issues, so maybe elder abuse, for example, or child abuse.

I have one case where we documented blunt force trauma to an animal, and that really was the first little segue into the home where this animal did live. And through their investigation, they actually identified child abuse. And so, it definitely led to a better outcome in a sense for the child because they actually got removed from the home and out of that sort of violent tendency that was actually going towards them. So, there is this definite connection and the documentation, and identification of animal cruelty can help with other human-on-human crimes.

Melanie Cole, MS: Dr. Stern, as we wrap up and you're heightening awareness of animal abuse, what would you like the key takeaways from this episode to be? What would you like other providers and veterinary specialists to know about the work that you're doing at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine?

Dr. Adam Stern: I think the one thing that I would like the listeners to get out of this podcast is the fact that we actually need to get training in front of students in veterinary schools, actually in law schools, criminal justice programs. Many of them are actually lacking training and education in this specific area. There's very few vet schools, for example, that even have a class on veterinary forensics or animal cruelty investigations.

And so, I think it's up to the viewership of this program to really think about how they can get their students more training. And really, the best way is to do it right in veterinary school. We do it right when they're still in that learning phase and not make them have to do it afterwards when they're out of school two, three, four years as they're specializing in their area of practice. Bringing the awareness to the very beginning in their training years is really, really important. And I think that we can do that in veterinary schools and other professional programs.

Melanie Cole, MS: What a great point. And thank you so much, Dr. Stern, for all the great work that you're doing. For more information about the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, please visit vetmed.ufl.edu/ufachievers. And to listen to more podcasts from our experts, please visit vetmed.ufl.edu. That concludes today's episode of UF Vet Med Voice, brought to you by the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, advancing animal, human and environmental Health. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening today.