The Opportunity
Our research delivers new initiatives and methods for the best forensic investigations of animal crime. We create new tools and techniques to uncover and analyze evidence critical to animal cruelty cases.
We provide agencies with purpose-built equipment and hands-on training so investigators can document and preserve evidence to the highest professional standards.
Better evidence leads to better outcomes. Our work gives the courtroom the evidentiary foundation and transparency it needs to break the cycle of cruelty and deliver justice to animals.
Get Involved
We are actively developing new initiatives and researching new projects in our mission to empower animal cruelty investigations. Our end goal is to establish facilities dedicated to animal DNA and necropsy investigations. We are also fully open to new ideas, partnerships, or demands of animal crime investigators.
Animal crime investigators are constrained by resources and training available for investigating scenes of animal abuse. This ongoing project provides crime scene materials and training for these investigators at zero cost.
Learn MoreFunding Goal: $30,000
Scenes of animal cruelty may hold blood spatters that are unidentified as animal and may go undetected. This research project seeks to establish new imaging techniques for the rapid on-site identification of suspected animal blood evidence and source species.
Learn MoreFunding Goal: $20,000
Poaching is becoming increasingly difficult to detect from discarded animal remains, but may be identified by traces of lead contaminating the animal's wound. This research project develops techniques for identifying traces of lead in bullet or arrow wounds, and scene-ready visualization of ballistic evidence.
Learn MoreFunding Goal: $15,000
Outreach, training, and science dissemination forms the core of the Animal Forensics Institute. We educate all experience levels — from summer workshops for high school students interested in forensic science, to discipline experts at national meetings, to frontline practitioners receiving training in new skills, free of charge.
Learn MoreFunding Goal: $50,000,000
We will establish a laboratory dedicated to the analysis of animal crime evidence, with full priority provided to animal DNA, necropsy, pattern, and trace evidence analysis. Currently, animal DNA is waitlisted over 12 months and sees high upcharge; we will cut this down to equal the timelines of priority human cases.
Learn MoreMaryland is proving the model. With the right training, the right tools, and the right science, animal cruelty cases can be investigated with the same rigor as any serious crime, and justice can be delivered.
We are building toward a national program.
We are seeking partnerships with national organizations, including animal welfare nonprofits, law enforcement bodies, and academic institutions, to replicate and scale what we have built in Maryland.
We are fundraising to establish one of the nation's first labs dedicated exclusively to animal forensic science, a facility where physical evidence from animal crime cases can be processed at the highest standard.
Our goal is to equip organizations across the country with our training, tools, and methodologies, making forensic-grade animal crime investigation the national standard — not the exception.
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