Voting for the Animals with Aidan Kankyoku

Don’t you wish you could vote on whether you want a slaughterhouse in your city? Well, this year, in Denver, you can. Aidan Kankyoku of Pro-Animal Future joins us this week to tell us about the ever-growing movement to use citizens’ initiatives to put animals on the ballot.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Aidan Kankyoku is a researcher focused on developing new strategies for the social movement wing of the farmed animal advocacy space. He co-founded Pax Fauna for that purpose in 2021, which led in 2023 to the launch of Pro-Animal Future, marrying the mass grassroots energy of the animal rights movement with a sober political strategy. Since getting started as a community organizer with Direct Action Everywhere in Colorado in 2015, Aidan has been immersed in studying the craft of disruptive mass movements. Besides spending years organizing in the animal freedom movement, Aidan has gained a broad perspective on mass movement building through hands-on experience at the Standing Rock #NoDAPL protests in South Dakota, Extinction Rebellion in London, and elsewhere. He has spent years seeking out new tools and methods for organizing, from better digital communication platforms to organizational governance systems like Holacracy, in order to lay the groundwork for Pax Fauna and a new mass movement for animal freedom.

RESOURCES

• How climate change is disrupting wildlife and displacing animal sanctuaries
• Namibia plans to kill more than 700 animals including elephants and hippos — and distribute the meat
• Pro-Animal Future website
• Pax Fauna website
• Pro-Animal Future on X (formerly Twitter)
• Pro-Animal Future on Instagram
• Pro-Animal Future on Facebook
• Scarlet Spark website
• Scarlet Spark’s Skill Sparks landing page
• Scarlet Spark’s free leadership skills workshops
• Scarlet Spark’s leadership tools

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode's interview.

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