September 21, 2026

Inside the 2026 Kirkpatrick Animal Conference

A report to members of The Cavalry Group

Dear Members,

On Friday, September 18, I attended the Kirkpatrick Foundation’s animal conference in Oklahoma City because I wanted to hear, first hand, what national animal-rights organizations and their Oklahoma allies are planning. Representatives or leaders associated with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Mercy For Animals, Animal Wellness Action, Humane World for Animals, and Oklahoma advocacy organizations were present. Jeff Corwin also spoke, and I want to be clear that I do not place him in the same category as the advocacy organizations discussed in this report.

It was not an easy day for me. I sat among people whose stated goals and policy strategies threaten lawful farming, ranching, pet breeding, animal exhibition, and private animal ownership. Still, the day was important. The presentations gave us a direct look at how these organizations intend to build influence, shape public opinion, train government actors, recruit sympathetic messengers, and turn carefully framed claims into legislation and enforcement policy.

My central takeaway is this: Oklahoma is no longer merely observing national animal-rights campaigns from a distance. Our state is being treated as an active policy target and a proving ground.

The animal law infrastructure is already being built

The most troubling admission came during the panel on the animal law playbook. Chris Green, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, described ALDF’s courtroom work and stated that the organization trains judges and prosecutors. He also said ALDF has paid for floating prosecutors and part of a prosecutor’s salary so animal-cruelty cases can be pursued.

That should concern every person who believes justice must be impartial. Prosecutors and judges exercise government power. When a private advocacy organization with a defined ideological and litigation agenda trains the officials who charge cases and decide them, serious questions arise about balance, due process, prosecutorial independence, and whether lawful animal owners will receive a fair hearing.

The discussion went well beyond ordinary cruelty cases. Panelists described animal law as a lens that reaches into agriculture, property law, housing, wildlife, commerce, labeling, consumer-protection litigation, and criminal enforcement. They discussed lawsuits over so-called humane washing, the use of class-action plaintiffs, challenges to agricultural practices, and coordinated community response systems. In other words, animal law is not being presented as a narrow specialty. It is being built as an influence network across nearly every area in which people own, breed, raise, sell, exhibit, transport, or use animals.

Oklahoma pork production is an announced target:

The extreme-confinement panel presentation made the next Oklahoma campaign unmistakable. Jake Davis, co-founder and president of Uproot based in Missouri, opened by saying the issue in Oklahoma is the way pork production is conducted and argued that gestation stalls should be eliminated. Dr. Rebecca Niemiec, co-director at Animal-Human Policy Center and professor at Colorado State University, presented a newly conducted survey of 1,038 Oklahoma registered voters and used its results to claim broad bipartisan, rural, and agricultural support for ending what the panel repeatedly called “extreme confinement.”

Leah Garcés, a longtime leader associated with Mercy For Animals, then moved from research to strategy. She openly discussed building a campaign with farmers, faith leaders, and other trusted messengers. She instructed the audience that farmers should be the first people recruited when strategizing to eliminate gestation crates in Oklahoma.

Garcés also celebrated the exclusion of the Save Our Bacon Act from the Senate Farm Bill text. (Save Our Bacon Act would reverse California Proposition 12 that passed in 2018 mandating cage-free farming for raising eggs, pork, and veal.) Garcés described farmers and faith leaders recently lobbying Congress against it and referred to approximately 2,000 calls to Congressional offices. 

The strategy is clear: The animal rights organizations are working to define accepted husbandry practices as cruelty, commission polling that supports the preferred narrative, recruit a small number of farmers to speak against mainstream production, add faith leaders to broaden moral appeal, and use the coalition to influence lawmakers and the public. 

Oklahoma pork producers should assume that a legislative, corporate, or ballot campaign is being prepared and should organize now, before the language and public narrative are set by their opponents.

A coordinated Oklahoma lobbying coalition is taking shape:

The Oklahoma Animal Coalition presentation was especially revealing because the speakers described not only their beliefs, but their political structure and record. Brendan Hoover of Preservation Policy Group, a 501(c)(4) political advocacy organization, and Inger Giuffrida of WildCare Oklahoma explained that the coalition brings organizations from wildlife, companion-animal, farmed-animal, exotic-animal, shelter, and other sectors together to speak with one voice.

They said the coalition began organizing after the 2024 Kirkpatrick animal conference, convened approximately twenty organizations and a state legislator, and now establishes annual legislative priorities. 

They described relationship-building events for legislators and their families at the Oklahoma City Zoo, an animal advocacy day at the State Capitol, coordinated constituent engagement, and the use of legislative interim studies to create a public record and lay the groundwork for future bills.

The coalition credited itself with advancing or supporting proposals that would:

• Require no-notice inspections of commercial pet breeders before license renewal.
• Generally prohibit private ownership of primates.
• Expand authority for rural counties to operate government-funded animal shelters.
• Eliminate Oklahoma’s mandatory pound-seizure law.
• Develop a state action plan for coexistence with predators.

The speakers also said they stopped pet-store legislation twice, limited a mountain-lion hunting proposal, and stopped a black-bear hunting bill. 

Whether one agrees with each issue is not the point. The important lesson is that this is an organized political operation. It combines nonprofit organizations, a 501(c)(4), legislative relationships, constituent lists, media, interim studies, and Capitol events to influence public policy at the state, local, institutional, and business levels.

The FIGHT Act remains the federal objective:

Kevin Chambers of Animal Wellness Action did not reveal a substantially new policy direction. His presentation used graphic stories, undercover documentation, and allegations of international gamefowl shipments to argue that cockfighting is a global industry supported by legitimate businesses such as airlines, banks, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Chambers stated their next step was direct: Pass the federal FIGHT Act (H.R.3946/S.1454). He argued that the bill would make it harder for legitimate businesses to support cockfighting and urged the audience to pressure airlines and question sheriffs and district attorneys during elections.

One of the most telling assumptions in his presentation was that gamefowl breeding operations and international sales are evidence of cockfighting.

That is not a conclusion that can lawfully be presumed from the mere ownership, breeding, sale, or transport of a lawful breed. Criminal culpability must be proved with evidence tied to a prohibited act and a responsible person. It cannot be inferred from appearance, breed, terminology, association, or the existence of a legal business.

Cockfighting is already illegal in the United States by federal law.The danger of the FIGHT Act is that it invites broader federal enforcement and civil litigation against lawful breeders and animal owners based on precisely those kinds of assumptions.

The animal abuse and human violence panel:

The panel concerning the relationship between animal abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, and other human violence addressed real and serious crimes. 

No responsible animal owner disputes that abusers may use animals to threaten or control victims, or that victims need safe options for themselves, their children, and their animals. The policy concern is how the claimed link is translated into enforcement. 

Panelists called for more cross-reporting, cross-training, collaboration among animal organizations, social-service agencies, shelters, law enforcement, and courts, and greater attention to animals in protective orders and safety plans. Oklahoma law already permits animals, including livestock and horses, to be addressed in victim protective orders.

The danger comes when correlation is treated as proof. Evidence of actual cruelty should be investigated. But animal ownership, husbandry disagreements, the number or type of animals, or an unverified allegation must never become a shortcut for presuming domestic violence, child abuse, criminal intent, or future dangerousness. Any new cross-reporting or intervention policy must preserve evidentiary standards, privacy, due process, and clear limits on seizure authority.

The Impact Beyond Oklahoma:

The Kirkpatrick Foundation’s Animal Conference showed how national organizations and local coalitions reinforce one another. National groups bring money, lawyers, campaign experience, messaging, research, and model policies. Local organizations bring trusted relationships, sympathetic witnesses, access to lawmakers, and the ability to characterize national objectives as homegrown Oklahoma solutions.

Once successful in one state, the same strategy can be repeated elsewhere. The targets may differ, but the method is consistent: organize a coalition, define the language, publish research, train decision-makers, recruit emotionally compelling messengers, cultivate prosecutors and lawmakers, and then pursue legislation, litigation, regulation, corporate pressure, or local ordinances.

What The Cavalry Group will do:

As we have for 16 years, we will answer these challenges with facts, lawful husbandry expertise, constitutional protections, legislative engagement, and direct accountability.

• Monitor Oklahoma bills, interim studies, agency activity, local ordinances, and national measures tied to the conference agenda.
• Alert Oklahoma pork producers and agricultural organizations to the announced confinement strategy.
• Scrutinize any outside training offered to prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, and animal-control personnel.
• Defend the distinction between actual animal cruelty and lawful animal ownership, breeding, husbandry, commerce, exhibition, and transport.
• Build relationships with lawmakers before model legislation is introduced.
• Work to preserve due process, property rights, evidentiary standards, and government accountability in every animal-related policy.

The Cavalry Group will continue watching, documenting, educating, and acting so that American farmers, ranchers, and animal enterprise are not blindsided.

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