After a great deal of soul searching several members of the defunct Animal Defense League Edmonton Chapter have decided to resurrect the group, albeit with some differences. The most significant difference is that we will no longer be a chapter of Dr. Jerry Vlasak's Animal Defense League based in Los Angeles. While we admire and unconditionally support Dr. Vlasak and his organization we feel that it would be beneficial to operate as a completely separate entity rather than a chapter of his group. It is still our intention to work towards bringing Dr. Vlasak to Edmonton for a speaking engagement in the future. While we will continue to use the present domain the group's name will be changed to Animal Rights Edmonton although this is a tentative change and we may revert back to the name Animal Defense League. A question has been added to the vote caster regarding the name as we have heard from people on both sides of the name change issue.
While the group is obviously concerned with all aspects of the fight for animal rights it is our intention to focus our efforts on two issues in the Edmonton area that we feel are not being adequately addressed. The first of these is the barbaric conditions and policies of Edmonton Animal Services and the removal of David "I've never met a pet that I didn't want to kill" Leeb from his position as the head of the department. The second issues we will be focusing on is that of vivisection with a particular emphasis on the torture and killing chambers at the University of Alberta.
While we will place a link on this site to Edmonton's other animal rights group, Voice 4 Animals, and will work with them if the opportunity presents itself we will not align ourselves with them. Animal Rights Edmonton has a different philosophy and supports the use of different tactics than Voice 4 Animals does.