Deke Weaver’s multidisciplinary work has been presented in venues such as PBS, Sundance Film Festival, Channel 4/U.K., New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, Berlin Video Festival, The Moth, 21c Museum Hotels, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, livestock pavilions, backyard sheds, forests, prairies, night clubs and living rooms. A Guggenheim Fellow and Creative Capital grantee, Weaver is currently a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with appointments in the School of Art & Design, the Department of Theater, the Department of Dance, and faculty affiliation with the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. unreliablebestiary.org

For over thirty years, Michele Franko has worked in multiple Animal advocacy-related venues including Animal care, welfare and shelters, thoroughbred Horse racing and sport Horse breeding farms, veterinary assistance, and Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. The past fifteen years, Michele has served as a carer for rescued Elephants in sanctuary. Her work and expertise have also brought her outside the U.S. to work with severely traumatized Elephants in India and South Africa. She approaches Elephant care and understanding through a trauma-informed lens focusing on individuality, well-being, understanding and self-discovery  to help facilitate their healing.

Elke Riesterer was born in southern Germany, and immigrated to the US in 1983. She is a Certified Massage Therapist and registered Jin Shin Do Practitioner with the broad experience of having worked with humans and Animals for over 30 years. She has volunteered as an all-species Body Therapist at the Oakland, California, USA, Zoo since 1997 and uses a combination of body-centered therapies including her most favored modality the Tellington Touch (TTouch™). In general, her work centers around the complex well-being issues of Elephants worldwide with an emphasis on helping heal symptoms of PTSD. Besides Elephants, Elke works with Aldabra Tortoises, Monitor Lizards, Snakes and Giraffes, and Sea Life including Dolphins and Sea Lions. Elke has lectured and traveled extensively and in particular, visited Africa multiple times to provide healing touch for residents at the Elephant and Rhino Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, Lilayi Elephant Nursery in Lusaka, Zambia, and Asian Elephants in Thailand and India. In addition to many exotic species, Elke also enjoys working with Horses, Dogs and other home animals. Her work has appeared in numerous articles and radio and television programs. Elke is also the co-founder of World Elephant Alliance.

Therese Lilliesköld is an anthrozoologist, an author and currently a PhD-student. Her research is centrered around questions of knowledge; of more-than-human animals as knowledge-bearers and possible decision makers in societal planning as well as on human knowledge production behind decisions affecting other animals. Her previous work has been within animal protection with a wide range of topics; from the link between violence towards humans and other animals, to trauma and the emotional life of companion animals.

One of her books, When Elephants Dream, is published in Swedish but has recently been translated to English. It is a memoir about the time Therese spent as a caretaker of young, traumatized elephants in Thailand. The bond she developed with an elephant who died at a young age taught her about their capacities for strong emotions, grief as well as their spiritual abilities. Therese is an ambassadour for elephants for World Animal Protection Sweden.

David Ebert, a retired lawyer, founded Weeping Elephant Project in 2025 as a means of more fully devoting himself to reducing the suffering of elephants. WEP is a continuation and expansion of his work on behalf of captive elephants in the US over the past decade.

Weeping Elephant Project’s goals include educating the public to what they are not seeing when they attend circuses, visit zoos and participate in other events that display and degrade elephants. Through the Weeping Elephant Project’s podcast, David seeks to help elephant organizations and advocates reach a wider audience and serve as a resource for those interested in understanding more about the plight of captive elephants and the unseen awfulness to which they’re subjected. The podcast features interviews with the extraordinary advocates and organizations pursuing elephant protection to help raise their profile and bring more attention and funding to their remarkable work.

David is also the Co-Founder, President Emeritus, and a former board member of Animal Defense Partnership, which provides legal services exclusively to animal protection nonprofits, entirely without charge. ADP now represents 350+ clients working in the US as well as US-based organizations advocating for change in other parts of the world. In 2024, ADP provided $2.1 million in billable legal services to its clients, for free.

Ms. Suparna Baksi Ganguly, Hon. President and Co-Founder Trustee, Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Center (WRRC) & Co-Founder Trustee, Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA)

Has been actively involved in Animal welfare for the past three and a half decades. She has published, authored and co-authored nearly 40 – 50 books and Reports on captive elephants’ management in India by drawing reference to their condition in various States in India. She has been a Member of the Task Force of Wild and Captive Elephants that was formed by the Ministry of Forests and Environment in the year 2010. She was also a Member of the Zoo Committee for the Appraisal of the Elephants in Zoos by the Central Zoo Authority of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. She was a co-opted member of the Animal Welfare Board of India from 2010-2013, and a Member of the Animal Welfare Board of Karnataka when it was started in the year 2003. In the year 2016, she was among the first recipients of the Nari Shakti Puraskar Award given by the then Hon’ble President of India, Sri. Pranab Mukherjee. In the same year, she received the Namma Bangalore Award in the Citizens category as well as the Pride of Karnataka Award in the field of Social Work. In the year 2017, she received the FICCI Woman Achievement Award for contribution to Animals and Environment.

In 2022, she initiated the first Elephant Care Facility for ailing elephants in a public-private partnership model in Karnataka. The facility houses many elephants from private ownerships which need expert veterinary support and upkeep. The facility is funded by philanthropists and private donors.

Her ongoing work with domestic and wild animals continues with CUPA and WRRC, which includes handling cruelty cases, legal interventions and collaborating with animal welfare groups in India and abroad.