Animal Ambassador: Jessica Salazar

Get to know Jess - one of World Animal Protection's first Animal Ambassadors!

My heart feels at home when I am helping animals and being a World Animal Protection Ambassador allows me to truly express that. It's part of my life's purpose.

1. How and when did you hear about World Animal Protection?

I am active within the animal welfare community and I find one of the best ways to learn about organizations is through their social media outreach and activity. I discovered World Animal Protection through Instagram and loved what they were doing for wildlife and how they presented that online.

2. What made you want to become one of our ambassadors?

I knew I wanted to be part of a team who's making waves in this sector. How amazing to assess my life's journey and say I was part of this. My heart feels at home when I am helping animals and being a World Animal Protection Ambassador allows me to truly express that. It's part of my life's purpose.

3. Which of our campaigns resonates with you the most and why? (Farming/Wildlife/Communities/Disaster)

Looking at World Animal Protection as a whole, there are so many beneficial campaigns that help every animal. Breaking that down though, protecting animals in communities is the campaign that really touched home with me. Part of what I do is host philanthropic events for local shelters. Most of the animals I work with are dogs and, more so, adoptable dogs. This means these specific dogs have been evaluated in order to get adopted. Which is wonderful, but how are these animals in shelters to begin with? What about looking at the root of why these dogs are in shelters, and what can we do as communities to help and unravel how we can create better lives for community animals. With travel, I've learned that dogs and other street animals are not treated the same from city to city let alone country to country. It's considered the norm to see dozens of street dogs and cows in India, while in Texas one will find feral cats. We live amongst these animals and walk as one with them so, for me, understanding what I (and we) can do as communities to help is what resonates with me.

How can people and families enjoy and share the love for animals ethically? What are alternatives and how can I express that in a loving way to both humans and animals?

4. Which activity/initiative has made you feel the most engaged in our mission to help animals around the world?

The Wildlife Selfie Code and Ending Abuse in Zoos and Aquariums. I feel these go hand and hand. For us, it was considered "normal" to attend zoos and aquariums growing up. I mean we were kids, my mindset was, wow, a lion. This is awesome and I love animals! Of course, I wanted to be there as a kid, I felt at home with animals and that was my only way at the time to do that. So with my renewed way of thinking and through my personal growth its important for me to shine a light on these topics. How can people and families enjoy and share the love for animals ethically? What are alternatives and how can I express that in a loving way to both humans and animals?

5. What is your favorite animal?

This is a trick question because I would 100% say all of them 100% of the time. That's been one of the only questions I've been asked and can't decide since I love them all. Let's say I did pick though, I would have to say if "anything is possible" here I would make my own animal up and choose a hybrid between a lion and a bunny. Both brave and kind, the perfect balance.

Jessica's work

Jessica is also the founder of All There August, a cruelty-free lifestyle brand and blog covering animal welfare, cruelty-free fashion, veganism, women’s empowerment, and socially conscious travel. She is an active animal advocate in her local community, hosting various events throughout the year and helping to raise awareness of the cruelty and suffering animals endure around the world.