Welcome to the Animal Law podcast.

We are so lucky this week because we were able to get Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity to answer questions about their lawsuit.

It's a very recent lawsuit.

Usually I don't interview people when things are so new, but it's regarding the infamous, I don't know what we're calling it, a detention center, a prison, a concentration camp anyway, in the Everglaze, which I know you have all heard about, known as Alligator Alcatraz.

I think that's the last time I'll use that loathsome title for it because it's disgusting.

And, you know, obviously this is a huge human rights problem,

but it's also a huge environmental and animal issue, unbelievable issues here that really are

pretty shocking. And we have exactly the right person to talk about, but Lisa is a Florida and Caribbean

director and a senior attorney at the center. And she is also a native Floridian.. Elise is a Florida and Caribbean director and a senior attorney at the center.

And she is also a native Floridian. And she is exactly the right person to be talking about this.

So thank you so much for joining us, Elise. Thank you, Marian. I'm glad to be here and talk about this with you.

So let's just start with some facts. People know some of the facts because this has been all over the news.

But your facts are different because they're putting everything.

It's the same situation going on but in a very different context because we're talking about the animals.

First of all, can you just locate the facility for us?

We know it's like in the Everglades somewhere, but most of us don't really have it very specifically,

and that's pretty important in this case. Sure. So the greater Everglades ecosystem extends

across most of the southern tip of Florida. So that's the general setting. And then within the

Everglades, we have Big Cyprus National Preserve, which is a national park service-managed property that's critical to the environmental health, the clean water and the endangered species that live in the Everglades.

The setting for this mass immigration detention center is right in the middle of this preserve that's right in the middle

of the Everglades, America's Everglades, which we've been working to restore for decades now.

The site is owned by Miami-Dade County, or I should say it was, before the state of Florida

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