Jodie Wiederkehr

Jodie Wiederkehr is the founder and executive director of the Chicago Alliance for Animals (CAA), an all-volunteer, grassroots animal protection organization.

Due to CAA’s relentless pressure on public officials, documentation of daily violations by Chicago's horse-drawn carriage operators, and regular media attention, CAA was able to ban horse-drawn carriages in the third largest city in the US in a record two and a half years without any paid staff, celebrity support, accidents, or fatalities and won by an overwhelming City Council vote of 46-4 in April 2020. On January 1, 2021, horses stopped suffering on the Windy City’s hard streets.

Jodie also formed the Partnership to Ban Horse Carriages Worldwide in 2017, where she guides animal advocates in numerous cities around the world to ban the inhumane and dangerous trade where they live.

Almost one year to the date of Chicago’s horse carriage vote, CAA succeeded in passing Chicago's Puppy Mill Bill Loophole Law, which shut down the remaining pet stores that were selling dogs from unscrupulous sources such as puppy mills and backyard breeders.

In addition, she founded the Center For Ethical Science (CFES), which is dedicated to educating the public on the egregious cruelty, immense tax dollar waste, and misleading and unreliable results of animal experimentation as well as the daily flouting of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

CAA's current campaigns include the fights to #FreeSpur, a huge Sulcata tortoise who was trafficked from her home and family in Africa and who's languished in a tiny, incredibly unnatural display case for nearly thirty-five years in Lincolnwood, Illinois as well as #FreeRocky, the lonely coyote/pack animal, who's been stuck all alone in a small cage in Chicagoland's bitter cold winters for more than five years now.

Jodie has also been hosting an animal rights radio show on WCPT AM 820 for the last two years called ‘If Cage Walls Could Talk’. It airs every Saturday evening from 5-6 pm CST and features interviews with well-known leaders in the world of animal protection and dedicated grassroots activists who are making such positive change for those without a voice.