Meet The Team: Warren Bowen – Communications Director

Meet some of the wonderful individuals behind We Animals Media (WAM) in our ‘Meet the Team’ Q&A series. Each month throughout 2023 we’ll be publishing a new behind-the-scenes feature for you to learn about the folks at WAM.

This month we spoke with our Communications Director, Warren Bowen.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta – most famous for its massive annual rodeo and access to mountains. Now living in Vancouver, BC – where I still have mountain access, thankfully without the rodeo.

What’s my background

Education! I taught English and philosophy for 15 years to children and adults. My time practicing Philosophy for Children was particularly rewarding. In terms of my own education, I have a multi-disciplinary MA with a research thesis on the rhetoric of animal experimentation.

What I do at We Animals Media (WAM)

I’m the Communication Director at WAM. I help to direct communications plans, projects and strategies and support my team to continue their excellent work across our various communications channels for our wide-ranging audiences.

What I’ve learned about the animal advocacy movement since joining WAM

I’ve learned how professional it’s become since I first became politically active around animal issues in my early twenties. Then I was mostly only aware of grass-roots protests, reading groups and lectures. To me it seems like the last decade has ushered an explosion of career options and funding.

Favourite movie/book (or both)

Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (and that’s the English translation – if only I read Spanish!). Film: it will always be Jurassic Park.

Each day has its own fingerprint. Meetings, communication review and emails recur, however a given week is filled with different work: press releases, media and NGO outreach, conference planning, branding projects, comms strategizing and project planning etc.

One WAM image/video that has really stuck with me and why

When I first saw this photo I thought that the men are giving the cow a drink, a small mercy before continuing a death march. But then I noticed the cloth and that they are waterboarding her – the same torture technique used by the CIA on Al-Qaeda suspects. Simulated drowning. But rather than trying to coerce confessions, these captors are trying to force an exhausted cow to continue marching to her death by making her believe that if she doesn’t she will drown. March through the dust or drown. For hours – for days? – it’s all this cow knows. So we may buy a leather shoe or belt.

If I were an animal (other than a human), I would be… because…

A crow. Clever, playful and they excel in the Anthropocene. However I’m not a crow and they often terrorize me.

Favourite farmed animal ethology/behaviour fact

That fish use tools and have culture. Science is now confirming what many of us already know – that nonhumans are more sensitive and aware than we want to give them credit for.

Connect with me if…

You have any media inquiries, want to republish our content or would like to have us or one of our photojournalists speak at your event or conference. Or just want to gab about comms and/or animal issues!