Please join us in welcoming Ann Piquette to Project Coyote as our new Development Operations Coordinator. In her debut blog, Ann shares the early experiences and influences that shaped her lifelong commitment to empathy, justice, and care for animals. At a moment when compassion is often dismissed as naïve or impractical, her reflection is a powerful reminder that empathy is not only foundational to coexistence—it is essential to the kind of world we are working to build. We’re grateful to have Ann’s voice and perspective strengthening both our team and our movement.
– Sarah Taylor, Operations & Communications Director
By: Ann Piquette, Development Operations Coordinator
Before I knew anything about wildlife advocacy, policy, or coexistence strategies, I knew what it felt like to love another being simply because it was alive beside me.
Growing up, my house was where abandoned, abused, and injured animals came to heal and find care. Not because we had any professional rehabbing expertise, but because my mother refused to stand by while another living being suffered, no matter the species. The domestic animals always stayed with us, adding to our ever-growing pack of cats and dogs. The wild animals—the crows, hawks, deer, turtles, and mice—were released back into their natural habitats or delivered to more appropriate wildlife rehab centers.
Caring for these animals helped calibrate my inner compass toward empathy and compassion. They taught me routine and responsibility, and together we formed our own little rituals: morning feedings, after-school walks, and seeking out sunbeams where we could lie together in quiet company. Whenever life became difficult, whether personally or in the wider world, they were always there. They were my introduction to the deepest kind of love, marked by softness, safety, and unspoken understanding. And when it came time to say goodbye, they taught me early on that love cannot exist without the shadow of grief.
As a child, I read about people like Dr. Jane Goodall and felt a connection with her as I learned to navigate the world as a young girl with a heart that ached for the suffering of others. The necessity of her work showed me that some people are guided by that compass of empathy and justice, while others simply are not, and that how we treat animals remains one of the clearest ways to understand someone’s character. She also taught me that the gift of empathy comes with responsibility: to care for others, to notice suffering, and to speak up when we witness injustice. These early realizations, together with my relationships with animals, shaped everything that came after and became the lens through which I see the world.
Today, empathy and the pursuit of justice often feel in short supply. We live in a world shaped by seemingly inescapable algorithms that reward outrage, perpetuate misinformation, and condition us toward apathy. It’s easy to become numb, to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. It’s easy to slip into cynicism, to equate softness with naivety. I live my life in conscious opposition to that impulse, committed to proving that empathy—toward animals, toward each other, toward the tangled and interdependent world we share—is not weakness. It is essential.
That is why I have dedicated my career to promoting compassion. After Dr. Jane Goodall died just weeks before I joined the Project Coyote team, her words began appearing everywhere across my newsfeeds. Of her vast catalogue of quotes, one has stayed with me in this moment: “We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place—or not to bother.” I cannot simply not bother.
Caring for animals—whether the pets we grow up with or the wildlife we work to protect—is not just ecological stewardship. It is emotional stewardship. It is the practice of remembering that the world is full of lives intertwined with our own, that our choices ripple outward, and that compassion is built through consistent, everyday acts.
This work is my attempt to defend softness, celebrate coexistence, and stay awake to connection in a time that urges us to look away.
