Action Line Summer 2017

SUMMER 2017

ACTION LINE SPECIAL EDITION SUMMER 2017

ACTION LINE

THE BIRDS & THE BEES...AND THE IMPORTANCE OF NATIVE PLANTS ASHEVILLE, N.C.: WHERE BEER AND BEARS CO-EXIST JOIN US FOR THE PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH

60 60 ACTION LINE SPECIAL EDITION SUMMER 2017

60 years of changing the world YEARS OF forDEFENDING animals

DON’T BE COMFORTABLE IN THEIR SKIN.

FriendsofAnimals.org

ANIMAL RIGHTS

SPECIAL REPORT: IN RETROSPECT

12 FoA has been stirring up hornets' nests for 60 years 18 The evolution of Friends of Animals' Wildlife Law Program 26

The demise of Ringling Bros.

34 FoA is a leader in battling pet home- lessness, one animal at a time

6 SANCTUARY LIFE

Primarily Primates celebrates FoA's 60th with a watermelon cake party 8 NEWS Victory Lap: The latest news about FOA’s advocacy 21

NEWS FoA provides a voice for animals at the People's Climate March in D.C.

24 VEG NEWS Cinnamon Snail took fast track to greatness...and saving the planet 30 FEATURE: FoA's next chapter The Right to Ethical Consideration Project 37 PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE US

The heart of FoA—our members and supporters

WHO WE ARE Friends of Animals is an international non-profit animal-advocacy organization, incorporated in the state of New York in 1957. FoA works to cultivate a respectful view of nonhuman animals, free-living and domestic. Our goal is to free animals from cruelty and institutionalized exploitation around the world.

CONTACT US NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 777 Post Road Darien, Connecticut 06820 (203) 656-1522 contact@friendsofanimals.org WESTERN OFFICE 7500 E. Arapahoe Rd., Ste 385 Cetennial, CO 80112 (720) 949-7791 PRIMARILY PRIMATES SANCTUARY P.O. Box 207 San Antonio, TX 7891-02907 (830) 755-4616 office@primarilyprimates.org VISIT US www.friendsofanimals.org www.primarilyprimates.org

PRESIDENT Priscilla Feral [CT] www.twitter.com/pferal www.twitter.com/primate_refuge feral@friendsofanimals.org DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Robert Orabona [CT] admin@friendsofanimals.org DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Dustin Rhodes [NC] dustin@friendsofanimals.org CORRESPONDENT Nicole Rivard [CT] nrivard@friendsofanimals.org SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Meghan McIntire [MA] www.twitter.com/FoAorg mmcintire@friendsofanimals.org DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION Donna Berlanda [CT] dberlanda@friendsofanimals.org ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT Donna Thigpen [CT] SECRETARY TO THE PRESIDENT Shelly Scott [CT] SPAY/NEUTER PROJECT Paula Santo [CT]

FOLLOW US facebook.com /friendsofanimals.org facebook.com /primarilyprimates.org

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MEMBERSHIP Annual membership includes a year’s subscription to Action Line. Students/Senior membership, $15; Annual membership, $25; International member, $35; Sustaining membership, $50; Sponsor, $100; Patron, $1,000. All contributions, bequests and gifts are fully tax-deductible in accordance with current laws.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Jenni Best [CO] jennifer@friendsofanimals.org

REPRODUCTION No prior permission for the reproduction of materials from Action Line is required provided the content is not altered and due credit is given as follows: “Reprinted from Action Line, the Friends of Animals’ magazine, 777 Post Road, Darien, CT 06820.”

Action Line is a quarterly publication. Issue CLXXIII Summer 2017 ISSN 1072-2068

Lion Illustration: Leah Tinari

OUR TEAM

Printed on Recycled Paper

DIRECTOR, WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM Michael Harris [CO] michaelharris@friendsofanimals.org

ATTORNEY'S Rachel Nussbaum[CO] rachel@friendsofanimals.org Elizabeth Rasheed [CO] elizabeth.rasheed@friendsofanimals.org Courtney McVean [CO] courtney.mcvean@friendsofanimals.org ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Marielle Grenade-Willis [CO] wlp_admin@friendsofanimals.org EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PRIMARILY PRIMATES Brooke Chavez [TX] brooke@primarilyprimates.org CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jane Seymour [NY] jane@friendsofanimals.org

60

BY PRISCILLA FERAL, PRESIDENT

IN MY VIEW 60 YEARS OF CHANGING THE WORLD FOR ANIMALS

I

t feels like a staggering accomplishment to have been aware of and immersed in this glorious, independent, unique animal advocacy organization since 1969—12 years after its founder Alice Herrington incorporated Friends of Animals (FoA) in New York City.

Alice Herrington

In 1969, I found this unusual group through Betty Long, one of FoA’s spay-neuter volunteers in Westport, Conn., who gave lectures over the phone about not being lazy—to ensure that each cat or dog we acquired be surgically sterilized through FoA’s affordable breeding control program. Because she sold me spay-neuter certificates, I drove 40 minutes to Dr. George Whitney’s veterinary office in Orange, so he’d spay or neuter the two orange-colored kittens I adopted.

These were my first adopted cats after leaving college and home. Living on a shoe-string budget, the cost break from acquiring FoA’s certificates was lifesaving, plus Betty’s lecture about preventing the births of unwanted puppies and kittens made an impression.

That’s when I joined FoA as a member.

4 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

In the early 1970s, I admired FoA’s unduplicated, bold efforts to challenge hunting, fur trapping, seal and whale killing, so-called humane slaughter, and I admired its lobbying efforts in D.C., which helped pass The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Herrington didn’t waste energies mitigating or regulating atrocities against animals. Whether deer were hunted with guns or bow and arrows, she condemned the violence on moral grounds. As a trained statistician, she’d assail a government agency’s bad science and technical errors for justifying carnage, whether it was fur seals on Alaska’s Pribilof Islands, Alaska’s wolves or other animals suffering from cruelty.

Then in November 1974, after a friend doing pro bono work for FoA urged me to interview with FoA for an opening for a public information director, I popped into New York City, and interviewed with Herrington, who asked me one question, “What animals do you like?” I realized she was uncomfortable with small talk, impatient over interviewing me, but with her large, circular eyeglasses, which revealed her affinity for owls, she sized me up.

I said I loved all animals—from tadpoles to elephants—and that my work for advancing women’s rights related to defending animals whose suffering couldn’t be justified for pleasure, amusement or convenience.

I was hired, warned not to ask too many questions and started a commute to New York City for the next few years. My first assignment was to stage an anti-fur protest outside the entrance of the ASPCA’s fur fashion show luncheon on Fifth Avenue. No problem, I said, after learning how rabbits, like the ones trapped in steel-jawed leghold traps, had died. My mother bought me a rabbit fur in 1969, and this garment had hung in the basement, so I streaked it with red lipstick and dragged it in a leghold trap outside the luncheon. ASPCA members in attendance found the stunt eye-opening and the group’s president later joined other anti-fur demonstrations we organized in the heart of the fur industry.

Above: Priscilla Feral enjoys a tender moment with her two adopted cats in 1969. Left: Feral travelled to Alaska in June 1979 for a project to stop a U.S. seal kill.

"I SAID I LOVED ALL ANIMALS— FROM TADPOLES TO ELEPHANTS— AND THAT MY WORK FOR ADVANCING WOMEN’S RIGHTS RELATED TO DEFENDING ANIMALS WHOSE SUFFERING COULDN’T BE JUSTIFIED FOR PLEASURE, AMUSEMENT OR CONVENIENCE." Friends of Animals found its sea legs by the mid-1970s-80’s by being the first group to expose factory farming, and taking it a step further. We said we should not eat animals, and that regulating husbandry or slaughter doesn’t bring chickens, pigs, cows or others closer to animal rights. Incremental progress, we stressed, for liberating animals does happen with education, one person or one group at a time, and by the 1990s our vegan advocacy work was defined with behind the scenes exposés of so-called free-range egg operations and more.

Then FoA began educating the public about the moral, environmental and physical benefits of a plant-based,

vegan diet. I authored and published two vegan cookbooks for FoA in 2005 and 2009, and in 2015 released For the Love of Dog Biscuits to benefit our four-legged friends.

In January 1987, Herrington retired and I was elected to take the reins as FoA’s president. Nicole Rivard’s stories inside this issue of Action Line delve into several of FoA’s accomplishments over the last 60 years through our eyes and from the views of several, wonderful, longtime members.

Working in the animal rights movement transforms us and everyone who supports us. Initially we connect with folks to anguish, and to talk about problems and what we believe about environmental justice and animals. This helps us figure things out. Movements allow problems to be collective and thus provide support and energy to keep going and growing.

They also give us a reason to hope, and to see that it is possible to remake a culture.

Friends of Animals has worked for six decades to change the world for animals, and the support you offer us is the rocket fuel for this goodness and much more.

Summer 2017 | 5

P R I M A R I LY P R I M AT E S

Silver Primate Friends Ticket

We're incredibly grateful for everyone who purchased a Silver Primate Friends ticket for our 60th anniversary party! Your donation provided an extraordinary enrichment experience for the animals residing at Primarily Primates, our Texas-based sanctuary, and allowed them to join in the fun of celebrating FoA's 60th year.

6 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

Your contribution helped us to go all out for this primate party and create decadent fruit-based treats, including several three-tiered watermelon cakes complete with coconut icing and vegan dark chocolate strawberries. Learn more about Primarily Primates by visiting its website www.primarilyprimates.org.

IN MEMORIAM Friends of Animals has received kind donations in memory of the following individuals: LYNN GLICKAUF

GEORGE BOOPSIE RICKERT

TANGO

MARIAN HILL

MARK FEENEY

BAILY, SIUBA & LADY

MARION KAPLAN

ROCKY CHARNECO

IN HONOR OF OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS, PAST, CURRENT AND FUTURE.

FRANK GRABEK

BEEP

MARY L. KENNEDY

EBEON

JANINE WORLAND

FIONA & ZOE

RUSTY POTTS

FRODO

ERICA FARLAND

SHORTY

FRAN BRAHMI

SOPHIA

DORA & JOE MILIAMBRO

MASSIMO

ROY DAMIANO

“A TINY DOG WITH A BIG HEART – MINDY.”

Summer 2017 | 7

VICTORY LAP

BY NICOLE RIVARD

FOA INTERVENES, SECURES VICTORY FOR PRAIRIE DOGS AND THE ESA In March, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2014 decision by a federal district judge in Utah that sought to strip the Utah prairie dog of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Judge Dee Benson had ruled that Congress exceeded its authority under the U.S. Constitution when it authorized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prohibit the killing or harassment of Utah prairie dogs on public lands. The federal district court had adopted a species-by-species approach, arguing that the federal government had to first demonstrate that a species had value in interstate commerce before it could protect the species under the ESA. The Tenth Circuit, agreeing with other federal courts, rejected this species-specific approach. “This is a huge victory for Utah prairie dogs and the ESA,” says Michael Harris, director of Friends of Animals’ Wildlife Law Program.

Friends of Animals (FoA) immediately intervened in a 2013 lawsuit brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners (PETPO) challenging the USFWS’ decision to list the Utah prairie dog as a threatened species, as it restricted what landowners can do in regards to managing the species on private land.

8 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

In Tenth Circuit opinion, authored

by Judge Jerome Holmes, the court concluded that under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Congress can extend protection to any species, regardless of its specific commercial value, because such regulation “is an essential part of a broader regulatory scheme that substantially affects interstate commerce.”

Indeed, as the court made clear, in passing the ESA, Congress specifically sought to both place a “short-term”

“THIS IS A HUGE VICTORY FOR UTAH PRAIRIE DOGS AND THE ESA."

brake on human economic activity that threatened the existence of species like the Utah prairie dog and to promote “long-term” sustainable commerce by conserving individual species and their habitats.

“On display in this case is an ongoing, fundamental dispute over the value of America’s natural heritage,” Harris says. “On one side, a minority of private property owners and some state governments appear to

view members of the animal kingdom as being valueless and unworthy of protection unless they can be reduced to mere ‘commodities.’ Accordingly, in their view, if an animal cannot be sold or traded, then it is no more than a mere pest to be eradicated to make way for human development.

“On the other side, Friends of Animals, numerous scientists and millions of Americans recognize that protection of all members of the North American b i o t a — from the smallest fungi to the greatest of mammals— is essential to biodiversity and to human economic health.”

“The reality is that the Utah prairie dog, like many other animals, is worthy of protection from human destruction because they are unique individuals capable of living meaningful lives,” says Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals. “These are some of the most intelligent, social animals in the world. Moreover, the Utah prairie dogs’ value in maintaining the health of western grassland ecosystems is immeasurable.”

In addition to protecting the Utah prairie dog, the Tenth Circuit also

THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT FOA’S ADVOCACY AND ACHIEVEMENTS

prevented the ESA from a lingering death at the hands of anti-wildlife, pro-property activists like the plaintiffs in this case.

“While PETPO asserts it is only trying to reduce regulation of Utah prairie dogs on their private lands, the reality is that PETPO and their allies’ true agenda is to blow a massive hole through the ESA,” states Harris. “If the lower court’s decision was left in place, protections of more than a third of all threatened and endangered species in the United States would have been in jeopardy.”

FOA CONTINUES TO FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S WILD HORSES....AND WIN WYOMING In March, Friends of Animals (FoA) obtained another remarkable victory for wild horses—the organization challenged one of the largest wild horse roundups in Wyoming’s Red Desert Complex and won.

In 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorized the roundup and removal of 2,096 wild horses from the Lost Creek, Stewart Creek, Antelope Hills, Crooks Mountain and Green Mountain Herd Management Areas in south central and central Wyoming. The agency’s decision also allowed the forced drugging with fertility control of some mares to be released back to the HMAs.

“Friends of Animals challenged the agency’s decision because, among other things, BLM failed to consider the impact of its decision on the unique Iberian genotype of these wild horse herds,” said Jennifer Best, associate attorney for FoA’s Wildlife Law Program. “Our lawsuit argued that BLM had committed to preserve this genotype and was legally required to consider how its decision would impact these distinct wild horses.”

The Court vacated and remanded BLM’s decision, meaning BLM cannot remove these horses until it goes back to analyze the potential impact of roundups on the special genotype of these horses and issues a new decision.

“BLM has committed in its Range Management Plans to engage in management practices, monitoring and analyses to help assure a sufficient prevalence of these historically important breeds,” noted Judge Nancy Freudenthal. “BLM should not ignore such promises during periodic gathers, risking the loss of significant genetic resources.”

OREGON In March, a federal judge in Portland, Oregon, granted a request

by Friends of Animals (FoA) to undertake questioning of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials in the form of interrogatories and depositions regarding an “emergency removal” the agency undertook on the Three Fingers Horse Management

Area (HMA) in eastern Oregon.

As a result of a brush fire that impacted the northern portion of this HMA, BLM removed 150 horses without complying with federal law, and refused any request by FoA to put the horses back now that the land is recovering from the fire.

This is a huge first step toward stopping BLM from claiming that emergency situations require that horses be permanently removed from the wild. FoA intends to demonstrate that BLM can use less permanent and severe means of protecting horses from threats—measures that will keep horses wild.

Specifically, the judge has ordered BLM to comply with requests from FoA to determine whether: (1) the removed horses can be returned to the Three Fingers HMA after post-fire restoration has been completed; (2) unburned portions of the HMA can support additional horses; (3) fencing is a viable alternative to removal to protect the fire-damaged areas from wild horses; and (4) supplemental food and water can be provided to keep wild horses from returning to the fire damaged areas.

Since FoA commenced a legal campaign in January 2015 to protect America’s wild horses, BLM has engaged in dozens of illegal roundups, resulting in thousands of horses being violently removed from the wild and placed in BLM-run detention centers. Through legal action, FoA has successfully stopped such roundups in Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming and

Summer 2017 | 9

VICTORY LAP PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICOLE RIVARD

Montana, and we have additional lawsuits making way through the federal courts involving horses in Colorado, Utah and Oregon. Sadly, each time we prevail in court, BLM comes up with a new way to avoid complying with the federal Freeroaming, Wild Horse and Burro Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The most widely-used method of avoiding these laws is through the use of so-called “Emergency Action.” Since summer of 2016, BLM has engaged in numerous wild horse round-ups by claiming some sort of imminent threat to the horses, usually due to the horses coming to close to roads or suffering from lack of food. While in some cases risks are present to the horses, the fact of the matter is that BLM is merely using the situation as an excuse to permanently remove horses from the land without complying with the law.

How do we know this? Because in each and every case that BLM has declared an “emergency” the agency has not once considered any solution short of permanent removal. FoA has repeatedly asked BLM why it cannot take less drastic measures to protect the horses, such as providing supplemental food, using fencing to protect the horses, or even using temporary removals until the emergency is abated. Every time BLM refuses to consider any option short of permanently subjecting the horses to confinement in dreadful holding facilities.

10 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

NEVADA Following a lawsuit filed by international animal advocacy group Friends of Animals, in May the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) cancelled its five-year remote darting program that would have forcibly drugged Nevada’s Rocky Hill wild horses with fertility control.

“This is a significant victory for Nevada’s wild horses because it was a five-year fertility control plan,” said Michael Harris, director of Friends of Animals’ Wildlife Law Program.

“What is ignored by the pro-fertility control community is that wild horses darted with PZP to inhibit their ability to naturally reproduce aren’t really, well, wild anymore.

"The solution to any perceived wild horse crisis in Nevada is not to simply prescribe a drug. If wild horses, along with other wild animals in the West, are to be saved, we must change the unsustainable method of land use planning that we have created for our public lands. Wild horses and other wildlife deserve their own lands to call home."

Since the BLM caters to the cattle and sheep ranching industry, it has created an artificially low appropriate management level for the Rocky Hills Herd Management Area (HMA).

A measly 86-143 wild horses are deemed appropriate for the HMA, which consists of 83,988 acres.

If that’s not staggering enough, the bombshell in this case is that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which claims to advocate

for the protection of wild horses and burros, intervened in Friends of Animals’ original appeal and petition to suspend BLM’s Aug. 2016 decision on behalf of the BLM, showing its true colors—that one of the nation’s wealthiest animal charities buys into the myth perpetuated by cattle and sheep ranchers that there are too many wild horses on federal public lands.

HSUS is the registrant of the fertility control drugs PZP and ZonaStat-H. However when HSUS obtained EPA registration, the organization never provided evidence that the birth control doesn’t have negative side effects…it just provided information about its efficacy and actually requested waivers for most of the studies ordinarily required from an applicant seeking pesticide registration—including a toxicity study, ecological effects and environmental fate guideline study.

The majority of research submitted by HSUS did not consider the biological, social and behavioral effects the drug can have on wild horses. More recent research has demonstrated repeated applications of PZP can cause physical damage to treated mares; it is not completely reversible; it can increase mortality in foals post-PZP effectiveness; and it interferes with herd cohesion, which is critical to the overall health of wild horses. In addition, preventing mares from producing foals can create a genetic bottleneck that may ultimately extinguish the species as a whole.

THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT FOA’S ADVOCACY AND ACHIEVEMENTS

No public comment or notice was given before the BLM’s decision about the Rocky Hills HMA was made. Furthermore, the BLM did not prepare a project-specific Environmental Assessment (EA) to inform this decision; instead, BLM completed a Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA), in which it concluded that the Fertility Control Darting Project "is essentially similar to an alternative analyzed in the prior National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) documents," and the effects of the Project "are similar to those disclosed" in the 2010 Callaghan Complex EA, so no further NEPA analysis was necessary.”

“We were repulsed from the beginning that HSUS would condone BLM’s failure to comply with federal law, specifically NEPA,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals. “But bolstered by this victory, FoA marches on in its fight to keep the wild in wilderness and to make sure our federal public lands do not become zoo-like settings.”

Wild horses in Oregon

Summer 2017 | 11

IN RETROSPECT

FRIENDS OF ANIMALS HAS BEEN

‘STIRRING UP HORNETS’ NESTS’ FOR 60 YEARS

BY NICOLE RIVARD

P

riscilla Feral was born wired for confrontation…and with a deep love for animals and nature pumping through her veins.

It’s no wonder that in 1974 she was hired on the spot by Alice Herrington, the first president of Friends of Animals, an international non-profit animal rights organization, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

When Feral asked about the job description for FOA’s public information director position, Herrington told her she needed “to be able to stir up a hornet’s nest.”

Feral, who took over as president in 1987 when Herrington retired, has been doing that since she joined the FoA staff.

In the 1980s Feral and FoA garnered national attention for tipping off a major Connecticut newspaper that U.S. Surgical Corporation in Norwalk, Conn., a manufacturer of surgical staplers, was needlessly using and killing thousands of dogs each

12 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

year in the course of training its salespeople to demonstrate and market its products. The investigative piece featured exclusive interviews with former Surgical employees and sales operatives who detailed the tortures inflicted on the dogs.

FoA then initiated a campaign to widely publicize the company’s cruelty and to further expose its entire animal-abusing network, from unscrupulous dog dealers and salespeople who operated on dogs, to the insensate profiteers running USSC—chief among them the company’s founder Leon Hirsch. FoA held more than 100 demonstrations outside U.S. Surgical attracting thousands of protestors.

US SURGICAL Because of that effort, more than 20,000 physicians and surgeons came to agree with FoA’s position, that what U.S. Surgical was doing was non-essential and unconscionable.

When FoA became a target of infiltrators and was bugged by microphones planted by U.S. Surgical, Feral and two other advocates disguised themselves in wigs and garish outfits so they could gather information at

Clockwise From Top Right: Senegal's rangers inside Niokolo Koba National Park were essential to Friends of Animals' anti-poaching work. Priscilla Feral feeding an orphaned baby chimpanzee in Liberia in 1989. Feral visiting the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for orphaned elephants in Kenya. Feral flanked by Liberia's wildlife officials outside the site of a wild animal orphanage Friends of Animals was constructing.

Opposite Page: FoA’s brochure publicizing U.S. Surgical’s cruelty and its entire animal-abusing network. FoA held more than 100 demonstrations outside U.S. Surgical in Norwalk, Conn., attracting thousands of protestors.

a shareholders' meeting and remain undetected. It wouldn’t be the last time Feral had to go “undercover.”

In 2006, before FoA filed a lawsuit to ban the trophy hunting of endangered African antelopes in the United States, Feral pretended to be a freelance writer and took a tour of one of the Texas ranches where the killings take place.

Feral has been instrumental in evolving the organization from its humble beginnings as the most comprehensive low-cost spay neuter program in the country to an organization that places critical habitat, wildlife protection and veganism at the core of animal advocacy and has become the lead wild horse advocacy group in the nation.

The gutsiness of the group that continues today is a reflection of Herrington and Feral. In its early years FoA changed the face of North American animal advocacy, eschewing mere regulation of exploitative practices and instead seeking prohibitions, including hunting, trapping, poisoning and killing animals for fur. Herrington’s struggle in the late 1960s to end kosher slaughter exemplified the early tensions between vegetarian ethics and cultural norms.

Herrington staunchly maintained that a true ethic of respect would transcend human cultural differences.

In 1975, Friends of Animals issued

a 24-page pamphlet recommending “complete relief from participation in the confining, breeding, rearing and slaughter of animals for food products.”

Before Feral joined FoA, she was working at a company in Wilton, Conn., that had been illegally stockpiling whale oil for use in one of its cosmetics.

“I blew the whistle, called the Department of Commerce to investigate, checked out at the end of work that day and vowed not to return,” recalled Feral. “I realized I had likely blown my chances of working for a profit-driven corporation, and after a career-counseling meeting with an all-female feminist group, I applied to Friends of Animals. I had been a member of Friends of Animals since having two kittens spayed and neutered in 1969, and the idea I could work for a group that captured my heart seemed remarkable.”

FoA’s mission today goes well beyond advocacy with hands on work.

AFRICA

In 2007, FoA took over management of a primate sanctuary in Texas that cares for more than 350 animals. The relationship with Primarily Primates began in 1988 when Feral came across three monkeys and a chimpanzee named Joe in a rundown roadside zoo in New Orleans when she was on a lunch break from the Summit for Animals, a yearly event she attended.

Summer 2017 | 13

1960s ACCOMPLISHMENTS 1957–1960 FoA became the leading force for 1966, FoA established a legislative FROM THE LAST SIX preventing the births of too many dogs arm of the organization to better DECADES: and cats and their mass killings in assist with humane legislation. Today

“

I offered the owner a personal check of $100 to purchase the primates, and after he accepted it, I returned to the meeting, asking the lawyers in attendance for help,” Feral recalled. “Then a friend from San Antonio told me to call Primarily Primates. The sanctuary accepted the monkeys and chimpanzee, and when I visited them a couple of months later, they had all been successfully worked into social groups, were living outside and appeared to thrive. I considered that a miracle and felt Friends of Animals should become a friend of the sanctuary and support them each year to help with animal care and renovations. In 2007, we took over manage-

shelters by administering a nationwide low-cost spay-neuter program to help rescue groups and pet-owners avoid the high costs of altering. FoA has made possible more than 2.7 million procedures, continuing at a pace of close to 28,000 procedures annually.

the Wildlife Law Program has its own offices in Denver, Colo.

In 1968, FoA led the movement to end the seal kill in Alaska. Also FoA sought prohibitions on the exploitive practices of hunting, trapping, poisoning and killing animals for fur.

ment of the sanctuary.”

FoA also sponsors the remarkable Chimpanzee Project in The Gambia in Africa, as well as funds the protection and recovery of three endangered African antelope species—scimitar-horned oryxes and two species of gazelles, in Senegal.

“From my first trip to West Africa in March 1989 to Liberia, I was devoted to creating or assisting a chimpanzee sanctuary in the chimpanzees’ African homeland,“ Feral said. “After setbacks in Liberia and Ghana due to civil or tribal wars, we were invited to partner with the Gambian government and Janis Carter to sponsor the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project at the River Gambia National Park in 2008.

In 2000, we first supported Carter’s work to census free-living chimpanzees in Senegal, and through this field work met other conservationists in Senegal who became essential to assisting us with anti-poaching work in Niokolo Koba National Park.”

FoA’s anti-poaching work also included providing airplanes to Kenya Wildlife Service as well as supporting training for pilots.

Whether its work in the United States or abroad, Feral has never thought about giving up.

“I’m not a quitter, and I haven’t found FoA’s substance or style duplicated in the animal advocacy or environmental field.

“I’ve never thought about throw-

ALASKAN WOLVES

14 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

1970s FoA initiated the movement in Congress to protect whales, sea lions, walruses, porpoises and other marine animals, which resulted in the 1972 passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. FoA also campaigned successfully to ban the catching of tuna with dolphin-killing nets.

FoA was the first national group to hold anti-fur protests to pressure the

public into understanding wearing animals’ skins is no longer morally defensible. This resulted in an unsuccessful lawsuit from NY furriers.

FoA was the first animal advocacy group to expose factory farming as a result of its investigative writing, and in 1975 issued a 24-page pamphlet recommending complete relief from participation in the business of confin-

ing, breeding, rearing and slaughter of food products. By 1979, our magazine was pointing to animal farming as the cause of a host of ecological, environmental and social ills.

ing in the towel, even experiencing how grisly fighting wolf hunters in the government and in the field is,” Feral said.

Friends of Animals took on wolf hunters when it launched a successful tourism boycott of Alaska in 1992.

After 53 howl-ins in 51 cities across the United States, Gov. Walter Hickel cancelled a horrible planned wolf control program. “Howlers” would ask members of the public to pledge their support of the tourism boycott of Alaska by filling out postcards, which were then sent to the governor. The travel industry even supported FoA’s boycott—putting the economic screws to Hickel’s administration. Hickel later called for a Wolf Summit in

January 1993, where Feral befriended the late wolf biologist Gordon Haber, a fierce wolf advocate. FoA would go on to commission some of Haber’s startling, crucial findings.

Another tourism boycott with accompanying howl-ins was called in 1993 when another wolf-control program was activated. By January 1994, Friends of Animals had organized another 90 wolf “howl-ins” across the U.S. in many dozens of cities, publicizing them through membership and paid advertising along with approximately 50 organizations that offered support. When Tony Knowles became governor in 1994 and replaced Hickel, Alaska saw eight years of progressive changes for wolves.

“We dug in in Alaska. We used every resource we had; we threw everything in but the kitchen sink and used whatever political muscle we had to blow up the tourism boycott and make it better,” recalled Feral. “We were told the state lost more than a million dollars in tourism revenues.”

It was a strategy Feral and FoA never forgot and has become part of the fabric of the organization.

“When you go to the wall and keep applying creative pressure—that persistence, perseverance and tenacity will pay off. Can we say our style as a pressure group always pays off? In Alaska, it did.”

From Left: FoA and supporters at New York’s Rockefeller Center howl-in in 1993. Friends of Animals' staff member Bob Orabona and wolf biologist Gordon Haber. Washington, D.C. howl-in. Priscilla Feral and actress Linda Blaire at a howl-in in Los Angeles. A four-legged supporter sends a message to Alaska legislators at the New York City howl-in.

Dick Van Patten, Earl Holliman and Gretchen Wyler from Actors and Others for Animals join Feral at the Los Angeles howl-in.

Summer 2017 | 15

IR SKIN.

IN THE FORTABLE

DON’T BE COM

als.org FriendsofAnim

ANTI FUR

1980s FoA successfully lobbied the Foreign Relations Committee to end the commercial fur treaty between the USA, USSR, Japan and Canada that required the annual slaughter of approximately 25,000 fur seals on their Pribilof Island breeding grounds in Alaska. (FoA filmed the seal kill in the 1970s and observed it again in 1979 to bolster our lobbying arguments against the kill.)

In 1989, FoA drafted the successful proposal that included African elephants on Appendix I of CITES, the endangered species treaty, which stopped all legal trade in ivory.

FoA began lobbying in the northeast to protect mute swans from nest destruction, egg addling and hunting, which have all been considered as wildlife "management" schemes.

16 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

1990s In 1991, FoA accepted more than 50 U.S. military surplus patrol vehicles and significant quantities of radio and field equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense for refurbishing and distribution among wildlife conservation agencies of 10 African countries to bolster anti-poaching patrols.

In 1996, FoA delivered a Zenair airplane to Ghana Wildlife Service for anti-poaching patrols; trained pilots and provided spare parts.

FoA’s 1992 tourism boycott of Alaska prompted the state to end its official wolf control program. We also ended coyote killing efforts in a Northwest National Wildlife Refuge, and contributed to the successful effort that opposed and prevented oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

2000 In 2005, FoA wrote and published its first vegan cookbook.

In 2006, FoA and others sued the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of Interior on the grounds that the Service unlawfully exempted U.S.-bred scimitar-horned oryx, addax, and dama gazelles from prohibitions against harming, harassing, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing, or collecting endangered species.

FoA won the case in 2009. The Court ruled that FWS violated the ESA by issuing a blanket exemption allowing trophy hunting at U.S. ranches of endangered African antelopes and required ranchers to obtain permits.

In 2007, FoA halted the state of Alaska’s wolf bounty program through successful litigation.

From Left: Friends of Animals anti-fur ad campaigns in NYC throughout the decades. Actor Kevin Nealon speaks at an FoA fur-free Friday event in NYC. Fur-free Friday march in 1994 in NYC sponsored

by Friends of Animals targeting designers who use fur. One of FoA’s anti-fur buttons.

2010-PRESENT In July of 2014, the first shark species was listed under the Endangered Species Act in response to a 2011 petition by Friends of Animals. The National Marine Fisheries Service listed four populations of scalloped hammerhead shark under the ESA because of severe threats posed by human exploitation.

In 2015 FoA drafted Cecil’s Law, which would ban the importation, sale, possession and transportation of African elephants, lions, leopards, and black and white rhinos and their body parts. The legislation has been introduced in Connecticut and New York.

Friends of Animals' successful litigation for wild horses in 2015, 2016 and 2017 is notable: FoA halted a 5-year fertility control program

targeting Nevada's Rocky Hill herd; prevented the gruesome wild mare sterilization research project in Oregon; stopped Wyoming’s anti-wild horse agenda; protected Montana’s beloved Pryor Mountain Herd from future assault; stopped the forced drugging of Nevada’s Pine Nut Herd with fertility control, twice; and helped ensure Arizona’s Salt River wild horses remain free.

On Nov. 28, 2016, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Swan Bill—created with input from Friends of Animals and ornithologists—which was created to save the state’s 2,200 mute swans from a government-sanctioned death sentence.

In March of 2017, thanks to FoA's legal intervention, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2014

decision by a federal district judge in Utah that sought to strip the Utah prairie dog of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Not only did this outcome protect Utah's prairie dogs, it prevented anti-wildlife, pro-property plaintiffs from destroying the ESA.

Summer 2017 | 17

IN RETROSPECT

The evolution of FoA’s

WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM

ILLUSTRATION BY LEAH TINARI

COMPILED BY NICOLE RIVARD

Director Michael Harris discusses its trailblazing work.

FOR MANY YEARS YOUR WORK WAS FOCUSED ON TRADITIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES. SO, WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO TYPES OF LITIGATION FRIENDS OF ANIMALS WAS WILLING TO PURSUE?

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efore I joined Friends of Animals (FoA) full time in 2013, I considered myself pretty much an expert in most aspects of wildlife protection in the United States. Indeed, since my days as a student at Pitzer College in the 1990s, I have been part of the fight to protect our natural world from reckless human economic development. After I went to law school, I spent more than 13 years working on legal cases to protect wildlife, representing some of the largest and best known environmental organizations in the United States. Like most of my colleagues at the time, I approached my work with a precise perspective. Namely, that the best way to protect wildlife was to focus on saving specific places and habitats. Outside of concern that a specific animal might die, I rarely, if ever, spent much time considering my work from the viewpoint of the animals living in those places.

That all changed in 2008 when I became the director of the environmental law clinic at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law and inherited Friends of Animals as a client. The clinic had been representing FoA on two cases at the time I was hired by the university. The first was a lawsuit seeking legal protections for 13 species of macaws and parrots to prevent these birds from being imported into the United States as pets. The second was a lawsuit to eliminate the sport-hunting of captive addax, Dama gazelle and scimitar-horned oryx on private ranches in Texas.

At first blush, these two cases were not significantly different from my work in the past. Both involved the federal Endangered Species Act and all the species involved were clearly endangered because of reckless human destruction of habitat. But while the legal work was the same, the client clearly was not. FoA was the first organization I had encountered that sought to use the law, not just to protect animals from harm, but to advance an animals’ rights to live his or her life without human interference. I quickly learned that FoA and its staff is obsessively dedicated to this principle.

For example, while FoA undoubtedly desired to prevent the destruction of macaw and parrot habitat in their native lands, of equal motivation was the belief

that each individual bird imported to the United States did not deserve to be ripped away from her home, family and life to be subjected to life-long, involuntary servitude as a pet. Likewise, while seeking legal protection for captive antelope in Texas would not directly improve the extremely degraded habitat of these species in Africa, it would hopefully prevent humans from forcing such animals, and others, into captivity in the future to satisfy the blood-cravings of hunters.

As someone who had dedicated his career to environmental issues, this was a fascinating, and motivating, perspective to discover. It did not take me long to realize the potential FoA’s work had to change the direction of environmental law. Under the current system, wildlife protection is all about compromise—we will develop so many acres of a specific habitat to save this many acres more. Over time, these compromises multiple in number, to the point that the “saved” habitat becomes fragmented and unable to support the creatures that once depended on it. But if we instead acknowledged the rights of the individual animals, would it not become more difficult to justify compromising their lives for our comforts and needs?

WAS THIS YOUR MOTIVATION FOR WANTING TO LAUNCH THE WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM AT FRIENDS OF ANIMALS IN 2013?

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bsolutely. It became clear to me that “animal activists” had often failed to fully utilize the large array of local, state, federal and international environmental laws to protect the rights of animals to live free from human interference. At the same time “environmental activists” often utilize these laws, but do so to achieve broad environmental objectives that may not always protect the rights of free-living animals. Thus, I worked with FoA’s President Priscilla Feral to create a program to utilize the law for a singular purpose: to ensure the right of all wildlife to live in an ecosystem free from human manipulation, exploitation or abuse.

In carrying out this work, we try our best to not purport to know what is best for any wild animal. Instead, we only seek to be a surrogate for these creatures in the human-controlled courtrooms and legislatures around the world where humans too often make horrific judgments about the fate of wild animals.

Summer 2017 | 19

WHAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

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how to best reform existing wildlife laws and policies to ensure that needs of individual animals are adequately protected. In this regard, we are very excited about our newest project to help establish a right to ethical consideration for wild animals (see page 30).

Currently, the law only seeks to minimize the actual physical suffering or death of an animal, or loss of an animal’s habitat, when approving a human activity.

Increasingly, however, we know both scientifically and philosophically that our impact on animals can be more than just physical. As Professor Martha Nussbaum would explain it, our current legal system far too often fails to

rom the standpoint of winning legal cases in the courts, the program has clearly been most successful in protecting wild horses in the American west.

Since we first entered this area of public lands management, we have had victories that have prevented the roundup and removal of thousands of horses in Nevada, Wyoming and Montana. We also have several cases currently before judges that might protect many more horses in the next few years. I think it is beyond dispute the FoA has had more success in preventing these roundups and forcing BLM to comply with laws like the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act than any other advocacy organization.

However, for me our greatest successes so far have not simply been court victories. It is how our work is rapidly transforming the focus of wildlife policy. For example, and this is closely related to our wild horse work, many advocates have begun to believe that the best means of conserving certain species Above: Mike Harris, director of FoA's Wildlife Law Program, and Jennifer Best, associate attorney, talk outside U.S. District Court Brooklyn Courthouse in March of 2014 is to tolerate a certain level of human after arguing on behalf of snowy owls and other bird species illegally being shot by management. It is hard, however, wildlife agencies at and near John. F. Kennedy Airport in New York. to reconcile any significant level of human management with the desire to allow certain animals to live free and wild. Any system respect species-specific, basic capacities: life, bodily of wildlife law that would control where an animal may health, bodily integrity, play, sense/imagination/thought, live, whom she may live with, where she can go, and when emotion, practical reason, affiliation, and control over she can reproduce is not only wrong ethically, it is a prac- one’s environment.

The right to ethical consideration we seek is not the tical failure. It is because of our aggressive work that these simple truths have not been completely lost in the policy granting of specific substantive rights to animals, like the right to life, freedom, etc. It is, however, a pathway to debate. strengthening legal protections for animals. By requiring decision-makers and others to maintain a dialogue about WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT GOING FORWARD? the human impact on animal well-being it is believed that societal and legal beliefs regarding the rights of other ur first three years as a program was all about animals will change for the better. establishing ourselves. We were very active in filing cases and carving out specific areas of work. I feel we have done that very well. Our next phase as a program is to develop a consistent philosophy on

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20 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

FRIENDS OF ANIMALS PROVIDES VOICE FOR WILDLIFE AT

PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH WE RESIST. WE REBUILD. WE RISE. That was the message of the more than 200,000+ people who descended upon Washington DC, on April 29, the 100th day of Trump’s presidency, in a powerful demonstration of unity for climate action.

Recognizing that the new administration has already taken actions to weaken environmental protections of air and water, and to enable fossil fuel exploitation on public lands and in waters, Friends of Animals was compelled to provide a voice for animals and to demonstrate we plan to fight harder than ever for their protection.

Friends of Animals decided to become a partner in the People’s Climate March because our Wildlife Law Program places wildlife and critical habitat at the center of our advocacy, and we know that climate change is altering key habitat elements that are critical to wildlife's survival while putting natural resources in jeopardy overall. Species may not be able to adapt to this rapid climate change or to move fast enough to more suitable areas as their current areas become less suitable for them.

It inspired us to see so many take

to the streets in D.C. to speak up for our planet and all the creatures we share it with. We were among the demonstrators who braved temperatures above the 90s to march from the Capitol building down Pennsylvania Avenue, chanting phrases like “The oceans are rising and so are we,” "water is life," and "keep it in the soil, can't drink oil!" before surrounding the White House complex and staging a choreographed sit-in, some beating their chests 100 times to symbolize both the president's time in office and the heartbeat of the environmental movement. The movement stretched far beyond Washington, however, with sister climate marches also held in Denver, Chicago and San Francisco and around the world, including London and Lisbon, Portugal.

Unless significant action is taken now, global warming will likely become the single most important factor to affect wildlife since the emergence of humankind. There is no Planet B, so please continue to support Friends of Animals so we can ensure a safe future for human and non-human animals alike.

BY MEG MCINTIRE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLE RIVARD

Spring 2017 | 21

10 THINGS YOU CAN DO NOW TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE WANT TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON IMPACT? HERE’S HOW:

1

CUTBACK ON YOUR WASTE Garbage buried in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Keep stuff out of landfills by composting kitchen scraps and garden trimmings, and recycling paper, plastic, metal and glass. Let store managers and manufacturers know you want products with minimal or recyclable packaging.

2

CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT TRANSPORTATION Walk or bike whenever possible. Not only will you reduce your carbon footprint, but your overall level of health will improve and you will save money on parking and gasoline. Take public transit or carpool whenever possible. When purchasing a vehicle look for one with better mileage. Increase your fuel economy when driving by sticking to posted speed limits and avoiding rapid acceleration and excessive braking. Plan and combine trips and errands.

Left: FoA staff members Meg McIntire, left, and Nicole Rivard, flank the Muppet’s Beaker character who was spreading the message that “science has our back.” Below: Longtime FoA member P. Elizabeth Anderson also marched for the animals.

3

MAKE EVERY DROP COUNT Conserve water by fixing drips and leaks, and by installing low-flow shower heads and toilets. Challenge yourself to a speed shower. Turn off water while brushing teeth or shaving. Water conservation results in reduced energy requirements and carbon emissions.

4

SWITCH TO "GREEN POWER" Research where your power is coming from—wind, water, coal, or solar—and talk to your power provider to determine if a greater percentage could be coming from renewable resources. Encourage power providers to switch to green power and, if possible and/or economically viable, switch to a company offering power from renewable resources.

5

THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE PLANTING When gardening, select native plants that are well suited to your climate and require minimal watering and attention. Better yet, plant a tree, and it will provide shade and soak up carbon from the atmosphere.

6

ADOPT A PLANT-BASED LIFESTYLE Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath. We recommend adopting a plant-based lifestyle.

7

REPURPOSE Rather than discarding or recycling clothing and household goods, give them a chance at a second life by donating them to charity or exchanging with friends and family. Through repurposing, the amount of waste being sent to landfill sites is reduced, there is no need to use energy for recycling, and others can benefit from your used items.

8

STOP CUTTING DOWN TREES Every year, 33 million acres of forests are cut down.

Timber harvesting in the tropics contributes 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere.

That represents 20 percent of human-made greenhouse gas emissions that could be avoided. And when purchasing wood products buy used goods or, failing that, wood certified to have been sustainably harvested. The Amazon and other forests are not just the lungs of the earth, they may be humanity's best short-term hope for limiting climate change.

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GET INVOLVED Take a few minutes to contact your political representatives and the media to tell them you want immediate action on climate change. Remind them that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will also build healthier communities, spur economic innovation and create new jobs. And next time you're at the polls, vote for politicians who support effective climate policy.

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SUPPORT AND DONATE Please consider becoming a member of Friends of Animals and helping us mitigate the disastrous effects of climate change on our environment and the wildlife who rely on it. Join us on social media and sign up for our email alerts so you can learn how to take action. For more information visit friendsofanimals.org or mail in your donation today by using the envelope included in this magazine.

Summer 2017 | 23

Cinnamon Snail

took fast track to greatness...

AND SAVING THE PLANET

BY DUSTIN RHODES. PHOTOGRAPH BY JANE SEYMOUR

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

-Harriet Van Horne 24 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

“We don’t have time to take baby steps,” says Adam Sobel, the head chef and founder of The Cinnamon Snail—the country’s first all-organic and vegan food truck and now restaurant located at The Pennsy in New York City.

Sobel is referring to the crisis that the earth finds itself in due to animal agriculture, human overpopulation, pollution and our wanton disregard for planet Earth. So Sobel did something profound—a favor to humankind: He learned how to cook unbelievably good vegan food.

Scientists everywhere agree: Cutting out meat from our diets is the single best thing we can do for the planet, animals and our health. But a lot of people still need to be convinced that it’s a delicious way to live.

Genius is one of those words—like “awesome”—that shouldn’t be thrown around with abandon. It should mean something. But Adam Sobel—thousands of his fans will back me up on this—is a culinary genius.

He understands the alchemy of fresh herbs, spices and ingredients from the plant kingdom. What he creates is, without a trace of hyperbole, magic. There’s a reason Friends of Animals asked Sobel to cater its 60th anniversary party in July—because the food is, well, awesome.

Cinnamon Snail was launched on the holiday of love—Valentine’s Day—in 2010, as an expression of love for all animals. Sobel had been

working in vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants for a dozen years prior to launching Cinnamon Snail, but he felt like the clientele was already vegan or vegan friendly.

Sobel wanted the challenge of making people who weren’t living a plant-based lifestyle fall in love with vegan cuisine. He had the idea that healthy, crave-worthy vegan food needed to be taken to the streets, so people could, as Sobel puts it, “connect the dots for themselves.” Sobel knew that the key to converting the masses was making it easy for them to experience delicious food.

“Once you eat vegan food that is in fact even yummier, and leaves you feeling better than non-vegan food, it becomes very hard to justify continuing to consume animals,” he said.

Countless people have opened a vegan restaurant, with varying degrees of success. No doubt there are now world-class vegan restaurants all over the world. But what makes Cinnamon Snail stand out and triumph is its bold flavors and hybrid menu that is comfort-cuisine-meets-good-for-you.

Inspired by Vietnamese, Thai, Indian and other traditional cuisines from around the world, items on the menu fill you up while nourishing the body. There are things like miso teriyaki grilled tofu with roasted Brussels sprouts, black sesame gomasio, arugula, and wasabi mayo on a toasted pretzel bun and Thanksgiving Sandoo (porcini mushroom seitan and parsnip sage bread pudding, with cranberry orange relish, marinated kale, and roasted garlic aioli on toasted baguette). And so much more.

And then there are the desserts, which no one claims are good for you (unless you count emotionally good for you in which case unbridled joy is an immediate result), that include delicate pastries, moist cakes and the doughnuts Cinnamon Snail are

known for throughout New York City.

Never, ever go to New York City without getting a doughnut from Cinnamon Snail.

Sobel published a cookbook in 2015 called Street Vegan, which I naturally purchased the day it came out.

Not only is it beautiful and full of inspirational recipes, but it does something very rare for a chef of increasing prominence: It gives away most of the Cinnamon Snail’s secrets. So in your own kitchen you can recreate recipes for most of the food Sobel is known for—including the doughnuts.

The most important thing I learned is that umboshi plum vinegar is a magic elixir that makes everything taste better. I also learned that making doughnuts is time-consuming and tedious and that it’s much more fun to buy them rather than make them.

But I live 694.8 miles from Cinnamon Snail, so, sometimes, I have to get in the kitchen, get dirty, make dough and do some tedious work, because—trust me on this—this food is worth it.

Below: Cinnamon Snail owner Adam Sobel outside The Pennsy location

Cinnamon Snail at The Pennsy: On the corner of 33rd street & 7th avenue in Manhattan—convenient for folks visiting Madison Square Garden, and Amtrack, NJ Transit, and LIRR commuters. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. seven days a week. Visit their Facebook page for info about the food trucks.

Summer 2017 | 25

BY NICOLE RIVARD

IN RETROSPECT

FoA to ‘Saddest show on earth’: Goodbye and good riddance

THE DEMISE OF RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS I

t’s been 25 years since Friends of Animals received a diary transcript from a young man who worked for many years as a crew member of a large travelling circus and printed it in Action Line.

The diary was riddled with Animal Welfare Act violations—from depriving animals of food and water and elephants being badly beaten to injured animals being forced to perform.

“The people here have become so callous,” he wrote. “Animal abuse is a daily occurrence and no one think’s it’s unusual! They have come to accept the idea that the animals’ well-being is secondary to the performance. I’m sorry to leave. But I don’t want to become like them. So maybe the best thing I can do for these animals is to walk away now and tell my story.”

26 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

Lifting the veil on what’s wrong with imprisoning animals in circuses for entertainment so the public could become outraged by such exploitation was the best thing that young man could have done for those animals.

His actions were consistent with the fabric of Friends of Animals, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. We have never defined success simply by lawsuits won or lost. Success also comes in raising awareness, and not watering down principles, while inspiring social movements.

And nothing reflects FoA’s substance and ability to win the public on our view of a problem and solution than the demise of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which shuttered its doors in May, citing declining

attendance, changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups as contributors to its termination.

We are fortified by this victory, however, we know there’s more work to be done because there are still other circuses in business.

“We think this reflects a change in what people view as family entertainment,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals. “This change is one we had been fighting for for decades. It’s gratifying and proves once again public backlash matters.”

AN UPHILL BATTLE In Connecticut, FoA had its work cut out for it over the last few decades in terms of putting Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus out of busi-

ness, as one of its co-founders, P.T. Barnum, was born in Bethel, Conn. and later made nearby Bridgeport his home. He donated land for city parks, served as mayor and even sheltered the animals there in the winter.

Just a short drive from FoA’s headquarters in Darien, the P.T. Barnum Museum still pays homage to the man it claims created the “Greatest Show on Earth.”

The museum’s executive director even mourned the announcement that the Ringling Bros. would close its tent doors for good in May 2017 in a blog post: “No matter what year or moment in time, the nature of humankind is to be curious, explore, learn and advance our lives. We all pursue joy and well-being for ourselves, for our children and grandchildren, and we know that it is our divine right to be happy. P.T Barnum acknowledged ‘happiness’ as his sole purpose and even said, ‘The noblest art is that of making others happy.’”

FoA sees nothing noble in making human animals happy if doing so means exploiting non-human animals and causing them to suffer. That’s why every time Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to Bridgeport, our members and supporters peacefully protested (similar efforts were duplicated in other states as well.)

Members and supporters were armed with signs and our “Ringling and Reality” brochures, which dispelled all the myths the Ringling Bros.’ marketing team perpetuated, like trainers and animals have a wonderful relationship, tricks are based on natural behaviors and the captive breeding program is essential to the survival of the Asian elephant species.

One FoA staff member recalled that there was no escaping the organization’s signs and messages. People always stopped to read them and asked for information. Using a megaphone, FoA pointed out the inaccura-

cies of everything the circus program sellers shouted out to the public.

Staff and supporters were bolstered by hearing things like “I hadn’t thought of it that way”; “I didn’t know”; and “I won’t come back next year.”

FoA also took out ads in newspapers depicting elephants exploited by the “Saddest Show on Earth.” And beyond protests and leafleting, FoA encouraged the public to boycott sponsors of the circus and asked charitable organizations not to back the circus with fundraisers. In Bridgeport, FoA even took the Board of Education to task for letting Ringling Bros. make the circus part of the school district’s curriculum.

OUR WORK MUST GO ON Circuses such as the Garden Bros., Universoul and Shrine, as well as many others, continue to do business and deny wild animals the ability to express their natural behaviors such as having extended social groups and living on

large territories. Like Ringling Bros., the remaining circus environments cannot provide for normal social groupings, which includes things like young elephants not leaving their mothers' side for eight years, and the presence of male elephants, who are too dangerous to use in circuses.

And animals in the remaining circuses still perform through various forms of coercion. No free-living animal performs such choreographed stunts for human onlookers naturally.

From tigers jumping through flaming hoops to elephants dressed up like Vegas dancers, animals caught or purposely bred for circuses live highly unnatural scenarios rather than the lives of freedom they ought to be leading. Some circuses greenwash what they do by claiming to breed endangered species. Generally, they ignore the key point of animal rights: Life matters, but freedom matters just as much.

The good news is that cities and towns like Stamford, Conn.; San Francisco; West Hollywood; Ketchum, Idaho; Quincy, Mass., Greenburgh, N.Y., and Plattsburgh, N.Y., as well as several others, have taken matters into their own hands by passing ordinances prohibiting the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows and circuses.

In the media last year, Plattsburgh, N.Y., city council members credited FoA’s anti-circus demonstrations and education for playing a role in their decision to pass a resolution banning the use of city facilities for

captive-animal performances.

New York City is currently considering a ban, and FoA testified at a public hearing in October 2016 in support of the legislation. What truly uplifted FoA was listening to youngsters testifying that they don’t want to see wild animals in circuses. Six-yearold Charlotte Moore told legislators that some animals just don’t belong in circuses. “I really want to get rid of them,” she said. “They treat them

badly and they have to be without their families.”

And most recently Delaware, Ohio, banned wild and exotic animals in circuses because of public backlash.

A local resident and a group of likeminded friends gathered more than 1,000 petition signatures opposing the Florida-based Circus Pages Circus from coming to town and presented them to the Delaware City Council.

“This was really driven by the people coming to council,” Darren Shulman, the city’s law director, told the media. “I also think it’s a little bit of an end of an era and people thinking differently about animals.”

And that has been Friends of Animals’ goal all along—for people to

no longer tolerate or consider acceptable the purposeless exploitation of animals for amusement.

If the show must go on, let it do so with human animal performers who are willing participants.

Goodbye and good riddance, Ringling Bros.

Clockwise From Top Left: Behind-thescenes horrors of circus life for elephants.

In 1993, FoA protests Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Previous Page: FoA's staff members protest the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Circus in Norwalk, Conn.

They also documented the living conditions of the travelling circus, and how it denied lions and other wild animals the ability to express their natural behavior.

TAKE ACTION Boycott circuses featuring animal acts and instead support cruelty-free circuses that only have human performers like Cirque du Soleil and Circus Smirkus.

special interests. Be persistent. Born Free has a model ordinance that you can share with your state legislators. Visit www.bornfreeusa.org.

Start a local ban in your community. Any piece of legislation that will ban circuses from coming to your town or city should be pursued. While the circus community has a strong lobby, public opinion can outweigh

Educate others as to what is really occurring under the big tent Encourage children to appreciate and respect animals instead of telling them that animals are here for us to manipulate (see sidebar)

28 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

BEYOND THE BIG TOP: FAMILY TIME THAT RESPECTS ANIMALS COMPILED BY NICOLE RIVARD

"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it is to the caterpillar."

general public or in limited ways, often offer tours for members or offer interactions with animals at different special events. Catskill actually offers Camp Kindness for kids, an educational opportunity for children that fosters compassion towards all living beings, with a focus on farmed animals. Camp Kindness includes a delicious vegan lunch and snack. (The sanctuary even offers vegan cooking classes.)

—Bradley Miller Friends of Animals is often asked by parents looking for activities for their kids about how they can raise children who respect animals, wild and domestic. We hope you consider our suggestions: •

•

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Today we are lucky to have technology that has the ability to transport children to animals of the land and sea in their native habitats in breathtaking, educational ways. Zoos teach children to view animals as a form of entertainment, unlike a nature show on TV or in the theater that films animals in the wild. Digital IMAX documentaries in particular have become stunning and inspiring, and you can’t help leave feeling awe and respect for wild animals and with a mindset about the need to help conserve their habitats. The good news is IMAX has grown from 299 screens worldwide at the end of 2007 to more than 1,102 screens in 2016. We love PBS’ “Nature” series, which has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards in 2016, and the BBC America’s Planet Earth and Planet Earth II series are awe-inspiring.

Unlike zoos and circuses, wildlife watching in state and national parks is another great way to better understand and appreciate animals in their own habitat. You can observe animals in their homes and on their terms from a distance. For marine life lovers, there is an underwater sea park in the U.S. called John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Florida.

Support and become a member of a sanctuary in your area, such as Catskill Animal Sanctuary in New York. Sanctuaries, which are typically not open to the

•

Throw an animal-themed birthday party and instead of asking guests to bring gifts ask them to bring a monetary donation or an enrichment item for an animal advocacy group, sanctuary or animal shelter in your area (call the sanctuary or animal shelter and see what they are in need of).

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Encourage kids to volunteer at an animal shelter. In Missouri, the Shelter Buddies Reading Program was designed to help shelter dogs become more adoptable. Reading to the dogs helps to bring comfort to and reduce the anxiety of shelter pets, and it nurtures empathy in children. Participants sit outside of the dog's kennel and read to them.

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As a family, create a yard that is hospitable to wildlife. Build birdhouses, bat boxes or butterfly boxes.

Encourage kids to create piles of leaves or sticks for chipmunks and squirrels. Plant a hummingbird garden.

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Read kids’ books that show animals as feeling individuals. A few examples for teaching empathy are Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web, Hobbes Goes Home, A Kid’s Best Friend and The Forgotten Rabbit.

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Foster an animal. If your family loves animals but isn’t ready commit to having a full-time pet, fostering is a great way to teach kids the meaning of volunteerism and helping others in need. And if youbecome ready for a lifelong commitment to a pet, adopt, don’t shop.

Summer 2017 | 29

FOA’S NEXT CHAPTER:

Renowned scholar and philosopher Martha Nussbaum

An ethical revolution for animals

BY NICOLE RIVARD

R

enowned scholar and philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum believes that when it comes to animals, the world needs an ethical revolution, “a consciousness raising movement of truly international proportions,” as she puts it.

Friends of Animals couldn’t agree more.

That’s why we are elated about our new program, the Right to Ethical Consideration Project, made possible with support from Nussbaum.

The goal of this pioneering project is to establish standing for non-human animals in the eyes of the law and a right to ethical consideration for all animals.

Legal standing, by definition, is a person’s right or ability to sue. For a "person" under the law to have standing it must prove three things: that you have been "injured," that the injury was caused by the action of the

defendant for which you are suing, and that the court has the ability to redress the injury to you with a favorable decision.

Unfortunately for non-human animals, to have standing you must be a "person" — although, shockingly, this hasn’t stopped some corporations from being granted legal personhood status.

“So far, both in the United States and in the international community, law has been lagging behind the evolving ethical consciousness of humanity. Animals still lack standing under both U. S. and international law. They also lack any rights of ethical consideration,” Nussbaum said. “All human animals are treated as persons and ends (no matter how immature the human is), but all non-human animals are treated as mere things, as property. Law must find ways to make animals legal subjects and not mere objects. We need to move toward a

world in which human beings are truly friends of animals, not exploiters or users.”

Some anti-cruelty laws exist, of course, however outside of these specific protections it is unlikely for animals to get their day in court, no matter how bad they are abused or exploited.

“To make progress, we need theoretical approaches that are sound in terms of reality, grappling with what we know about animals, and that also direct law in a useful fashion,” Nussbaum said.

For Nussbaum, the best approach is her version of the capabilities approach, a view of justice for humans and other animals she has developed over the years that truly takes into consideration the diversity of nature and an appreciation for its many distinctive life forms.

Nussbaum’s new theory of justice advocating the capabilities approach

Summer 2017 | 31

was recognized in 2016 when she was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy.” The honor, bestowed annually by Japan’s Inamori Foundation but given only once every four years in the sub-category of thought and ethics, is among the most significant international accolades for scholarly work.

Nussbaum felt compelled to donate part of the cash award from the Kyoto Prize to Friends of Animals.

“I decided to support the Wildlife Law Program because I think that Friends of Animals is the most exciting animal welfare organization around, exploring new ideas and new frameworks for thinking about the ethical treatment of animals,” she said. “The Right to Ethical Consideration Project is brilliantly innovative, and promises real progress in both ethics and law. FoA's work thinks of animals not as quasi-humans but as worthy of respect and consideration for their own complex forms of life.

“I feel hopeful that judges will recognize this revolutionary approach, because it corresponds to reality. Anyone who looks at animal lives closely sees that there is wonder and dignity there, worthy of ethical consideration, because of the many unique ways animal species strive for flourishing lives.”

A NEW FRONTIER IN ANIMAL LAW The Right to Ethical Consideration Project, overseen by Friends of Animals’ Wildlife Law Program, will combine Nussbaum’s philosophical component with scientific and legal components in papers, presentations and litigation. In doing so, the goal is to establish tactics that are superior in directing ethical attention and legal

32 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

strategy than past approaches, creating a new frontier in animal law.

“Application of Martha’s work is revolutionary for animal lawyers.

Many animal rights lawyers often start with the premise that animals, like humans, have autonomy and that to protect such autonomy animals should be given some of the legal protections and privileges normally associated with humans,” said Mike Harris, director of Friends of Animal’s Wildlife Law Program.

“But not everyone, and certainly not Martha, is convinced that legal rights for animals rests in showing their autonomy, which often sounds shorthand for intelligence.”

Harris explains that the term autonomy has not been well-defined and has many different meanings depending on the philosophical approach one chooses to consider or apply. More practically, judges have demanded that animal lawyers show more than autonomy as a basis for granting primates and other animals the legal status of personhood. They also have demanded that lawyers demonstrate that primates could take an active role in fulling the “rights and duties” of citizenship within a society.

“Thus, what is intriguing about Martha’s approach is the ability to now argue that fulfilling ‘rights and duties’ of citizenship is not the proper basis for determining personhood; instead it is the ability of an animal to lead a meaningful life and even enrich the lives of other animals around him or her,” Harris said.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CAPABILITIES APPROACH The capabilities approach is a theoretical framework that entails two core normative claims: first, the claim

that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance, and second, that freedom to achieve well-being is to be understood in terms of people's capabilities, that is, their real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value.

“It was developed using materials drawn from Aristotle, who advocated that we seek what is shared among all animals and seek a ‘common explanation’ for the self-maintaining and self-reproducing striving that characterizes all animal lives. So it is not surprising that it proved easy to extend it to the lives of animals,” Nussbaum said. “The capabilities approach argues that the right thing to focus on, when asking how well a group of humans (or a nation) is doing, is to look not at average utility, and not simply at opulence (GDP per capita), but, rather, at what people are actually able to do and to be.”

Nussbaum’s proposed list of 10 capabilities that must be secured to a minimum threshold level, if a nation is to have any claim to justice: life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, imagination and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; and play and control over one’s environment.

She has also urged adopting a similar list of capabilities as ethical goals for all animals. In the human case she justifies the list by arguing that these opportunities are inherent in the notion of a life worthy of human dignity. She then argues that dignity belongs to other animals as well: all are worthy of lives commensurate with the many types of dignity inherent in their many forms of life.

“All animals, in short, should have a shot at flourishing in their own way,” Nussbaum said.

“The list seems to be a good guide, which can then be specified further for each animal after a study of its form of life. If the human list is a template for constitution-making, so too is the list for each animal species: it’s a written basis for an unwritten constitution for that species. It tells us the right things to look for, the right questions to ask.”

WHY THE CAPABILITIES APPROACH WORKS BETTER FoA’s new project kicked off on Jan. 30, 2017, with an event we sponsored along with the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at the University of Denver that included a lecture and panel discussion with Nussbaum. She made the case that other influential approaches to animal entitlements in philosophy, which have implications for law and policy, are defective intellectually and in terms of strategy.

First she took on the “so like us” approach of Steven Wise. In this approach law seeks recognition of legal personhood, and some autonomy rights, for a specific set of animal

species, on the grounds of their human-like capacities.

It’s problematic for Nussbaum, because it validates and plays upon the old familiar idea of a scala naturae, or ladder of nature, with humans at the top. “Some animals get in, but only because they are like us. The first door is opened, but then it is slammed shut behind us: nobody else gets in. Instead of the old line, we have a slightly different line, but it is not really all that different, and most of the animal world still lies outside in the dark domain of mere ‘thinghood,’ Nussbaum said.

“Anthropocentrism is a phony sort of arrogance. How great we are! If only all creatures were like us...well, some are, a little bit. Rather than unsettling our thinking in a way that might truly lead to a revolutionary embrace of animal lives, Wise just keeps the old thinking and the old line in place, and simply shifts several species to the other side.”

In terms of the least common denominator approach, the question is not, “Can animals reason?” but, “Can they suffer?” While this is valuable because it points to something clearly relevant to animals themselves, and a salient fact about their lives, for Nussbaum it doesn’t go far enough.

“Unfortunately, there is no room for the special value of free movement, of companionship and relationships with other members of one’s kind, of sensory stimulation, of a pleasing and suitable habitat.

Like Wise’s approach it refuses to consider fully, and positively value, the many complex forms of life that animals actually lead. Pleasure and pain simply are not the only relevant issues when evaluating an animal’s chances to flourish," Nussbaum said.

A HAPPY HARBINGER—ONE STEP CLOSER TO LEGAL STANDING In July 2016, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U. S. Navy violated the law in seeking to continue a sonar program that impacted the behavior of whales.

Nussbaum called this decision “remarkable.”

“I think the sonar case was significant, because it did not try to assimilate whales to humans, and it also did not make the opposite error, of thinking that only pain matters. The argument relies heavily on a consideration of whale capabilities that the program disrupts: disruption of breeding patterns, feeding and migration,” Nussbaum said. “That disruption, whether or not accompanied by pain, was considered ethically significant. Whether those judges were whale watchers or not, they showed an informed sensitivity to the whale form of life, and ruled that whales ought to have the opportunity to carry out their characteristic form of life— even when the other side raised issues of national security.

“The opinion does not give whales standing; no such radical move is necessary to reach the clear result that the program is unacceptable. But it does recognize whales as beings with a complex and active form of life that includes emotional well-being, affiliation, and free movement: in short, a variety of species-specific forms of agency. It is a harbinger, it is to be hoped, of a new era in the law of animal welfare.”

Summer 2017 | 33

IN RETROSPECT

FOA IS A LEADER IN BATTLING PET HOMELESSNESS, ONE ANIMAL AT A TIME

BY MEG MCINTIRE

M

arie Samperi, of The Poor Animals of St. Francis, describes her purpose in life as being an advocate for homeless and unwanted animals in NYC. "Tears come to my eyes when I think of all the animals being born with no good homes to go to," she explains. "However if it were not for Friends of Animals, there would be so many more. Friends of Animals has been a God send to me and the people of New York."

Friends of Animals has been fortunate enough to work with compassionate animal advocates like Marie since our beginnings in 1957 to further our mission of ending pet homelessness.

The Poor Animals of St. Francis was established to provide responsible, permanent, loving homes to healthy pets and to maintain their health and well-being through vital procedures like spaying and neutering.

One of our proudest achievements is that we have been a national leader in spay and neuter advocacy with our low-cost certificate program, which helps pet owners afford life-saving spay and neuter procedures. To date, we've helped facilitate more than 2.7 million spay and neuter procedures across the country which has resulted in fewer unwanted cats and dogs filling already overcrowded shelters. “Friends of Animals performed miracles reaching out to vets to spay and neuter for such affordable prices,�

Samperi said.

34 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

As Samperi and many other animal advocates know, it is all too often a pet's unplanned pregnancy results in offspring being brought to shelters, where likelihood of euthanasia is high, or abandoned on the streets, where a dangerous life and early death are practically guaranteed. Most abandoned animals starve or freeze to death, contract disease through their contact with garbage or

"FRIENDS OF ANIMALS HAS BEEN A GOD SEND TO ME AND THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK." other ill animals, or get killed by a car. The best way to prevent these senseless cruelties is to prevent the cycle of reproduction, by neutering and spaying.

We have been fortunate enough to partner with a number of animal shelters and rescue organizations throughout the United States through our spay/neuter program and have highlighted a few of our favorites who are located near our headquarters in Connecticut.

If you would like to learn more about our spay and neuter program or recommend our program to a veterinarian, please visit our website at www.FriendsofAnimals. org/programs/spaying-neutering

LONG ISLAND BULLDOG RESCUE This is a rescue group that is particularly near and dear to us. The mission of Long Island Bulldog Rescue (LIBR) is to provide education, prevention, intervention and adoption services to ensure that all English Bulldogs enjoy long, healthy lives in loving, safe, appropriate homes where they are provided the life-long care they require.

Some of the great outreach programs they participate in include humane education for school-age youth, so children learn the practices involved in adding to the family by adopting an English Bulldog; conducting intake services to process and receive English Bulldogs that have been abused, abandoned at shelters, or released for adoption by owners who are unable to keep them; and providing foster care for English Bulldogs seeking permanent homes.

MAYOR’S ALLIANCE OF NYC The Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals is a non-profit that works with more than 150 partner rescue groups and shelters to offer important programs and services that save the lives of NYC's homeless animals. Since its founding in 2003, this group has remained committed to transforming New York City into a community where no dogs or cats of reasonable health and temperament will be killed merely because they do not have homes.

One program we’re particularly fond of is their Wheels of Hope initiative. Every day of the year, the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals' fleet of six Wheels of Hope vans is on the road, transporting pets who are at risk of being euthanized from the city's Animal Care Centers of NYC facilities to rescue groups and no-kill shelters with the resources to find

them new homes. Since 2005, when the program began, they have carried more than 93,000 animals on Wheels of Hope to new lives and families.

CATHOLIC CONCERN FOR ANIMALS Catholic Concern for Animals provides Christian education, research, instruction and teaching concerning animal rights welfare, including the importance and necessity of spaying and neutering cats and dogs, through its publication The Ark. From a small group of laypeople, clergy and religious meeting for the first time in London in 1929, Catholic Concern for Animals has grown into a world-wide non-profit organization with branches in the USA, Australia and Cameroon.

2.7 MILLION Spay and neuter procedures across the country

Summer 2017 | 35

In Celebration of Friends of Animals’ 60th Anniversary!

Congratulations Priscilla Feral and everyone at Friends of Animals for your extraordinary work and for consistently

standing up for the animals!

HFA

The humane Farming associaTion

For information on our campaign to protect animals from cruelty and abuse, please contact: |

|

of Animals 60 YEARS HFA36• Friends PO Box 3577 • San Rafael, CA 94912 • HFA.org

COMPILED BY NICOLE RIVARD AND DUSTIN RHODES

THE HEART OF FRIENDS OF ANIMALS—

OUR MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS

R

evel Miller, 82, a self-described “animal person,” first learned about Friends of Animals (FoA) in the early 1990s from a woman she knew who ran a thrift shop from which the proceeds went to a no-kill animal shelter. Miller figured if that woman belonged to FoA, it had to be a good group.

As fate would have it, Miller was already a member of Primarily Primates, the sanctuary FoA later began managing in 2008.

“I started supporting wildlife sanctuaries because I thought, we have so many people helping dogs and cats, but the ones who are in the biggest trouble are the wildlife.

“I was so thrilled that FoA stepped in and saved Primarily Primates. How is that for two things that you belong to coming together?” Miller said with a laugh.

Friends of Animals’ work to protect wildlife and critical habitat here and abroad has kept Miller a loyal member of the organization. “I’ve stayed a member because the work never stops. With more people in the world, it’s getting worse. People are multiplying like rabbits across the planet.

And then you have climate change. And people just keep on breeding because they don’t use their brains.”

She looks forward to Action Line because it keeps her connected to FoA’s work. Miller decided to send a gift of the magazine to her nephew’s daughter who is currently in college.

“I know she loves animals and I would like to get her involved,” Miller said. “Young people are always on their electronics these days and they never go outside. As a young person I always played outdoors. I feel I’m also an environmentalist because of my love for wildlife. But young people are disconnected from nature. You cannot have a desire to protect nature when you are disconnected from it. That’s a big problem.”

We love that Miller is paying her love of animals and the planet forward. We know that without Miller and other longtime supporters like her we would not be celebrating out 60th anniversary. And thanks to them, we can look forward to the next 60.

To say thank you, we put together this piece featuring a cross section of new members and longtime members who discuss why they decided to join FoA and why they’ve continued their support.

Alan with his dog, Pepper

ALAN ROBERTS, FLORIDA MEMBERS SINCE 1981 I joined Friends of Animals 30 years ago to support its fearless campaign against animal suffering and exploitation.

So many people harbor a great love for animals yet take no action to protect them or get involved in their welfare. FoA is clearly a very active organization that takes on the most difficult battles to fight abuse here in America and all over the world.

Priscilla Feral and her excellent associates have boldly confronted governments when senseless and harmful legislation is proposed at the federal, state and local levels.

With victories in courts, FoA lawyers and staff have saved more animals than we will ever know. Over decades, they have kept exploitation in the headlines and brought out the many horrible secrets of animal torture and death.

FoA has waged campaigns to save the smallest animals such as parakeets and swans to the largest animals such as elephants and giraffes. And don’t forget the dogs, cats, primates, bears, horses, bison, cheetah, wolves, rhino...and, well you get the picture.

Action Line magazine has been an important connection to Friends of Animals as we are updated on current projects and issues. Feral’s In My View editorial is always good reading, as it brings us up to date on what’s going on.

She and the FoA writers are never afraid to address the most sensitive issue and aggressive opponents. Additionally the magazine offers recipes and products we can purchase—I have sent slogan t-shirts to friends.

Summer 2017 | 37

A recent issue of Action Line discussed trophy hunting and FoA actions against bringing back the corpses. Is it actually fun to kill a magnificent animal? Some people think so. Members at FoA cannot imagine it. Is it sport to shoot a moose? How about shooting at close range a feeding bison?

Is it fun and sporting to kill animals brought into contained ranches? The magnificent big horn sheep is to be praised and admired, not slaughtered. Is it rewarding to have dogs chase a mama bear up a tree, then hunters stand below and shoot her with a high-powered rifle? Through their membership, FoA supporters oppose all of this cruel insanity.

FoA promotes the adoption of rescued pets, protection of the environment, the inhumaneness of laboratories and public awareness of everything animal. Priscilla and the FoA staff are driven by an optimism that humans really can make a difference. My own connection has been to renew my membership ever year with a donation and to pass along copies of Action Line.

I have called Priscilla several times over the years to discuss various efforts and she is always most welcoming. I’ve been privileged to travel throughout Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and North America to witness animal life up close in its natural habitat.

Congratulations to FoA on your 60th anniversary from a longtime proud member.

P. ELIZABETH ANDERSON, VIRGINIA MEMBER SINCE 1994 Friends of Animals is one of the first animal advocacy organizations I learned about. I was immediately impressed with its spay-neuter program because I agreed that the most direct way to reduce the number of dogs and cats perishing in shelters was to stem the tide. FoA’s low-cost spay-neuter program was unprecedented, and FoA is still a leader in this area.

Over the years, I have admired the broad scope of FoA’s programs, which focus on crucial ways to improve the lives of nonhuman animals, domestic and wild. I particularly like that FoA walks the talk, first evident to me when they took over management of the Texas sanctuary Primarily Primates. FoA accepted an immense challenge that other organizations found daunting, courageously making a commitment for the long-term care of animals, which was also unprecedented in my experience.

I respect FoA’s decisions and leadership. President Priscilla Feral is no ivory tower leader. FoA is what it is because of her exemplary leadership, but she is not reluctant to grab a bullhorn and join a protest. Her staff shares her passion and is often on the ground facing objectors to protect animals, educate the public and keep members informed.

I love FoA’s public awareness campaigns and other

38 | Friends of Animals | 60 YEARS

P. Elizabeth with her dog, Ginger

programs that educate about the despicable things happening to animals. The “Ban Fur” button is my perennial favorite. I order by the dozen, keep one on every coat and sprinkle them around to bring attention to the vile, unnecessary fur industry. These buttons are just one example of FoA’s clever, creative and unique approaches to the vital work of saving animals and protecting them from cruelty in all its manifestations across the globe.

FoA is perfect to me—authentic, transparent and trustworthy. As I have grown in my animal advocacy awareness, FoA has been right there with information I could trust and a plan I could follow to help animals. I recently began working with abandoned and rescued horses in the southwest, and was thrilled to learn that FoA has been focused on wild horses through its Wildlife Law Program.

We live in dangerous times. Some impending losses may be irrevocable, but I trust FoA to do everything possible for animals and not barter lives or merge with other organizations that do not share my values or approach.

Looking back, I am slightly embarrassed by the paltry donation I made in 1994, but I rectify the slow start with regular contributions and FoA-focused estate planning. It is unlikely, especially in the current political climate that crucial improvements for animals will happen in my lifetime. Consequently, leaving resources for FoA to continue the fight to save animals is comforting. I may not see the changes happen, but through FoA, I will have helped.

SALLY MALANGA, NEW JERSEY MEMBER SINCE 1985 I treasure my membership at Friends of Animals.

More than 30 years ago, I walked into the offices of Friends of Animals in Tinton Falls, N.J. and introduced myself with the words, “May I volunteer?” During that time, I met an individual who video-taped the cruel animal testing procedures for banal personal care products at the Gillette company. Animal testing of consumer products is

not mandated by law and is highly inaccurate in predicting product safety.

This courageous activist and I placed a photo of a bunny rabbit on a giant postcard with the title, “I won’t buy from you, Gillette, unless you stop testing on animals!” We went to malls and distributed the postcards to encourage consumers to stop buying products that were tested on animals.

Many companies heard the rallying cry of consumers and we and other non profits saved millions of animals lives.

I had discovered that commercial beauty products are rife with unhealthy ingredients and animal byproducts, as well, so I founded a company that would offer an alternative to commercially produced personal care products.

We called it Ecco Bella, which means Behold Beautiful in Italian.

I started the company in my townhouse in North Caldwell, N.J. My one-car garage was the warehouse. When I needed to make copies, I had to move my two sleeping Siamese cats off the copier.

I follow a vegan lifestyle, as does my husband and we share our home with three cats, Kiwi, Madison and Marmalade. My husband and I love to go on vegan eating adventures around the world and we love hiking and swimming in beautiful places.

I currently serve on the Board of Directors of FoA and its sanctuary, Primarily Primates. I remain a friend to all animals by advocating for compassionate consumerism. I educate consumers on the merits of a plant-based diet as the ultimate beauty creator. We raise money for a variety of Friends of Animals’ projects.

Sally with her cat, Marbles

MILA D’ANTONIO NOAKES, CONNECTICUT MEMBER SINCE 2013 I initially subscribed to Action Line a few years ago, prior to the birth of my daughter, to support Friends of Animals.

At the time, I never envisioned a future where my quarterly subscription would open my daughter’s eyes to the wonders of animals in the wild. But since Evelyn’s birth, introducing her to animals has become an important issue for me.

Mila Noakes' daughter, Evelyn, 2, particularly enjoyed the primate photos in the spring issue of Action Line.

Looking back at my childhood, I have fond memories of my parents taking my sister and me on weekends to visit Round Hill Park, an exhibition farm outside of Pittsburgh, Penn. My anticipation at the prospect of seeing the animals would peak as we entered the gates. At that point, the duck pond would come into view and the roof of the horse barn would crest over the hill, proudly displaying its weathervane.

My love for the farm and its animal residents lasted my entire life. So much so, that in the year after I gave birth to my daughter Evelyn, I knew exactly where we would host her 1st birthday party: at the farm! We even ordered a cake that depicted a barn complete with matching animal shaped cupcakes. Evelyn gravitated to the animals and giggled and smiled at the goats and cows. “Mooo!” she said to them with puckered lips.

After the farm-theme birthday party, I began teaching Evelyn the names of different animals. My husband and I started buying little animal figurines from the toy store and soon she amassed a small collection and could identify each one when prompted.

One day recently, my Action Line magazine came in the mail. It was the “Out of Africa” issue, otherwise known as the monkey issue in our house. As I prepared Evelyn’s dinner, she spotted the magazine, and began yelling, “MUCKEY!” As she flipped through the pages, her excite-

Summer 2017 | 39

40 | Friends of Animals

ment increased at the sight of each “muckey.” It was then that I recalled my own excitement some 38 years ago, as my parents’ car approached the gates to Round Hill Park. It was also then that I realized the unforeseen benefits of subscribing to Action Line: It opens a whole new world to Evelyn about wildlife and teaches her how to care for animals.

Research shows that when children are encouraged to connect with and respect animals, they show empathy toward them, as well as to people. They also tend to care for nature and the environment. Creating interest and boosting children’s awareness and interest in animals promotes social and emotional development as well. I believe that children who are educated about the importance of being kind to animals grow into humane and respectful adult citizens. It’s for these reasons that I consider Action Line to be an important tool for teaching children how to respect and protect animals. My hope is that she will become a member someday and use the magazine as a vehicle to share her love of animals with her own child.

Donald, ornithologist, author and consultant to FoA

DONALD HEINTZELMAN, PENNSYLVANIA MEMBER SINCE 2002 Friends of Animals is doing a much-needed service to wildlife, and other animals throughout the world. It is a leader in this type of activity, and through its magazine and other means provides a much needed forum informing the public about wildlife protection and related issues.

I continue to support FoA because I am unconditionally opposed to all trophy hunting in Africa, or anywhere else in the world. This type of activity is long out of date and needs to be stopped once and for all, period.

Like FoA, I am a strong supporter of our National Parks and hope more will be established in the future. The United States originated the idea of National Parks, and the idea spread worldwide. We Americans should be proud of that.

I do not support recreational sport hunting of wildlife.

There are already too many threats to wildlife. Instead we

need to do all we can to help wildlife, such as establishing more and more inviolate wildlife sanctuaries across the United States and around the world.

Personally I’ve helped wildlife by establishing the Bake Oven Knob Autumn Hawk Watch, which just completed year 56—a long term hawk migration research project of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center (LGNC) in Pennsylvania, which I also co-founded. I continue to donate books to the superb LGNC research library.

NEFERA PURCELL, PENNSYLVANIA MEMBER SINCE 1998 I'm a senior citizen and currently live in a city row house.

Having a 50-foot backyard, I've communed with squirrels, birds, opossums, raccoons, mice and cats...and a rat (Rudy), who lived under my house for at least three years and died in my lap.

I was once told that my yard was like ‘kitty video,’ with bird and squirrel feeders, a small fountained water feature and a birdbath that the squirrels use as well. I have always loved animals and at various times have shared my residences with multiple cats, two canaries, several fish and a dog. I went on safari to Africa because I wanted to see the animals while they were still free and in their natural habitat.

My first experience with FoA was in the early 1970s, the hippie days of ‘getting stuff for low or no cost.’ I was gainfully employed and got two spay/neuter certificates from FoA, but felt mildly guilty about it in later years. Hopefully, the money that I've donated since, has helped people that truly can't afford the much needed neutering of their pets.

Older unspayed cats have an incredibly high chance of developing breast cancer.

I'm particularly impressed that FoA doesn't waste money sending multiple donation begging letters. I realize that fundraising is an essential part of non-profits, but it shouldn't be at the expense of animals (other organizations that I'm familiar with spend a much smaller percentage of their income on actual programs).

Nefera with her cat, Jenniel Summer 2017 | 41

It recently occurred to me that instead of a few smaller donations to various non-profits, one larger donation to a national organization with excellent financial management like FoA might be more effective...and cut down on my recycling pile. I have always appreciated and agreed with the views of Action Line and like to think of myself as a critical thinker. I also appreciate the scope of FoA’s activities and feel that the organization honestly cares about all living creatures—as do I. Thank you for what you do.

JUDY LINDSTROM, MICHIGAN MEMBER SINCE 1980 When I was in seventh grade my father would often take us to Toronto because he represented companies there. I remember one day passing a store that catered to tourists and outside there were about 20 people from a small Canadian group gathered with large signs showing the clubbing of seals for their fur. They were very solemn protesters as the seal hunt was to begin the next day and the only “power” they felt they had was to convince tourists not to spend money in a store catering to this barbaric practice.

Those pictures of the beautiful creatures with soulful eyes, white fur and innocence still haunt my soul. My thought process was in overdrive as I asked why? Why would they harm these animals? For what purpose and with such brutality? It was certainly something that made me sit up, take notice and decide that even a 12-year-old could make a difference.

It was not a giant leap for me to devote my time to finding a worthy organization to assist in animal advocacy when I returned to the states. What I didn’t realize was how important it was to find an organization that doesn’t just shout that the torture and cruelty of animals was and Judy pledges to be a FoA member for life

is wrong, as words mean nothing without action. Instead, I was looking for an organization that actually teaches, inspires, and navigates the various laws and legislation and one that gets results. I found that in Friends of Animals (and for years I’ve supported Primarily Primates before it became part of the family).

I am thrilled that Friends of Animals continues to serve its clients: the four legged, two legged, six legged and more with the respect they deserve. I applaud the tireless staff and volunteers who contribute time and talent, and I pray that we all understand the tremendous gift animals have given the world.

Three cheers for Friends of Animals as I will continue to support your efforts the rest of my life.

Virginia with her dog, Molly

VIRGINIA MATNEY, NEW YORK MEMBER SINCE 1982 Over 35 years ago, I first heard about Friends of Animals while trying to find a low cost spay/neuter veterinarian for stray animals. FoA offered low-cost certificates for specific vets in an effort to try to help people with this essential medical procedure. FoA was almost single-handedly trying to curb the homeless pet population through this very innovative spay/neuter certificate program. It was such a vital service (still is) and they were so progressive, from that moment forward, I knew that I loved this not-for-profit institution.

Friends of Animals is the only organization devoted to helping animals worldwide, without any hypocrisy.

FoA accomplishes their goals in effective ways, through persistence, an extensive international network and dedication to the rights of all species. The longer I have been a member, the more I appreciate how devoted this organization is to animal rights and to improving their daily lives.

FoA’s goals can be specific to each individual pet that requires help, as well as implementing all-encompassing programs on an international scale to support all different types of animals in need of protection. And they accomplish these urgent goals in a refined manner.

Non-profit Org. US Postage P A I D Friends of Animals

777 Post Road • Darien, CT 06820 Postmaster: Leave with Current Resident

Friends of Animals is 60.

That’s 36 in elephant years.

18 in horse years.

11 in dog years.

5 in goldfish years.

For 60 years, Friends of Animals has been taking risks, instigating, agitating, and inspiring others to respect and protect animals. With your help, we can continue to build a promising future for free-living and domestic animals around the globe for another 60 years. Or 180, if you’re a tortoise.