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Beginning January 1, 2021, the streets of Chicago are going to look a little more animal-friendly. Gone will be the horse-drawn carriage operators who have been plying their cruel trade in the Windy City for 150 years. On April 24, the Chicago City Council voted to ban them. Chicago joins other cities in banning horse-drawn carriages, including Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Biloxi, Mississippi; Camden, New Jersey; and several cities in Florida. (Despite years of protesting, horse-drawn carriages still operate in New York City.)
Instrumental in getting the ban passed was the Chicago Alliance for Animals (CAA). For more than three years, this grassroots animal advocacy organization frequently documented horses being denied water and forced to pull carriages in heavy traffic through extreme heat, thunderstorms, and blizzards. They lobbied lawmakers to support the ban, and now that the ban has passed, they are liaising with reputable sanctuaries to arrange homes for the horses—if their owners choose to allow them the safe and peaceful retirement they deserve.
Jodie Wiederkehr, CAA’s executive director and founder of the Partnership to Ban Horse Carriages Worldwide, took some time to answer my questions about her work and the group’s remarkable campaign.
What inspired you to become an animal activist?
I’ve cared deeply about animals since I was very young. I remember at around the age of nine or 10, my father was yelling for me to come inside on Christmas Eve. I was sitting outside in the snow next to the kennel of our neighbor’s little terrier dog, who had nothing but a barren dog house and frozen water. I would bring him treats and fresh water.
While inside in our cozy finished basement with a roaring fire, we ate a big dinner and a lot of cookies and candy and then opened presents. All the while, I thought about Cinnamon all alone in the cold.
That love of animals stayed with me all through my childhood and through college when I started volunteering with my sister Jamie to ban the steel-jaw leghold trap in Illinois.
From then on, I’ve been working toward a path to liberate animals from suffering.
There are so many ways people exploit animals. What is it about the horse-carriage industry that makes you want to see it banned?
I care greatly about all animal issues, but whenever I see horses where every part of their being is controlled with straps and clasps and they’ve got all this metal junk in their mouth and when they can’t get flies off their legs, I get so incredibly sad. It’s just pure exploitation, and it’s so unnecessary!
And this whole notion that they were bred to do this work or that because they’ve been doing it since the dawn of time somehow makes it okay is a lousy excuse, as we all know that “tradition” does not equal “right.”
Can you walk us through the important steps you and CAA took to help get this ban passed?
We used a variety of methods, but the most important aspect of our work was to educate ourselves on Chicago’s laws regarding the horse-carriage trade, document the multiple violations on a regular basis, and then send that documentation to the agency tasked with monitoring and enforcing the laws as well as to the aldermen and mayor. We then submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for the results of our documentation and sent press releases to the media.
We also took action every day with our Daily Action Alerts—DAAs for short—where we contacted all the aldermen, the mayor, and tourist outlets in Chicago and informed them of the constant animal welfare violations, as well as those that impacted public safety.
We attended Aldermen’s Ward nights; testified at City Council almost every month for nearly two years; had monthly, peaceful educational outreach down by the carriage stand, where we held signs and a banner; asked people to sign our petition; urged everyone we spoke to to contact their alderman or, if they lived outside of Chicago, to please contact the mayor.
We also asked any businesses, legislators, animal advocacy organizations, celebrities, etc., to sign our Endorsement Pledge. In the end, we had more than 200 Endorsement Pledges representing millions of people who wanted a horse carriage ban in Chicago.
In addition, we fundraised last fall to deck out a pedicab urging people to say no to inhumane horse carriage rides.
What was the general reaction of the public when you were doing outreach?
When we first started our peaceful educational outreach in summer 2015, we would occasionally get some pushback and people claiming that horse carriages are not inhumane and that the horses are treated well, but as the years went on and we continued to educate the public on how often the horses were overworked, under-watered, and worked in extreme temperatures, the arguments nearly ceased. At times, we had groups of 10 or more people standing around us waiting to sign our petition.
Did you get any comments from horse-carriage operators during your campaign?
We never spoke to or communicated with the carriage operators or passengers. Our goal was to document the violations and abject cruelty and educate the public, not engage with those who have no empathy for and who profit off the voiceless.
You also worked on a successful campaign to ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts, which went into effect in 2010. Do you see any similarities in these two campaigns?
Yes, definitely! With both campaigns, we exposed the animal exploiters’ constant flouting of the law. And as the statewide volunteer coordinator on the greyhound campaign, I was responsible for calling my volunteer coordinators each Monday and asking them if they called their volunteers. It was not easy, as many didn’t want to talk to me. That made me realize if we really want a more humane world, we must be willing to give a little of our time to this very important cause. So now, when I put out my DAAs, I expect people to take action, and I explain to my volunteers that complaining about animal abuse and sad emojis will not ban horse carriages or help animals in any way.
How can people support the Chicago Alliance for Animals?
Please join our Facebook page and take one minute to do our DAAs. Follow us on social media, and if they are able to financially support us in any way—even $1 a month will help—that would be greatly appreciated! We passed this ban in the third-largest city in the U.S., without a horse collapsing in the street or a serious or deadly accident, in less than three years without any paid staff.
What advice do you give to activists who want to help ban the exploitation of horses?
I would urge them to join the Partnership to Ban Horse Carriages Worldwide and the Chicago Alliance for Animals (CAA) on Facebook and Twitter (here and here, and here and here), participate in our daily actions and communicate with me and activists around the world on a regular basis so we can work together to ban this archaic relic worldwide.
And, most importantly, never give up!
To make a donation to CAA, click here.
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There’s no question that social media has benefited animal advocacy in remarkable ways over the last decade. Activists are using platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to organize protests, promote veganism, distribute online petitions, announce campaign updates, post news about animals ready for adoption, share animal rights documentaries, and much more.
But social media has a dark side, and I’m not just referring to its insidious influence on the election process or the amplification of hate. Companies leverage the expertise of “attention engineers,” who use our psychological vulnerabilities to make social media apps and platforms as addictive as possible. Why? Because your attention—the hours you spend on your mobile device, for example—results in profits for these companies. Facebook, for instance, uses algorithms to track your preferences and present you with content your online history tells them will make you feel good. Then you’ll see an ad, followed by more fun content—and another ad. Meanwhile, companies such as YouTube and Netflix will automatically play a related video just as the one you’re watching ends. They put the burden on you to decide when to stop.
Did you know that Steve Jobs never intended the iPhone to have third-party apps like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook—or be anything more than an improved iPod that can make calls? True, even the original iPhone had Internet capabilities, but that was more of a bonus feature. If you look at the presentation Jobs gave in 2007 to introduce the iPhone (at about 36 minutes in), you’ll see that the “Internet” segment was all about email, Google maps, and weather widgets. Interesting.
The overuse of social media is something I’ve been thinking about for years, and I explore it a bit in the new edition of Striking at the Roots. As I consider it more and more—and I probably use social media as much as anyone—what has me concerned is how its use can specifically affect the well-being of animal activists and, by extension, their activism.
In addition to the many consequences of spending too much time on social media—such as the impact it has on our self-esteem and creating a fear of missing out on fun others are experiencing—animal advocates may be particularly vulnerable to other side effects. Here are some examples.
Depression
Animal activism is hard. Although many people claim to “love animals,” for instance, the vast majority of these same people continue to eat, wear, and otherwise exploit them. Challenging these behaviors can leave activists feeling disheartened, to say the least.
Add to this the constant barrage of graphic photos of animal cruelty that stream on social media, the offensive comments from trolls under posts, and outright cyberbullying, and online platforms can prove dangerous to our mental health. A study of 1,787 young adults in the U.S. published in 2017, for instance, found that participants who used 7–11 social media platforms had substantially higher odds of having increased levels of both depression and anxiety symptoms.
During her 12 years working for one nonprofit, Marsha Rakestraw had to monitor social media, where she was constantly confronted by scenes of animal suffering. “Having to immerse myself in that quagmire of harm and pain day after day for more than a decade has taken its toll,” she says. “Especially in the last few years of being in that job, I’ve felt that I’ve lost all sense of joy.”
Another activist, Meg York, had a similar experience. “Social media has contributed to, or possibly created, my compassion fatigue,” says Meg. “On Facebook, I have unfollowed most of the nonprofit organizations that I have liked, as I cannot bear witness to unending cruelty. It undermines my ability to be an effective activist, as I find myself mired in despair, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem, and unable to change the reality for the specific animals who are suffering in the videos and pictures.”
I am not implying for a moment that animal advocates are the only people susceptible to depression. What I mean is that animal activism is already a depressing endeavor, and so activists may be especially exposed to the feeling of despair that social media can lead to.
Reduced attention span
Justin Rosenstein, the former Facebook engineer who created the “like” button, is among a growing number of high-tech experts who now warn against the lure of social media, which they believe severely limits a person’s ability to focus and possibly lowers IQs. “One reason I think it is particularly important for us to talk about this now is that we may be the last generation that can remember life before,” Rosenstein says.
A reduced attention span could affect anyone’s life. For the activist, it could result in a gap in learning about the issues, for example, or impact their ability to share a meaningful conversation with someone, whether it’s at a conference table or a dinner table.
Diminished human interactions
Animal activism very often relies on making connections: mingling with new people, overcoming social anxieties, and inspiring others to see the link between animal exploitation and their consumer choices. While making connections on social media can be great, there’s nothing that equals the power of making such connections in person. Unfortunately, a growing body of evidence suggests that social media is undermining family relationships and harming people’s ability to interact competently in an offline setting. Former Google Design Ethicist Tristan Harris, described by The Atlantic as “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” warns in his TED talk that social media technology is “changing our ability to have the conversations and relationships we want with each other.” Consider this: In which form of communication would you gain more insight about someone—an online post or a face-to-face conversation? Clearly, there is a much higher quality of connection when we speak with someone directly.
As activist Sherry Morgado puts it, “I found that I was coming to rely too much on social media as a form of activism, and neglected one-on-one interaction, which I believe has much more power and authenticity. In personal interactions, there is an opportunity for a dialogue, to ask questions, and to read facial expressions and body language. I have come to feel that social media is just too removed from that energetic space between people where the possibility for real change can happen.”
Weakened decision-making
Spending too much time on social media affects your ability to think for yourself and form your own opinions. One study demonstrated how participants were more open to peer pressure within social networks. Of course, animal activists tend to be committed to their principles, but we should all treat with caution anything that impacts our capacity for informed decision-making.
Loss of social etiquette
Social media has no room for verbal nuance, tone, or body language, which are among the many important cues that help humans navigate the complex world of interpersonal communication. Because many posters of online comments can remain anonymous—or they believe they are calling out hypocritical behavior—they often give in to the temptation to be judgmental and rude.
“One of my biggest struggles with social media is dealing with all the negativity,” says Cathy O’Brien. “Many people seem to be very quick to judge and attack others, often with extreme hostility. As an activist and a human, my desire is to cultivate more compassion and respect for all beings. I want to put my voice out there and be an advocate for the issues I believe in, but I want to do it in a way that helps create more compassion and caring; I don’t want to be part of the negativity and hostility.”
Activists who participate in such online hostility may think they are doing the animals a service, but they are just helping depict activists as insensitive bullies.
Unhealthy sleep patterns
Interruption of regular sleep patterns is among the hallmarks of a social media addiction. Lack of sleep is not only damaging to our health, but it can affect our productivity and cognitive performance. Any animal advocate who wants to put quality time into their activism is going to need quality sleep. Along with eating well, it’s one of the fundamental steps we can take to avoid burning out.
*****
Am I saying animal activists should stop using social media? No. Social media is an important tool, and its influence in the movement will probably continue to grow as new, more powerful platforms are created. But social media should never be a substitute for on-the-street, grassroots campaigning. If you are able to address the public in person about how animals are exploited, please do so. I don’t mean you need to be confrontational; indeed, making a vegan meal for an omnivore or sitting down to share an animal rights documentary with them can often have a more positive impact than holding a protest sign in front of a slaughterhouse.
Moreover, I encourage activists to use social media and our devices with more intention. You might also consider a digital detox, including such steps as:
- Turning off push notifications, which have been shown to activate your brain’s reward center
- Not sleeping with your mobile device nearby
- Using your laptop instead of your smartphone
- Filtering toxic comments.
You might even reduce your use of social media by cutting out one or more platforms or going without them altogether for a week or a month. You may be amazed by how much more you get done, how it improves your sleep, and how it lifts your mood. It might even make you a more effective activist.
I will speaking more about the importance of self-care at the Animal Rights National Conference in July. I hope to see some of you there.
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Because I have readers around the world, I generally try to make this blog appealing and useful to all. But there is an issue in my home state of California right now that concerns me a great deal, so I will make this post brief and to the point.
Last December, Assemblymember Laura Friedman introduced AB 44, which would prohibit the sale and manufacture of new fur products throughout the state. This is encouraging, but there is a wrinkle: another assemblymember, Marc Levine, has North Bay constituents who make a living killing rabbits for food, and they’ve asked Levine to create an exemption for rabbits, so the fur of these animals can be sold after slaughter. Sadly, it seems Assemblymember Friedman is considering an amendment that would exclude rabbits, as this article explains. (Note: The article is accompanied by an image of rabbits in cages.)
The bill has been working its way through the legislative process and is currently with the Appropriations Committee. If your assemblymember is on this committee, please call them and ask them to support AB 44—and to support it without any amendment that exempts rabbits. As you may know, rabbits are used in countless fur products—from pet toys and glove trimmings to hats and coats—and to exclude them from a ban would be heartbreaking. Please join me in advocating for them.
The fur industry is lobbying hard against this bill, so every voice of support helps. Calling legislators is very simple and nothing to be nervous about. Your call will be answered by an aide, and you just say, “I am calling to ask the assemblymember to support AB 44 and to not support any amendment that would exempt rabbits from the bill.” The aide will ask where you live and possibly your name, and that’s it.
Step 1: Find your representative here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/
Step 2: See if they are on the Appropriations Committee here: https://apro.assembly.ca.gov/membersstaff
Step 3: If they are on the committee, please call them today!
(If your representative is not on the committee, you can call them later in the legislative process, when every assemblymember’s support will be important!)
And if you do not live in California but know someone who does, please forward this post to them.
Thank you!
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Kim Stallwood and Shelly
Kim Stallwood has been an activist for four decades, and his campaign experience includes working with the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (which has since been renamed Cruelty Free International), Compassion in World Farming, PETA, and the RSPCA. He is also the author of Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate, which is both a memoir on Kim’s work as an animal activist and his thoughts on how we can reshape animal advocacy. He has long advocated for making the moral and legal status of animals a mainstream political issue. I find his advice to be among the soundest in the movement, and I am very pleased to share this interview, in which Kim discusses such topics as the importance of lobbying elected officials on animal issues, building community within the movement, and the activist tactics he thinks are a big waste of time.
If someone were to come to you and say, “I’ve recently become vegan, and I’d like to know how I can do more for animals,” what advice would you give them on where to begin?
In your scenario, they’ve already begun. If they have become vegan, they have begun. In fact, they’ve more than begun; they have gone quite a ways down the road. Given the high rates of recidivism amongst vegans, I think maybe the best advice to give someone who is a new vegan is to think about being vegan in the long run and be aware that it’s a journey, not a destination, and that there are times when you’re going to fuck it up, and that when you do fuck it up, you should not beat yourself up over it. I used to think that guilt was a great motivator for being vegan, and I would quite happily project my guilt onto other people in order to make them, hopefully, become vegan. But I really don’t thing that’s advisable anymore.
If they’ve just become vegan, I would say that they should be mindful that being vegan is difficult, be prepared that mistakes will happen, and just do the best you can and don’t let others criticize your efforts to be vegan.
Thereafter, I would say that people need to find what they’re best at doing and where they can make a unique difference. It’s important to not feel isolated, to feel that you’ve got people with like minds, even though you may disagree on some detail, but to generally know that you’re with a like-minded group of people who are mutually supportive and can help you.
How can you best build that community? How do you not feel isolated?
The way to build a community is through trial and error. Find the people who you’re comfortable working with, collaborate, build relationships, be supportive, socialize with them—but keep some distance; don’t be intimate.
Why not be intimate?
I think you can take it too far, where you become too dependent upon other people. We all have relationships, but in the context of activists, I think you should always be mindful of not becoming too dependent, because people let other people down. People aren’t always there, though many are, thankfully. But not everyone is.
What advice do you have for activists who would like to lobby their elected officials?
Lobbying isn’t for everyone. Yes, by all means, people should lobby their elected representatives, whether it’s national, regional, or state. They should generally identify the political parties with the greatest commitments to helping animals, identify the candidates at the time of an election with the greatest commitment to animals. They should go to public meetings and other opportunities to quiz candidates at the time of an election. They should develop a platform of issues to lobby with and talk about at the time of an election. And whoever gets elected, we should hold them to account for whatever pledges they made to help ensure they implement them during the period of time they serve as a publicly elected representative. If they fail to do it, you come back to the next election and make the point that they promised to do XYZ, and they never did it.
There’s another layer of activity on top of that, which is if someone feels predisposed toward a political party, I would encourage them to join that party and work from within to raise the topic of animals as an issue of debate in order to inform other members of the party and develop positions and policies within the party. I think the ideal that we need to strive towards is when we have a national election, the political party with the greatest commitment to animals is elected to form the government so that when that party forms the government, they come ready-made, as it were, with the best pledges and promises to act in that elected cycle. The most effective way to do that is to work from within the political party. Quietly but firmly assert animal issues and build them into your general political ideology within that party. If you just go in and talk about animals and nothing else, you won’t be taken very seriously. But if you go in and talk about animal issues in relation to broader social justice and the environment and public health and so on, then the other people in the party will be more open to taking that position onboard. It’s a long process. It’s a process that other interest groups do, but the animal movement just doesn’t do it well, if at all.
How do you feel about advocates forming political parties?
I don’t speak against people forming political parties for animals, but I don’t agree with it as a strategy. There are several problems with it, in my mind. One is that it further frames the animal issue as a fringe, separate issue, whereas what I think we need to do is frame the animal issue within the democratic or republican ideologies—or labor or conservative or whatever—so that it’s seen as an integral part of that party’s belief system.
Are there any models of activism you consider to be a waste of time?
I think that actions which don’t directly focus on animal cruelty and use people-shaming in some way or make people feel guilty in some way are not the best forms of activism. I think those sorts of things are good examples of what activists feel, psychologically, they’ve got to do because no one else will do it. “Someone’s got to tell the people what’s going on and make them feel guilty.” They think guilt might change their behavior. You can identify 10, 20, 30 years ago the same types of people doing this. Where are they now?
I think one thing that’s important to tease out here is longevity—how are you [as an activist] going to stay with this? Because most people give it up. We know from animal rights conferences that there is an endless turnover of new, fresh faces who have to go through the drama and emotion of going to their first conference and the second, and then by the third they see the pattern of it and they don’t come back. How do you—how do I—keep doing it? Well, I keep doing it because I don’t want to do anything else. It gives purpose to my life. What would I be doing otherwise? I really don’t know. Which isn’t to say I don’t have interests outside of animal rights, because I do. But I think if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be doing some other form of social justice.
One of the nice things about Facebook is that you reconnect to people who you knew decades ago and you’ve lost touch with them, and they’re still doing it! [Laughs] I may think, “Oh, I didn’t like them because of such-and-such or we had a disagreement over so-and-so or I don’t like the point they are making now,” but I still feel a warmth towards them because I’m just so thrilled to see they are still doing it—they are still doing stuff to help animals.
Any final thoughts on animal activism or effective strategies?
What this movement needs more than just activist bodies doing protests—however important that is—is qualified, trained professionals who can use their education and their position in society to advance animal issues. We can all be activists, but we can’t all be doctors or lawyers or people who get elected to public office. Those specialties are really what the movement needs. I would never say to someone, “If you have the capacity to become a medical doctor, that’s what you should do, because you can use your medical degree to help animals,” if they don’t care about treating people. They’ve got to want to do it anyway, but also do it realizing that they can also help animals.
For more insights from Kim Stallwood, I highly recommend his book Growl: Life Lessons, Hard truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate, published by Lantern Books.
You will find more information about lobbying for animals and other activist strategies in the new, expanded edition of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism, to be published in November.
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Using dogs to hunt small mammals—most notably foxes, who are often considered “pests”—has been an unfortunate part of British society for hundreds of years. As red-coated hunters on horseback follow, trained dogs with a keen sense of smell chase the scent of a fox through the countryside until they catch and kill their prey. A law banning the blood sport, known as the Hunting Act, came into force in February of 2005, making it illegal to hunt foxes, hares, minks, and deer with hounds in England and Wales. (A similar ban had been passed in Scotland in 2002.)
But many—many—hunters refuse to give up on this cruel activity and have sought loopholes and other means to continue. One such solution was their creation of a sort of hybrid pastime called “trail hunting,” in which the dogs and hunters ostensibly only follow a scent (often fox urine) laid by a hunt enthusiast, and no prey animal is killed. At least that’s how it works in theory. Dogs don’t often follow the rules, however, and they frequently come upon foxes and chase and kill them. When this happens, the hunt organizers inevitably call it “an accident.”
Foxes suffer horrible deaths when they are caught by the dogs.
Working to keep the hunters honest—and animals alive—are campaigners who go into the countryside armed with video cameras to closely monitor and even disrupt the hunts, something they’ve been doing since long before the Hunting Act. It’s a form of direct action known as hunt sabotage, and the activists engaged in it are known as hunt saboteurs (or simply hunt sabs). The hunt sabs also sometimes use horns to confuse the dogs and Citronella spray to prevent them from getting onto the scent of the animals.
I recently spoke with Alfie Moon of the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA), one of the most active groups in the UK, about his work as a hunt sab.
Can you give us a little information on your background? How long have you been an activist and how did you get started?
I have been an activist for as long as I can remember. My mum and sisters were anti-apartheid campaigners. I remember putting ‘Don’t Buy Apartheid’ stickers on apples in supermarkets when I was a kid! By the time I was in my teens, I was heavily into CND [campaign for nuclear disarmament] and anti-racist stuff.
Do you remember the first time you went out hunt sabbing? What was your experience like?
I started sabbing when I was about 17 after running into a hunt on a country lane when I was out on my bike. I must have known that hunting existed, but it wasn’t high on my list of priorities until I met the arrogant bastards for the first time. I wasn’t part of any organised group, but I continued to disrupt hunts—probably to no real effect—every time I came across them. In 1996 I was introduced to the Croydon sab group. I was quickly shown how to effectively disrupt a hunt. The group was very welcoming, and I am still friends with many of them after all this time. I have sabbed almost every weekend since then.
What impact does hunt sabbing have on hunting? Is it a successful model of activism?
Hunt sabotage is very effective. In the days before the Hunting Act, hunts would kill four to six foxes every time they went out un-sabbed. If sabs were present, kills were rare. Since the Act, sabbed hunts have to be extremely cautious and many are now genuinely trail hunting when sabs are present. Hunt sabotage helped to keep hunting in the news, and undoubtedly contributed to the legislation.
Are there any special skills or physical abilities required to be a hunt saboteur?
Sabs close in on hunters and hounds. Photo courtesy of the Hunt Saboteurs Association.
There are many desirable skills for a hunt saboteur. Understanding how the hunt operates is crucial to disrupting it. It helps if you can run like the wind, navigate, and give clear, concise radio messages, and being able to blow a hunting horn correctly is a massive bonus. Not every sab will have all of the necessary skills, but effective teamwork overcomes that problem.
What’s a hunting horn?
The hunting horn is a small musical instrument used by the Huntsman to give instructions to the hounds. Different tunes have different meanings. Sabs learn to play the horn, usually blowing the ‘come back’ when hounds are chasing something. Sabs also use homemade whips to make a noise that tells the hounds they are doing the wrong thing when they are after live quarry. [Here’s a quick demonstration of the hunting horn.]
Besides the hunting horn, what are some of the tools and equipment hunt sabs use?
The key pieces of equipment for hunt sabs are a video camera, phone, GPS, OS [ordnance survey] map, gizmo [a loudspeaker playing a recording of hounds barking excitedly as the follow a scent], and Citronella spray.
What do you do with the video you record of the hunts?
The video cameras are mainly a deterrent, both against illegal hunting and hunt violence. They don’t always work! Unfortunately, the Hunting Act is so badly worded that the level of proof required for a conviction is incredibly high. Sabs will review video footage of the day and decide if it is worth passing to the authorities, but the police and CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] usually claim there is insufficient evidence for a prosecution. Most of the more damning sab video therefore ends up on social media, where, I suspect, we are predominantly preaching to the converted!
What is your best advice for activists who would like to participate in hunt sabs?
My advice to anyone who wants to become a sab is to get in touch with their local group, get out there, and see how it goes. Sabbing isn’t for everyone, but until you try it, you can’t know.
What keeps you going after all your years of activism?
What keeps me going after more than 30 years of activism is this quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Note: There is an HSA branch in the United States, where plenty of hunting activity is ripe for disruption. Click here for information.
You will find more information about hunt sabbing and many other forms of activism in the new, expanded edition of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism, to be published in November.
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