People
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2000:
Vegetarian actor James Cromwell, who played Farmer Hoggett in Babe, told viewers of an Easter-season TV ad sponsored by P E T A that, “Pigs are sensitive, intelligent animals. Please do your part. Stop eating pigs.” PETA is also sponsoring signs on which actresses Sandra Bernhard, Elizabeth Hurley, Judi Dench, and Bea Arthur ask women to “Join us in saying ‘neigh’ to Premarin,” which is based on urine from pregnant mares kept in close confinement. Their foals are mostly sold for slaughter.
Harvey Jacobson, of Austin, Texas, who recently sold Jacobson Manufacturing f o r $270 million, gave $1 million to Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation of Bourne, Texas, sanctuary manager Tim Ajax told ANIMAL PEOPLE. WRR used the money to buy a 187-acre new site near Kendalia––six times larger than the present facility, located near fast-growing San Antonio.
Retired biology professor H a r o l d “Catman” Sims, of Cashiers, North Carolina, was appalled that the Jackson County shelter killed 657 of the 755 cats it had received in 1994 ––so he built his own 55-cat shelter and began arranging adoptions. By March 2000, Sims had placed more than 600 cats, while Jackson County cat intake fell to 469 and cat killing to 202.
Ratanlal Bafna, of Jalgaon, India, was recently honored by the Vegetarian Society of India for his work in sheltering cattle and other animals, and in promoting vegetarianism.
Raffles Junior College student Geoffrey Tan Chern-Yee, 17, won the National Science Talent Search 2000 in Singapore for finding that hydrogen peroxide generated as mitochondrion cells produce energy inhibits their energy output. This may have disease-fighting import. Yet Chern-Yee’s research was less successful than he had hoped, he told the Straits Times. “I was reluctant to kill rats,” he said, explaining that he had become a vegetarian in the fifth grade out of concern for animals. “I tried to modify my methods and use the mitochondria from plant cells instead,” he continued––but that goal eluded him.
