People & positions

Sonja Van Tichelen, a 20-year representative of Eurogroup for Animals, based in Brussels, on June 6, 2012 announced that she has “accepted the post of European Union director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, starting on September 1.”

Joining Eurogroup as a campaign coordinator in 1992, Van Tichelen was promoted to deputy director in 1997. She became director in 2004. Wrote Van Tichelen in the April 2012 edition of the Eurogroup newsletter, “The EU published last February its new strategy to promote animal welfare. After a full year of evaluating the outcome of the EU animal welfare policy, the Commission has disappointed the animal welfare movement with an ‘ultra-light’ strategy, welcomed enthusiastically by the Farmers Union but far removed from what EU citizens expect. It is disappointing,” Van Tichelen wrote, “that the focus of the strategy is on farm animal welfare, with the protection of wild animals and the high-profile issue of animal testing completely out of the picture. Although the [European] Parliament and the member states have asked for EU initiatives on cats and dogs, we will have to wait until 2014 for a study of the welfare of dogs and cats involved in commercial practices. In essence,” Van Tichelen finished, “this means that no new legislation is foreseen to improve animal welfare. This despite the fact that several categories of animals–cattle, fish, dogs and cats, sheep and goats–are left with no legal protection.”

Jerry Buckley, 56, vice president of public affairs for 16 years at Campbell’s Soup and also past chair of the Campbell Soup Foundation, was on June 5, 2012 named chief executive of the Pennsylvania SPCA. Buckley succeeds Sue Cosby, who left to head the Philadelphia Animal Care & Control department. Buckley, who retired from Campbell’s Soup in 2011, is the fourth Pennsylvania SPCA chief executive since the 2007 retirement of Erik Hendricks, a PSPCA employee for 30 years who served as executive director for 28 years.

Pasado’s Safe Haven, of Sultan, Washington, on June 11, 2012 announced the hiring of nonprofit consultant Joan Eads as interim executive director. Founded by former TV personality Susan Michaels in 1998, Pasado’s has had several leadership changes since her forced exit in January 2010.