We speak to the founder of animal rights charity PETA, Ingrid Newkirk who was born and raised in Kingston
Paul McCartney once famously remarked: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls we would all be vegetarian.” He is one of the celebrities who campaign for the UK based charity PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk, who was born in Kingston. Indeed, it was while growing up in this corner of Surrey that Ingrid’s passion for animals began, with her attachment to an Irish Red Setter named Shawnie.
“He was there when I was born,” she explains down the line from the States, where she has lived for most of her adult life. “I was an only child and he was like a brother to me: sometimes we slept together in his wicker basket, and we went in the car together and always got car sick at the same time.”
Ingrid, now 65, is divorced with no children. She has devoted her life to conveying the PETA message: ‘Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment or abuse in any other way.’ After nearly 35 years, she remains at the helm of what is now the largest animal rights group in the world.
From Kingston, the path initially led east. Ingrid’s father, a navigational engineer, was posted to India, and the family duly moved to New Delhi. Ingrid was just seven.
“We went on the Cunard Princess and I thought that Shawnie, who was very old and grey whiskered, was going to follow. I was told he was going to get his jabs for shipment. I put a ribbon in his hair and we had our pictures taken, but I never saw him again,” she sighs. “I only found out in adulthood that he had been put down.”
Upon arrival in India, Ingrid’s mother threw herself into tending the poor and sick, often enlisting her daughter’s help.
“She was always going to Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Old Delhi, where she would make simple cotton toys for the children. She also set up a stall at the British Embassy, selling handicrafts to benefit the orphanage. She rolled bandages and packed pills for a leper colony and did charity work for unwed mothers because they were ostracised.
“There was a big riot when we first arrived and lots of people were killed at a railway station in Calcutta, so children were shipped to the orphanage in Old Delhi. I played with them and my mother and the nuns looked after their wounds.”
It is easy to see how these early experiences might have sparked a social conscience in a young girl, but it wasn’t until Ingrid was 21, and studying to be a stockbroker in America, that she gave much thought to animal welfare.
”I lived in the countryside in Maryland and some people moved and left kittens behind,” she explains. “I thought: ‘Oh, there must be a lovely animal refuge.’ So I got an address and took the kittens to this shelter, but it was decrepit and filthy and horrid in every way. I was completely scandalised.
“I had no idea that such awful places existed. I was studying for the brokerage exam and going into finance, but I couldn’t do it. The shelter had a kennel keeper’s job open and I applied and never looked back.”
Soon after, another animal encounter turned Ingrid vegetarian.
“I came across this little pig who had been abandoned on a farm and was in bad shape. He was totally dehydrated and I had to hold his head up at the water pump so that he could drink.
“That night, as I was going home, I was starving and wondering what to eat. ‘Oh good,’ I thought, ‘I defrosted those pork chops.’ And then I thought: ‘Hang on a minute!’ I hadn’t yet been to a slaughterhouse – I’ve been to many since – but you don’t have to visit one to know that it can’t be pleasant. How could I be appalled at what had been done to this pig I’d just rescued, yet not register how frightening and awful it must have been for the pigs who became my chops?
“So I stopped eating animals. I would rather just leave them in peace.”
Abstinence from meat, however, was not enough. Soon Ingrid began to fight tooth and nail to protect the rights of animals. She has written books such as Making Kind Choices and countless articles about the treatment of animals in homes, abattoirs, circuses and labs. Under her leadership, PETA UK has persuaded high street stores such as Topshop, Mango, H&M and Zara to declare themselves fur- or exotic skin-free, while numerous councils have rejected planning applications for new factory farms. And in 1993, Ingrid achieved the worldwide abolition of car manufacturers’ use of pigs and baboons in crash experiments.
“They all used them,” she explains. “One of the last to stop was Vauxhall. They would strap the animal into this chair on a runner, and then set the machine to move the chair forward at speed and slam into a wall. We campaigned so hard, but the car manufacturers wouldn’t meet with us. Nor did they respond to thousands upon thousands of letters from concerned car owners.
“Eventually we got people to donate their old cars and torched a couple outside dealerships in the US, including General Motors which owned Vauxhall. Then they listened and stopped the tests. They’ve been using computerised mannequins ever since.
Ingrid certainly knows the power of a good publicity stunt. Not only has she posed naked in a cage (above), but she recently staged a stunt outside Fortnum & Mason in which she appeared to be force-fed like a goose. It was a protest against the production of foie gras – or ‘torture in a tin’, as Ingrid calls it – which is still sold in the royals’ favourite store.
Ingrid Newkirk protest outside Fortnums
“Prince Charles says that no one will ever serve it at any function that he hosts, yet we can’t get the royal warrant taken away from Fortnum & Mason. I so wish that the royals would have more of an animal consciousness. They don’t seem to set the example that they could.
“We are currently working with the Ministry of Defence to try to switch the Queen’s Guards from wearing bearskin hats. We’ll do it within the next year or two, but it’s been a long hard slog and we’ve had no encouragement from the Palace whatsoever.”
What about the current trend towards vintage fur?
“It’s vintage, so I don’t worry too much about it, but it’s a thoughtless thing to wear, as we need to knock off the fur trade,” she insists.
“My present focus is on leather, asking people to consider that it is basically hairless fur. I think they would be appalled by footage we took in China of animals skinned alive and blinking up through their eyelashes – the only hair they had left.
“Chrissie Hynde and I pulled apart a leather jacket and re-formed it into an animal, to show that leather is not an item of clothing – it’s part of an animal. You can see lines and wrinkles in the hide, just as in your own skin; and, if you look, you can sometimes see a mark from a wound where the animal has been hit.”
What should people buy instead?
“Nowadays we have ‘pleather’ – synthetic leather which is breathable and doesn’t smell the same way. Leather used to be considered the smell of luxury, but I think it’s offensive,” says Ingrid.
And with that, she is off to catch a plane to France. The fight for animal rights goes on. I know that I, for one, have been given plenty of food for thought.
peta.org.uk
