People Promoting and People Opposing Animal Rights: In Their Own Words

I was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 1946. After two years in West Nicholson, Zimbabwe, a tiny community in the bushveld (baboons used to visit our garden and inspect me in my pram), the family then moved to Tristan da Cunha for three years. We then settled in Cape Town, South Africa, where I attended the University of Cape Town (studying Chemistry and Cell Physiology). After obtaining a B.Sc., I went to Oxford University where I obtained first a B.A. (Oxon.) in Biochemistry and then did a D.Phil., also in Biochemistry.

In 1976, I finally had to go out into “the big bad world” and earn a living. I worked for six months for Pergamon Press; then went to FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) as their first scientific administrator. My job at FRAME was to sell the idea of alternatives to the scientific community. The founder, Mrs. Dorothy Hegarty, did not want FRAME to be known as an animal welfare organization and insisted that we deal mostly with scientists and politicians and not “waste our time” attending animal protection meetings.

I learned a tremendous amount during my two-and-one-half years at FRAME, and then took a job with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) as associate director of the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems. In 1983, I started an almost fifteen-year stint with Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, where my task was to develop an “animals and society” program. When I left Tufts to return to the HSUS as a senior vice president, we had established the Center for Animals and Public Policy and had graduated two

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