Please enjoy this article from the latest issue of our magazine, PETA Global. To begin your subscription, become a PETA member today!
Jenny Woods, Regan Russell, and Shimon Shuchat were all wonderful “PETA people” who died prematurely this year.
Jenny never hesitated to put herself in a tricky situation or a silly costume to help animals, taking over the runway at an Oscar de la Renta fur fashion show and even pieing chicken-flesh peddler Frank Perdue with a tofu cream pie to highlight the violence behind meat. She also spoke eloquently in TV interviews, describing the terror and pain that pigs and ferrets felt when strapped into General Motors cars and slammed into walls for crash tests. With PETA’s victory in that campaign, all American car companies’ crash tests on animals came to an end.
“God, I love PETA,” Jenny would say after every victory, and PETA loved her back.
Regan and Shimon worked hard to protect animals killed for food. Regan gave water and a kind touch to pigs in trucks going through a Canadian slaughterhouse gate, while Shimon protested outside live-animal markets and against harming chickens during kapporos, a Jewish rite of atonement.
Deeply affected by what he saw, Shimon took his own life. He was just 22 years old. Regan was run over and killed by a pig-transport truck. Jenny died after a painful struggle with cancer.
Let’s Keep Their Activism Alive
In honor of these brave and compassionate advocates for animals, PETA invites everyone to buy a vegan meal for someone who hasn’t tried vegan food, donate to an animal rights project, leave vegan starter kits in public places, or help animals in other creative, meaningful ways – all of which these three kind souls would do if they were still here.
In their memory, PETA and a local group rescued seven hens and two ducks from a New York City live-animal market, persuaded a factory farmer in Iowa to spare two 6-week-old piglets (and thanked him with a basket of vegan foods), and dedicated a new rescue vehicle. Read more at PETA.org/RescuedPiglets and PETA.org/Shimon.
Jenny and PETA stopped General Motors’ horrific crash tests on animals.
PETA rescued these piglets in Regan’s honor and placed them at a sanctuary.
As a tribute to Shimon, these birds were rescued from live-animal markets in the US.
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To pay homage to Jenny, Regan, and Shimon please consider dedicating a weekend to activism for animals.
