Please enjoy this article from the latest issue of our magazine, PETA Global. To begin your subscription, become a PETA member today!
The Allen twins: Elisa and her younger sister (by six minutes), Emily, let nothing stand in the way of twinning for animals – not even the Atlantic Ocean. Elisa runs PETA UK, while Emily runs the PETA US fieldwork division. They’ve also been spotted – together – aiding horses forced to carry tourists up Taal Volcano in the Philippines, as well as helping PETA reunite dogs with their grateful guardians after Hurricane Katrina.
The sisters didn’t speak a word of English before they moved from Germany to the US when they were 8. They agree on almost everything – but not what got them into animal rights. Elisa says it was PETA’s vegan starter kit. Emily says it was seeing Alicia Silverstone’s anti-dissection ad for PETA. But now, neither can imagine doing anything else.
“Our mom jokes that she donated her kids to PETA.”
Elisa and the Bull
Elisa made headlines worldwide when she went to bat for a bull named Benjy who wasn’t interested in mating with the cows on his farm in Ireland – but seemed drawn to his fellow bulls. The farm decided to send him to slaughter because he was of no use to them, but Elisa set out to save him. She stirred up global support for “Gay Benjy,” enlisting the LGBTQ+ community. A PETA member ponied up the funds to retire him, and soon Benjy was happily grazing at a sanctuary.
Elisa’s not afraid of bulls or bullies, often facing off with Piers Morgan and other hotheads on TV. In response to a sheep farmer’s claim that we “need” to wear wool, Elisa fired back, saying, “We’re not cavepeople! We no longer need to drape ourselves in the skins or the bits of animals.”
Emily in Deep Water
Emily has waded through hurricane floodwaters to reach a trapped pelican, painstakingly rescued countless goldfish of all sizes from an abandoned pond, and crawled under a dilapidated shed to pull out an injured cat whose hind feet had been severed.
Her passion is working to get dogs off chains, and she has helped to get anti-chaining laws passed in the rural North Carolina and Virginia communities surrounding PETA’s headquarters. “I see dogs on heavy chains that sometimes weigh more than they do,” Emily says. “All they have is some useless ‘shelter’ – maybe just a piece of metal against the fence – in the middle of a mud puddle, and their food bowls are dirty and empty. The tips of their ears are eaten off by flies drawn to their accumulated waste. They are eaten alive by fleas, and many suffer from heartworm, which is endemic to this swampy area. I am determined to change their lives for the better.”
Emily and her team have helped win many lifesaving chaining restrictions. And public opinion toward animal welfare is changing. Recently, she received a call from someone concerned about a dog left outdoors without food, water, or shelter. She investigated and determined that there was a valid reason for the neglect: The dog was a statue.
You can probably guess the first person she told.
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