pg. 2--The Activist's Diary: Tales From The Trenches
by Brenda Shoss
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In 1996 my mother and father proudly carried the Missouri state banner in a national animal rights march to the U.S. capitol. "Everyone has a purpose. Animal rights is my heart. Now I know why I am here," Shoss says. Sean Diener, executive director of the Utah Animal Rights Coalition (UARC), shares her unyielding sense of purpose. At first glance, the fresh faced 21-year-old exudes Beaver-Cleaver charm. But in 1999, costumed as a pig at the wheel of a dump truck, he unloaded poop at the feet of President George W. Bush and entourage outside a Ham House Restaurant. Before puzzled police officers could arrest him, Diener spilled the smelly load in a dramatic play for CNN, BBC and over 25 other network cameras.

He participated in two other finely tuned "manure drops" outside the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Among the protesters present to defend labor rights, anti-globalization and other causes, Diener was first to go to jail. "For that reason alone, I received the most media coverage. Millions got the message: Meat stinks for the environment, for our bodies, and especially for the animals."

Diener believes passion stirs people. "If I get arrested for my convictions, people know this is a worthy cause." Fellow vegans Cayce Mell and Jason Tracy launched their kindred passion when they married and established Oohmahnee Farm, a 100-acre sanctuary in Pennsylvania dedicated to the rehabilitative care of over 1500 abused, abandoned or displaced farmed animals.

Despite a crash course in veterinary care, nothing prepared the two twenty-somethings for the largest farm animal rescue in history. Last September a tornado ripped through Buckeye Egg Farm in Croton, Ohio, leaving 1.5 million hens imprisoned without food or water. When Tracy called, Buckeye directors told him they had already initiated a "clean-up." Tens of thousands of live birds had been stuffed into dumpsters and gassed. Without invitation, Tracy, Mell, and their 3-month-old son Aedan headed straight for Buckeye Farm.

Once there, Tracy hurriedly snapped photos of dehydrated and starving birds crushed between rows of dilapidated wire mesh. Buckeye authorities soon ordered him off the property. "Jason told them: ŚWe will ensure that every media outlet knows you have refused to let us save lives,'" Mell says. The threat of negative publicity worked. That night, rescuers loaded the first 85 hens on trucks bound for a better life. Ultimately, they saved 6,000 birds.

Heidi Prescott, national director of the Fund For Animals, lobbies to instigate legislative reform for animals. The former wildlife rehabilitator says that "what most people never see is the struggle these individuals go through to keep their lives." For 10 years Prescott witnessed that struggle when she fought to shut down Pennsylvania's Hegins Pigeon Shoot, a 62-year-old Labor Day bloodbath in which 5,000 pigeons were annually shot at a 30-yard range.

"It was as if I'd stared into the face of evil," Prescott says. "More birds were wounded than killed. ŚTrapper boys' collected the ones who fell inside the shooting circle. These children ripped the heads off living birds in a carnival-like atmosphere with cheering from the stands."

In the free-for-all to retrieve fallen birds, activists and inebriated participants scrambled over one another. Fortunate pigeons were treated or humanely euthanized in on-site veterinary vans. The Fund For Animals eventually garnered a Supreme Court Opinion in favor of banishing the event. Last year organizers signed a legal agreement to terminate the shoot. Prescott, who endured two jail sentences, has no regrets. "I loved freeing the pigeons. In all my work for animals, the motivation to reduce suffering is so strong it surpasses fear."

Lisa Lange, PETA's 34-year-old director of policy and communication, wages her battles on the public relations front. To provoke media coverage, PETA has pedaled unclad models to protest fur and employed a giant bunny to trail former vice president Al Gore in a stand against government-funded animal tests.

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