Education: University of Minnesota 1992-1996.  Graduated on June 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition.
Activist History:  Arrested 13 times for participating in civil disobedience on behalf of animals from 1992-1997.  Hunger-striked for an entire 14-day jail stay in March 1997.  He was jailed for a civil disobedience action against drug addiction research on primates at the University of Minnesota.  The caged and isolated monkeys are starved to 85% of their body weight so food rewards can be used to addict them to drugs such as cocaine and PCP.

For nearly a decade, Freeman Wicklund has tirelessly campaigned for animal rights.  Through presentations, personal integrity, and dramatic demonstrations, he has brought to the masses a message of compassion and justice.  Adopted a vegan lifestyle in 1988.  A vegan (pronounced VEE-gun) lifestyle is one where a person does not consume or wear animal products, buy products tested on animals, or patronize abusive animal acts such as circuses, rodeos, or zoos.  Has seen first-hand the violent, dirty, and exploiting conditions on hog, dairy, poultry, fish, and fur farms and vivisection labs.

Founder and Executive Director of the Animal Liberation League.   Founded the Student Organization for Animal Rights (SOAR) at the University of Minnesota during the Summer of 1993.

Credible A.L.F. Spokesperson:  Interviewed dozens of A.L.F. activists - including the A.L.F. Founder, Ronnie Lee, and A.L.F. Press Officers Robin Webb and Robin Lane.  These interviews were conducted during the summer of 1993, while doing a 3 month research project in England, Wales, and Scotland on the British animal liberation movement.

Founder and editor of No Compromise: The Militant, Direct Action Magazine of Animal Liberationists and their Supporters.

Served as spokesperson for the A.L.F. on numerous occasions.  Founder of A.L.F. Appreciation Day, a day to celebrate and show moral support for the courageous and compassionate commandos of the Animal Liberation Front.  Addressed a crowd of thousands of animal activists on the importance of the A.L.F. in the movement at the March for Animals in Washington D.C. during June of 1996.

Susan McCullom is an 18 yr.  Veteran of the animal rights movement.  She is a proponent of direct action, and as a result, has been arrested a number of times for her beliefs.  Susan has appeared on national and local media as spokesperson for the protests and other events that she has organized, originally in Canada and most recently with the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida(ARFF).  During the past three years, Susan has hosted a weekly animal rights radio show.  As Humane Education Director for ARFF, Susan has introduced humane-and environmental-resource kits, vegetarian cooking demonstrations and interactive plays that promote animal awareness to South Florida schools.
 
 

Kenneth Joel Shapiro is executive director and co-founder of Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  His education background includes a BA in intellectual history from Harvard University and a Ph.d. in clinical and personality psychology from Duke University.  He has published scholarly work in the areas of phenomenological psychology and animal welfare.  He is founding editor of Society and Animals and co-founding editor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.  His most recent book is Animal Models of Human Psychology: Critique of Science, Ethics, and Policy, published by Hogrefe and Huber.

In 1990, Karen Davis founded United Poultry Concerns, a non-profit public education organization that addresses the treatment of domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment, and human companionship situations.  United Poultry Concerns promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl, humane education, and a humane lifestyle through its quarterly Newsletter Poultry Press and many other publications, including Replacing School Hatching Projects: Alternative Resources & How to Order Them.  In 1991 and 1993, Karen Davis published a cookbook, Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless 'Poultry' Potpourri (revised edition, 1999, The Book Publishing Co.)  Karen Davis is the author of a children's book, A Home for Henny (1996), and Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (The Book Publishing Company 1996).  Prisoned Chickens, which includes a chapter on chicken embryology and a section on school hatching projects, was recommended by Publishers Weekly as a "thoroughly researched analysis of the gruesome, dirty and brutal lives of factory-farmed chickens."

Please note:  although I listed my topic as “cruelty investigations”, my goal is to speak on bridging the gap between animal rights groups and humane societies and how, working together, we can strengthen the laws to protect animals and facilitate the prosecution of animal cruelty cases.

My involvement with greyhounds began nearly three years ago when my husband and I began volunteering with a greyhound rescue and adoption group in the Tampa Bay area.  I spent the next two years fostering a total of 15 dogs and promoting greyhound adoptions to the public and the local media.  It was as a result of those experiences that I became aware of the enormity of the problem of placing the massive numbers of dogs that pour off of the nation’s dog tracks week after week.  Working so closely with these wonderful dogs, I also had the opportunity to see first-hand the damage that the dog racing industry does to them, both physically and psychologically.  I eventually came to realize that the only solution to the problem is the total elimination of the dog racing industry.  It was that realization that led me to the GPL.

During the last year, I have organized a number of GPL tabling events throughout the Tampa Bay area;  participated in the Great American Teach-In;  arranged for GPL ads to appear in local newspapers; been interviewed for a newspaper article that was a critical of the dog racing industry;  appeared on Florida Voices for Animals public access television show;  had several letters-to-the-editor published;  organized a number of demonstrations and awareness rallies at Tampa Greyhound Track and Derby Lane;  and recruited a number of wonderful volunteers to help participate in GPL activities.

He then relocated to New England, where he led whale watch cruises to
experience the humpback whales and other cetaceans of the Atlantic Ocean. He
co-wrote New England Whales, a popular tourist-oriented description of the
Gulf of Maine ecosystem and its cetacean inhabitants. Garrett was back in
Washington in 1993 in time to join in efforts to rehab and release Keiko,
the orca star of Free Willy. These efforts led to the present campaign to
return Lolita to her native waters.

At 33 years of age, Lolita is the oldest orca in captivity today. Lolita was
captured in 1970 from Pacific Northwest waters at approximately 6 years of
age and transferred to the Miami Seaquarium where she has spent the past 27
years. In wild orca communities studied to date, it has been determined that
female orcas can live into their 70's and beyond. Thus, if returned to her
home waters, Lolita could have many more years ahead of her than would be
expected if she remains in captivity.

There are 27 members of Lolita's family alive today who were alive when she
was captured. Of those 27, 11 are females of the correct age range to be her
mother.