In Defense of Animals founder Elliot Katz dies at 86

Elliot Katz, 1934-1921.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Animal rights movement pioneer

            SAN RAFAEL,  California–– In Defense of Animals founder Elliot Katz,  DVM,  “died peacefully on March 24th at the age of 86,”  the organization announced via Facebook on April 9,  2021,  after word of Katz’s death had percolated through the animal advocacy community for several days.

“Dr. Katz was a trailblazer in the animal rights movement and a vegan for more than 30 years,”  the In Defense of Animals death announcement continued.

“After establishing In Defense of Animals in 1983,  he was arrested 37 times for civil disobedience,  secured the transfer of 30 primate victims of U.C. Berkeley’s maternal deprivation experiments to a sanctuary,  filed a lawsuit that successfully prevented the U.S. Army from breaking the legs of 120 retired racing greyhounds {at the now closed Presidio research and teaching military hospital in San Francisco],  and shut down the infamous Coulston Foundation — the world’s largest chimpanzee lab,”  the announcement said.

From left to right: IFAW founder Brian Davies, Paul Seigel of Direct Mail Systems, and the late marine mammalogist Sydney Holt. (See Sidney Holt, 93, achieved goal that great whales would outlive him.)

“Always at the animals’ service”

            Offered Paul Seigel of Direct Mail Systems,  who was fundraising consultant and campaign strategist for In Defense of Animals during Katz’s most successful decade,  2000-2010,  “With the passing of Dr. Elliot Katz,  the animals have lost one of their greatest champions.  He was the real deal––always at the animals’ service,  constantly second-guessing his decisions,  often hesitating,  wanting to be 1,000% certain he was doing exactly the right thing in every situation.  He worked non-stop and was a taskmaster,  but he could also be mischievous and had a tremendously dry sense of humor.  That was part of the joy of working with him, which I was honored to do as his fundraising consultant for the better part of a dozen years.”

Seigel,  also the man-behind-the-scenes for International Fund for Animal Welfare and Animal Network founder Brian Davies and Animals Asia Foundation founder Jill Robinson,  among others,  often saw sides of Katz that were largely concealed from others,  until Katz felt he had tested them enough to trust.  That could take a while.

Elliot Katz.  (Beth Clifton collage)

“Called 24 times on Christmas Day”

But Katz,  though more inclined to make enemies in early acquaintance with others,  tended to keep his friends,  after the inevitable initial conflicts.

“I know many people found Dr. Katz to be impossible,”  Seigel added,  “and he could definitely be difficult,  very difficult,”  as Katz’s oldest friend,  Ed Duvin,  affirms in a sidebar appreciation.

(See also Ed Duvin on Elliot Katz:  “I had a unique relationship with Elliot.”)

“But often he was just having a go,”  Seigel said.  “Once you got to know him,  you could usually tell whether he was just having fun.  Once, he called me 24 times––on Christmas Day.  I kid you not.  My wife and I still laugh about it.  I can’t even remember about what he kept calling,  but it turned out he was just messing around.  In the last call he actually asked if he’d driven me nuts yet!”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Boyhood dog rescuer

Recalled Katz of his early life,  in a November 2011 interview posted by the web site IdeaMensch,  “From the time I was a child, through films, books, the media and personal experience, I identified with the plight of the underdog––of the homeless,  of the weak and vulnerable,  of those who were abused,  exploited,  abandoned and in harm’s way,  regardless of their species.

“As a youngster,”  growing up in a relatively affluent household toward the end of the Great Depression and the World War II years,  “my life saving work focused on rescuing abandoned or lost dogs on the beaches and sand dunes of Long Island,  New York,”  Katz said.

Katz also remembered “saving the lives of countless starfish and other beings who had been washed ashore,  by returning them to the ocean after a storm had passed.

“At age 8 or 9,”  Katz said,  “I vowed to become a veterinarian after a little dog I had rescued gave birth to six puppies.”

The puppies,  unfortunately,  “died one by one from distemper,”  Katz recounted,  “despite the fact that my father and I took them to a local veterinarian in an attempt to save their lives. When I realized that the tragedy of these deaths,  of the terrible suffering these puppies had gone through, would likely have been prevented by early vaccinations,  my future opened up to me.”

Virginia Handley, 1946-2014, in 1963 and shortly before her death.

From Cornell to San Francisco

A 1958 graduate of the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine,  Katz “vehemently refused to perform practice surgeries on live dogs and came close to being kicked out,”  recalled current In Defense of Animals president Marilyn Kroplick,  who succeeded Katz in 2012.

Though Katz established a successful veterinary practice on the Marin peninsula,  north of San Francisco,  his initial involvement in activism came in a variety of other causes,  for example in opposition to the Vietnam War,  promoting Gestalt and Zen approaches to psychology and philosophy,  and seeking legalization of marijuana.

Katz met animal rescuer Sue Herndon,  slightly older and recently divorced from a prominent San Francisco lawyer,  when both volunteered at a Haight-Asbury District soup kitchen during the height of the “hippie” era,  circa 1968-1969.  Herndon and the mother-and-daughter Animal Switchboard cofounders Grace and Virginia Handley (see Virginia Handley, longtime California animal lobbyist, dies at 68),  who began their project in 1970,  may have been the first animal rights activists Katz encountered.  The “animal rights movement,”  as such,  was still years from kindling.

Elliot Katz (center) is arrested at a U.C. Berkeley protest, 1985.

Took on U.C. Berkeley

Herndon later recalled Katz as the sympathetic veterinarian whom the activists would take their rescues to,  and who would spend afternoons volunteering to help the animals kept by hippies camped at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco,  or living on the streets,  but Herndon also remembered that at least at first he tended to maintain a professional distance from emotive campaigning––perhaps because he knew he could easily become immersed in it.

That ended in 1983,  Katz told IdeaMensch,  after “I came to the support of a [fellow] veterinarian,  Max Redfern,  who was attempting to act responsibly and with integrity,  to enforce the federal Animal Welfare Act on the U.C. Berkeley campus where he was employed.

“Thousands upon thousands of animals were dying not only due to horrific mutilation,”  Katz learned,  “but due to overcrowding, lack of ventilation and lack of sanitation.  Because my colleague was trying to do the right thing,  the responsible thing,  the university was retaliating against him.  It was an incredible,  and for me,  an unbelievable situation.

“Dr. Redfern asked for my help.  Ultimately,  we sued the United States Department of Agriculture for not enforcing the Animal Welfare Act on the U.C. Berkeley Campus.  It resulted in the USDA issuing a cease and desist order against the university,  fining the institution $12,500.  This was a precedent-setting development in those days,  some 30 years ago.”

Raymond Giraud

Raymond & Lise Giraud

Katz found early mentors in animal advocacy in Raymond and Lise Giraud,  who died in 2006 and 2008,  respectively,  at ages 85 and 84.

A World War II veteran whose wife Lise,  a librarian,  was an Austrian refugee from the Nazis,  Raymond Giraud taught French literature at Stanford University,  1958-1986,  was an early opponent of the Vietnam War,  and in 2000 represented the International Coalition of Observers in Jeremie,  Haiti,  monitoring 36 election polling stations.

The Girauds became active on behalf of animals after learning of a psychology experiment in which young monkeys were caged beside a boa constrictor.  They challenged the experiments as “not relevant to human beings and causing needless pain and suffering to the monkeys,”  recalled San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jason B. Johnson.

Raymond Giraud became the lead plaintiff in a separate lawsuit preceding the case Katz remembered,  filed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Peninsula Humane Society on behalf of a dog named Snowball.

Doll Stanley.  (Facebook photo)

The cause Snowballs

Katz publicized the Snowball case through a committee he formed called Californians for Responsible Research,  which became In Defense of Animals.  Among the first Californians for Responsible Research volunteers was Doll Stanley,  who went on to found the Project Hope sanctuary,  an In Defense of Animals subsidiary,  in Grenada,  Mississippi,  in 1992.

The Snowball case was also publicized by Buddhists Concerned for Animals,  organized by Bradley Miller.  This organization evolved into the Humane Farming Association.

Through the work of Katz,  Miller,  and others,  the Snowball case became an early antivivisection cause celebré,  of enduring influence.

Summarized attorney Deidre Bourke at the 2003 National Animal Rights Conference in Wellington,  New Zealand,  “Snowball was found suffering from starvation,  emaciation and infected wounds,   at a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Palo Alto,  where he was used for surgical practice by Stanford University students.  The USDA confirmed the seriousness of the injuries,  but chose not to lay charges.  The case was dismissed,   as the plaintiffs lacked standing.

In Defense of Animals “World Day for Laboratory Animals” protest in San Francisco, 1983.

“The case helped to alert framers of intended animal protection legislation to the importance of including clauses enabling animal advocates to bring cases on behalf of animals who cannot represent themselves.”

Nearly froze

Raymond Giraud subsequently served on the Palo Alto Humane Society board of directors,  and was co-director of education for In Defense of Animals from 1990 until his death.

Katz and In Defense of Animals volunteers ramped up their campaign against animal use at U.C. Berkeley by chaining themselves to bulldozers in November 1985 to try to prevent the construction of a new laboratory.

Eventually Katz,  already 50 years old,  staged a sit-in atop a construction crane.  According to Herndon,  it was a warm day when Katz climbed up,  but he had forgotten how cold the November night would be,  and was happy to be arrested so that he could warm up.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“We did not want them to settle”

Years later,  Katz decided litigation on behalf of animals was more effective than demonstrations,  if litigation could be pursued.

But Katz was frustrated in September 2005,  when the University of California at San Francisco settled a 61-count complaint filed over alleged Animal Welfare Act violations by paying civil penalties totaling $92,500.

“We did not want them to settle because they don’t have to admit guilt,”  Katz told Leslie Fuibright of the San Francisco Chronicle.  “It is clear,”  Katz said,  “that UCSF feared a public airing of the evidence.”

One of In Defense of Animals’ early antivivisection campaigns became one of the animal rights movement’s most notorious backfires.

Henry Spira & friend.

Procter & Gamble

Animal Rights International founder Henry Spira,  after convincing the American Museum of Natural History to give up performing bizarre sexual experiments on cats in 1976,  and securing a pledge from Revlon to phase out animal testing in 1980,  negotiated a 1984 deal with Procter & Gamble in which P&G,  one of the largest makers of personal care products in the world,  agreed to adopt as corporate goals a reduction in animal use,  the ongoing refinement of tests to use fewer animals in less painful tests,  and outright replacement of animal tests wherever possible.

Most significantly,  Procter & Gamble committed to funding the development of legally acceptable replacements for animal testing,  getting them approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and international regulatory agencies,  and making them available to other personal care product makers and developers.

When word of the agreement leaked out just ahead of the official announcement,  animal advocacy groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] and the Humane Society of the U.S. [HSUS] announced boycotts of Procter & Gamble,  positioning themselves to claim a piece of the “victory” already won by Spira without any public campaign.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Waged boycott for 16 years

In Defense of Animals signed on in support of the boycotts,  and continued to boycott Procter & Gamble for sixteen years,  even as Procter & Gamble spent more than $190 million in fulfillment of the agreement with Spira,  and has continued to honor the agreement,  23 years after Spira died in 1998.

In 1989,  annoyed by the ongoing PETA,  HSUS,  and In Defense of Animals boycotts,  then-Procter & Gamble president John Smale wrote a memo proposing a $17.5 million anti-animal rights campaign to the P&G board of directors.  His strategic outline was immediately leaked,  however,  by cooler heads at the upper echelons of the company.

Spira received and circulated a copy.  So did ANIMALS 24-7 and the Cincinnati Inquirer.  The proposal was scrapped.  Smale lost his job soon afterward.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Recycled mailing

But In Defense of Animals did a mass mailing decrying the Smale scheme as if it had gone ahead.  Then in 1995 In Defense of Animals sent out an identical mailing,  also posting a version of it online.

Katz told ANIMALS 24-7 that the mailing was an overrun of the literature previously mailed in 1989.

“Someone found it in storage and we decided to use it rather than let it go to waste,”   Katz said.

Meanwhile,  Spira and ANIMALS 24-7 learned,  when invited to a Washington D.C. meeting with senior research and development executives of several other personal care product manufacturers,  the net effect of the Procter & Gamble boycott campaigns had been to convince the corporate bean-counters at other companies that doing anything to please animal rights activists would be a total waste of investment.  .

The research and development executives wanted their employers to authorize spending to develop their own high-tech non-animal testing methods,  in competition with Procter & Gamble,  but thought this could only be done if the anti-P&G campaign ended.

Advised of this,  PETA and the Humane Society of the U.S. abandoned their Procter & Gamble boycott campaigns years before In Defense of Animals dropped theirs.

Elliot Katz and anthropologist Jane Goodall
in 1983 at the Californians for Responsible Research Mobilization for Animals event,  held at U.C. Davis and other sites.
(In Defense of Animals photo)

Closed the Coulston Foundation

A contrastingly successful Katz-led campaign brought the September 2003 sale of the Coulston Foundation,  with 266 chimps,  to the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care,  headed by anthropologist turned sanctuarian Carol Noon (1949-2009).

Toxicologist Frederick Coulston (1914-2003) formed the Coulston Foundation in 1993,  taking over the Alamogordo Primate Facility,  which at peak housed as many as 650 chimpanzees belonging to the U.S. Air Force.  Under Coulston,  the facility became the largest supplier of chimps to U.S. labs,  funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Management of the chimp colony briefly passed to Charles River Laboratories Inc. after Coulston’s death.

Some survivors from the Coulston Foundation continue to live at the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care in Florida.

Katz meanwhile backed the formation of the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon,  started in 1999 by U.S. veterinarian Sheri Speede,  who had previously been northwest representative for In Defense of Animals.  Originally an In Defense of Animals subsidiary,  the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center is now an independent organization,  with U.S. offices in Portland,  Oregon.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Stopped animal use in Valleylab sales training at University of Colorado

The last successful In Defense of Animals campaign against animal use in laboratories during Katz’s tenure came in March 5, 2007.

Emailed Katz,  “After learning that at least 18 dogs and 191 pigs were killed at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center during sales training workshops for Valleylab, an electrosurgery systems manufacturer,  Rita Anderson,  director of the Committee for Research Accountability,  a project of In Defense of Animals,  was responsible for acquiring and reviewing about 350 pages of documents obtained from an open records request about the labs,  and immediately notified the University of Colorado regents.

“In an email forwarded by a university regent, the university attorney stated,  “The campus will no longer allow our facilities to be used for programs where the sole purpose is the training of sales personnel.”

Pat Derby & 71, one of the elephants at the Performing Animal Welfare Society’s Ark 2000 sanctuary, shortly before Derby’s death in February 2013.  (See Pat Derby founded the Performing Animal Welfare Society & ARK 2000 sanctuary.)

Relocated elephants from zoos

Another of Katz’s most successful efforts sought the relocation of elephants from zoos to sanctuaries.

The San Francisco Zoo,  one of the first to respond,  divested of elephants in two stages. Thai-born Tinkerbelle was trucked to the Performing Animal Welfare Sanctuary in San Andreas on November 28,  2004.  Lulu, an African elephant,  followed four months later.  Celebration of her arrival at San Andreas was dampened when Tinkerbelle,  long suffering from chronic degenerative foot ailments,  took a turn for the worse.  On March 24,  2005 she collapsed and was euthanized.

“It’s a downhill slope once the foot is rotting away,”  Katz told Patricia Yollin of the San Francisco Chronicle.  “Elephants’ feet were never made to stand on unyielding surfaces like concrete.  It takes time,  but it’s definitely a death sentence,”  Katz said.

San Francisco Zoo director of animal care and conservation Bob Jenkins agreed.   The condition she was suffering from probably started 38 years ago,  when it was standard to keep elephants on concrete,  Jenkins told Yollin.  Those decisions were made by my forebears.”

The San Francisco Zoo,  located at the present site since 1922,  had exhibited elephants since 1925.

(Merritt Clifton collage)

Fought captive breeding programs

The Los Angeles Zoo elephant Ruby was relocated to the Performing Animal Welfare sanctuary,  after a long In Defense of Animals campaign,  in May 2007.

The last elephant moved from a zoo to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary during Katz’s tenure at In Defense of Animals was Maggie,  in July 2007.  Maggie had been alone at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage since the death of her longtime companion,  Annabelle,  at age 33 in December 1997.

Katz also campaigned against American Zoo & Aquarium Association efforts to maintain a population of elephants in zoos through captive breeding,  pointing out in 2006 that of 12 Asian elephants born at zoos since 2000,  seven were either delivered dead or died soon afterward.  In addition,  three elephant mothers died due to birthing problems.

“For elephants to be ready for a birth,  they need to be in good shape,”  Katz told media. “Elephants kept in zoos are not in the best of shape.”

Added Katz to Palm Beach Post staff writer Kelly Wolfe in September 2006,  “When students go to a zoo,  what they see is a crippled elephant in an unnatural setting.  You don’t see their
energy.  [Zoo elephants] are cartoons, almost.”

Bill Dyer (left) & Elliot Katz (right).

Helped Bill Dyer to rescue goats

Katz became involved on behalf of non-native wildlife after meeting longtime Southern California activist Bill Dyer at the second March for Animals in Washington, D.C. in 1996.

(See “Buffalo Bill” Dyer, 83, led animal rescues from Santa Catalina Island.)

The march itself,  which Katz had only a minor part in promoting,  was a catastrophic flop.  Fewer than 3,000 marchers participated,  after tens of thousands had been predicted.

Katz asked Dyer to speak in his place.

In Defense of Animals then gave Dyer the opportunity he needed to intervene on behalf of the feral goats of Santa Catalina Island,  who had come with Spanish colonists at an unknown time between the arrival of explorer Juan Cabrillo in 1542 and the abandonment of Spanish and native settlements on the island circa 1830.

Bill Dyer with rescued goat in 1999.

Saved 121 goats

The Catalina Island Conservancy declared war on the goats circa 1989.  More than 10 years of shooting,  including from helicopters,  killed as many as 3,000 goats over the next decade,  before Dyer and the brush-clearing firm Goats R Us won authorization to remove 121 goats alive during October and November 1999.

But Goats R Us owner Terri Oyarzun had prior commitments to other projects in December and January 2000,  forcing suspension of the evacuation with an estimated 86 goats still at large.

Declaring an urgent need to exterminate the remaining goats before the spring birthing season,  the Catalina Island Conservancy sent sharpshooters,  who killed 63.  Goats remained on the island until the last were removed alive in 2001.

Six years later,  in 2007,  Catalina Island residents attributed a devastating wildfire to the loss of the goats,  who formerly controlled the growth of tindery forest understory.

Rescued bison too

The goat extirpation left Catalina Island still occupied by about 300 bison,  also slated for death by the Catalina Island Conservancy.

The bison were descended from a herd of 14 introduced to the island in 1924 during the filming of the 1926 western film The Vanishing American,  starring Richard Dix.  The herd was later supplemented and built up as part of a commercial beef ranch operated by chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr.

Dyer,  with Katz’s backing,  resettled the bison on the Cheyenne River Reservation and the Standing Rock Reservation,  both in South Dakota,  to become part of the Lakota Sioux herd.

Elliot Katz treats injured goats after 2007 truck crash.  (Beth Clifton collage)

Katz treated goats after 2007 truck crash

Katz and Goats R Us had a less happy interaction on the morning of July 6,  2007,  when a 32-foot tractor/trailer rig hauled more than 400 goats “crashed just one block away from In Defense of Animals’ headquarters in San Rafael, California,”  an In Defense of Animals media release recounted.  In all,  243 of the goats died, most from suffocation as a result of being locked inside the trailer for nearly an hour after the accident occurred.

“Between 400 and 500 one-to-two-year-old Spanish goats had been loaded onto the 13-foot-tall transport,  separated into four tiers of steel shelves,”  the media release explained.  “These levels collapsed like dominos during the crash,  so that animals below were crushed by the metal dividers and goats above.”

Police at the scene initially refused to allow Oyarzun to release the 150-odd surviving goats and use her herding dogs to corral them away from traffic.

Eventually Katz and other In Defense of Animals staff were allowed to rescue and treat the survivors.  This appears to have been the last time Katz,  then 75,  practiced veterinary medicine.

Bobcat & coyote in front of historic ranch buildings at Point Reyes.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Defended deer at Point Reyes

Inspired by Dyer,  Katz himself meanwhile led opposition to National Park Service culls of non-native fallow and axis deer at Point Reyes National Seashore.  The deer were brought from the Fleishacker Zoo in San Francisco between 1942 and 1954 by Vision Ranch owner Millard Ottinger,  who had a standing deal with the zoo management to buy surplus deer.

“Nothing is being hurt right now by the fallow and axis deer being there,”   Katz said.  “I think it is being both cruel and insensitive to say just because they’re not native we should kill
them.  Parks are not static things,”  Katz continued.  “They’re constantly changing.  The thinking is,  if a new species has moved in,  it’s causing a problem,  so let’s kill it. We should try to see if there is another way to solve the problem.”

The last of the axis deer are believed to have been shot in 2009.

Meanwhile,  says the Point Reyes National Seashore web page,  “In the fall of 2008,  the Seashore began focusing solely on contraceptive methods,”  recommended by Katz,  “to control the fallow deer population.”

Animals hoping for justice to be done at the U.S. Supreme court.  (Beth Clifton collage)

Took case to Supreme Court

As well as pursuing broadly focused campaigns on behalf of particular categories of animals whom Katz believed were especially badly treated,  Katz worked to empower animal advocacy in general.

In 1994,  for instance,  San Francisco police officer Donald Saucier dragged Katz away from  an appearance by then-U.S. Vice President Al Gore,  as Katz tried to unfurl a protest banner.  Katz was not charged with any offense.

Claiming he was handled with unjustifiable violence,  and that the case might help to establish the right to protest,  Katz sued Saucier for allegedly violating his civil rights.

Katz won a favorable verdict from the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,  but the appellate decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18,  2001,  by a vote of six to three.

Elliot Katz.  (In Defense of Animals photo)

“Don’t breed or buy”

Hundreds of U.S. animal advocacy organizations have long used the phrase “Please don’t breed or buy while millions of homeless animals die,”   and close variants,  in campaigns against dog and cat overpopulation.  In 2001,  however,  the International Society for Animal Rights [ISAR] trademarked a similar phrase,  retroactive to 1999,  and began threatening other users with lawsuits for alleged trademark infringement.

Sued by ISAR in April 2003,  Katz and In Defense of Animals,  backed by historical evidence found by ANIMALS 24-7,   won an out-of-court settlement which––though not disclosed––is believed to protect the right of all pro-animal groups to use similar phrases.

No one else is known to have been threatened with a trademark infringement lawsuit for using a “Please don’t breed or buy while millions die” phrase in the 20 years since.

Schumacher Furs,  of Portland,  Oregon,  now defunct,  in April 2007 sued PETA,  In Defense of Animals,  then-In Defense of Animals employee Matt Rossell,  and the Animal Liberation Front,  a name used by multiple clandestine organizations for more than 40 years,  for staging protests that eventually drove the company out of town.

The case was thrown out of court on June 20,  2007.

Elliot Katz

“We’re against violence to any species”

Katz meanwhile made clear that while he favored and sometimes practiced targeted civil disobedience,  he had no use for covert actions and intimidation tactics.

“We’re against violence to any species, including our own,”  Katz told Lisa M. Krieger and Dana Hull of the San Jose Mercury News in August 2008.  “With a broad brush, it makes everyone who cares about animals look like an extremist,  and that plays into the hands of people who exploit them.  They are able to discredit what we do.”

Comparably,  Katz rarely flinched from using photographs depicting cruelty in laboratories and other institutional settings in campaign mailings,  but in March 2008 successfully sought cancellation of a one-person San Francisco Art Institute show by Paris artist Adel Abdessemed called “Don’t Trust Me,”  which featured video loops of a pig,  a goat,  a deer,  an ox,  a horse,  and a sheep being bludgeoned to death,  apparently at a Mexican slaughterhouse.

Said Katz,  “This is a snuff film about animals,”  presented for entertainment rather than to try to stop the actions depicted.

Charlie the pit bull and his guardian Elliot Katz.  (Facebook photo)

“Don’t change the law because someone broke it”

Katz remained energetically active on multiple fronts for another several years.

Also in 2008,  for instance,  Katz decried the action of the Rowell Ranch board of directors,  who fined the Rowell Ranch Rodeo $2,500 for violating a rule against using electric prods at the annual event in Castro Valley,  California,  but also recommended that the rule be rescinded because it conflicted with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association policy.

“Don’t change the law because someone broke it,”  Katz told the board.

Katz in October 2009 marked the return of Michael Vick to professional football,  after serving 18 months in prison for involvement in dogfighting,  by asking National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell to explicitly include dogfighting and cockfighting among the offenses listed in the NFL Personal Conduct Policy.

Two months later Katz unsuccessfully appealed to then-U.S. President Barack Obama to stop a roundup of wild horses in Nevada.

Jim Mason with a calf as a child.
(JimMason.com photo)

“Guardianship”

But with such scattered exceptions,  Katz became increasingly focused on the most abstract of all his many campaigns:  an attempt to amend the English language,  and the language of law, to replace the concept of animal ownership with animal guardianship.

This campaign originated,  Katz explained,  from a passage by Jim Mason in his recently reprinted 1993 book An Unnatural Order.

Wrote Mason,  “Animals have been regarded as property for way too long.  It’s high time we took on a more loving and responsible relationship with our kindred beings in the web of life on this beautiful planet. I always think and act as a guardian towards my kindred beings,  never as their owner.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Band-Aid cures”

Said Katz in the 2011 IdeaMensch interview,  “Several years ago I realized that unless I did something to change the existing paradigm that sees and treats other species as no more than mere property,  commodities,  objects or things to be ‘owned,’  to be bought and sold,  exploited,  abused and ultimately killed,  many of our victories and accomplishments would only be Band-Aid cures.  I realized it was time to move away from the concept of “animal ownership” in favor of “animal guardianship.”

As well as building on the Jim Mason quote,  the “guardianship” campaign built on the widely cited slogan,  attributed to PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk,  that “Animals are not ours to eat,  wear,  experiment on,  or use for entertainment.”

Elliot Katz with Cesar Chavez in 1992.
(In Defense of Animals photo)

Launched campaign in 1999

Katz formally launched the In Defense of Animals “guardianship” campaign in 1999.  By mid-2006 the campaign had led to changes in ordinance wording in San Francisco,  Marin and Santa Clara counties in northern California,  and Fairfax county,  Virginia,  along with changes in legislative wording in the state of Rhode Island.

But Katz himself downplayed the legal significance of “guardian” language,  telling San Diego Union Tribune reporter Melissa Domsic in 2006 that in reference to legal requirements for pet-keepers,  the changes are “simply semantic.”

Barry McCabe and Kaiser, his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, killed by a pit bull.
(Facebook photos)

“Guardianship” in Virginia Supreme Court

This has not proven to be the case.  Fairfax County,  Virginia resident Barry McCabe,  for instance,  has a lawsuit currently before the Virginia Supreme Court challenging the use of “guardian” language by the county animal control agency to evade product liability legislation which would otherwise preclude the agency from rehoming dogs of known dangerous history.

The case hinges upon the agency contention that an animal “adoption” is not a “sale” of property.  McCabe,  whose dog was killed by a pit bull who was rehomed despite multiple previous demonstrations of dangerous behavior,  argued the case before a three-justice panel during the first week of April 2021.

Madeleine & Will Tuttle.

Cited Gandhi

The “guardianship” campaign still has considerable momentum among animal advocates.

“The move from ‘owner’ to ‘guardian’ frees both the ‘owners’ and the ‘owned,’  and establishes the foundation for peace,  freedom,  and justice,” contended World Peace Diet author Will Tuttle in a posthumous statement honoring Katz.

Katz often cited the example of Mohandas Gandhi campaigning against the use of the term “untouchable” in trying to overturn the caste system in India,  which Gandhi succeeded in having legally abolished in 1936.

Eighty-four years later,  however,  while the term “untouchable” long since fell out of use,  replaced by the Hindi words “harijan” and “dalit,”  the caste system remains almost as culturally entrenched as ever.

The reforms Gandhi advanced that have helped to erode the caste system were all practical measures:  extensions of universal free public education,  especially for girls;  the right to vote;  free meals for school children;  and free basic health care.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Revolving door

Katz’s mercurial temperament and often autocratic leadership style,  shared with other founders and builders of prominent animal rights organizations,  led to frequent departures of staff,  and to a December 1993 attempted coup dé etat led by members of the In Defense of Animals board of directors,  after Katz responded to a cash flow crisis by firing the then-In Defense of Animals development director and trying to set firm policies on staff use of paid time,  vacation time,  and office facilities.

Both Katz personally and In Defense of Animals generally appeared to stabilize after Paul Seigel became Katz’s fundraising consultant and frequent confidante.

Marilyn Kroplick. (Beth Clifton collage)

Troubled transition

Katz,  however,  aware of his own advancing age and declining health,  became increasingly anxious to hire and designate a successor.  Executive directors who were hired and then either resigned or were fired during Katz’s final decade as president of In Defense of Animals included Rick Bogle,  Karen Snook,  Anand Ramanathan,  Scotlund Haisley,  Neal Trent,  and Joe Haptas.

Ramanathan and Haisley were conspicuously bad choices,  bringing baggage with them.

Trent and Haptas,  on the other hand,  were well-respected veteran animal charity management professionals.

(See Which Hurricane Harvey animal relief charity took the Labor Day weekend off? and Haisley gets four years for robbery, domestic violence charges pending.)

Katz transferred the presidency to Marilyn Kroplick in 2012 and became president emeritus,  but the revolving door continued to rotate,  including with Seigel’s exit,  while board members and Haptas took formal complaints about fiscal management issues to California attorney generals Bill Lockyer and his successor Kamala Harris,  now vice president of the United States.

            (See Ousted In Defense of Animals executive director takes dossier to state attorney general’s office and In Defense of Animals in turmoil: what is going on?)

SAEN cofounders Karen & Michael Budkie.

Encouraged ex-staff to start own organizations

Said Katz in his IdeaMensch interview,  “I’ve done a lot of things–many of them in hindsight were mistakes. But as they say, if you don’t fail sometimes, you’re never really going to learn how to do it better. If you have a core of people who believe in you and what you are about– that it is both right and necessary–then go for it.”

Katz encouraged many former In Defense of Animals staff members to start their own organizations,  if they disagreed with how he ran his,  and although not all of the partings were on amicable terms,  he pointed with pride toward the successes.

In addition to the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center,  organizations founded by former In Defense of Animals personnel include Last Chance for Animals,  begun by Chris DeRose in 1984;  Stop Animal Exploitation Now,  begun by Michael and Karen Budkie in 1996;  the Primate Freedom Project,  founded by Rick Bogle in 2005;  the American Wild Horse Campaign,  begun by Suzanne Roy in 2012;  and Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research & Experimentation,  begun by Barbara Stagno in 2014.

“If there is no other organization out there interested in doing it your way,  then you have no other choice,  especially if your passion is keeping you up night after night,”  Katz advised.

Katz is survived by his two daughters,  a grandchild,  his former wife Gloria A. Katz,  who is the longtime In Defense of Animals bookkeeper,  and his brother.

Bruce Friedrich, Alka Chandna & friend.

“Proud of his daughter”

Recalled longtime PETA scientific advisor Alka Chandna,  “I met Dr. Katz 23 years ago this month, at a World Week for Animals in Laboratories protest at U.C. Berkeley.   I volunteered at In Defense of Animals for a couple of days each week for about six months.  I loved it,  but had to leave when my funds dwindled,  and [as a Canadian citizen] I needed to get work authorization to stay in the U.S.

“Dr. Katz was unfailingly kind to me,”  Chandna said,  “and it was clear that the struggle for animal liberation was something that occupied his every waking moment.

Beth & Merritt Clifton

“The memory of Elliot that fills me with the most joy is from when his daughter Dani joined the staff at PETA, some 14 years ago.  Elliot was so proud that his daughter was carrying on the family tradition of advocating for animals that he called all of his staff into his office at In Defense of Animals while Dani was on the phone with him,  sharing the news.”

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