Animal Defenders International
Encyclopedia
With offices in London and Los Angeles, Animal Defenders International (ADI) is a major international campaigning group, lobbying to protect animals on issues such as animals in entertainment and their use in experiments; worldwide traffic in endangered species
; factory farming
; pollution and conservation.
The organization has been involved with several international animal rescues, funding both the relocation and rehoming of circus lions, tigers, chimpanzees and other animals and has become a major force for animal protection, succeeding through its undercover investigations in securing legal protection for animals.
ADI is part of the National Anti-Vivisection Society
group (NAVS) which comprises ADI, the NAVS, the world’s first anti-vivisection group, and the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research
, which supports the replacement of animals in research through funding alternatives.
In the UK, despite the Government’s 2006 promise to ban “certain non-domesticated animals” from traveling circuses , no changes to existing legislation have been made to date, which has allowed the continued use of wild animal acts in circuses. ADI continues to press Defra (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to honor its pledge to introduce a ban.
ADI’s groundbreaking investigation of the use of animals in circuses in the UK and Europe stunned the world in 1998, when the first-ever footage of behind-the-scenes abuse of circus animals resulted in the prosecution of international animal trainer (and Hollywood animal supplier) Mary Chipperfield, her husband Roger Cawley and their elephant keeper ‘Steve’ Gills. Chipperfield was filmed beating a baby chimpanzee, whilst Cawley and Gills were filmed beating elephants at their headquarters in Hampshire, England. This resulted in the collapse of the UK animal circus industry, and a wholescale move over to human-only circuses. Only a few circuses remained with wild animals.
The Stop Circus Suffering campaign is also active across Europe (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Norway), and the US.
In 2008, ADI released the findings of an undercover investigation of 9 US circuses, and exposed the beatings of elephants by trainer Mike Swain, at Bailey Brothers Circus. The USDA contacted Swain but took no further action. ADI is pursuing this. For US campaigns update, see the ADI USA website..
Footage from investigations and ADI’s scientific report Science on Suffering can be viewed on ADI's Stop Circus Suffering website.
After a long campaign, in 2002 CITES (Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) introduced new regulations for live travelling exhibitions introducing a ‘passport style’ system . ADI first pressed for this tightening up of the rules on circuses in 1997, after exposing a circus in Africa as an animal trafficking front.
As well as its major campaigning activities on animal circuses, ADI also campaigns against the use of animals in advertising, television, films and video. Companies dropping advertising campaigns featuring animals include Toyota, Bombay Sapphire Gin, GMB Union and Careerbuilder.
For ADI’s My Mate’s a Primate campaign – which highlights the threats and exploitation of primates as a result of the bushmeat trade, in entertainment, the pet trade and in experiments – a TV advert was produced in which a young actress highlighted the suffering of chimpanzees in advertising. In the UK, the advert was banned on the grounds that it was “political”. ADI’s challenge against the ban – which prevents advertising by animal, environmental and human rights organizations – has now moved to the European Court of Human Rights. The advert can be viewed on ADI's My Mate's a Primate website.
In 2011 ADI contacted American Humane Association
(AHA), urging them to re-evaluate how they assess the use of animals in films and the statements being made which effectively endorse the use of performing animals. This came after they learned that Tai, the elephant star of the film Water For Elephants was abused prior to the movie, even though AHA gave the film their “No Animals Were Harmed” in the making certification.
From autumn 1997 to early 1998 ADI Field Officers worked undercover at Mary Chipperfield Promotions (MCP) in Hampshire, UK; this was the final assignment in an 18-month investigation. They recorded evidence of elephants, camels, and a baby chimpanzee being beaten. The chimp, Trudy, was seen being kicked, screamed at, and thrashed with a stick by the international trainer, Mary Chipperfield
. The videotape shook the circus world to its foundations.
In 1998, ADI issued multiple summonses for cruelty against Mary Chipperfield Promotions Ltd., the MCP elephant keeper Steve Gills, Mary Chipperfield (nee Cawley), and Roger Cawley and later that year Gills was convicted on multiple counts of cruelty and jailed because of his sustained and repeated attacks on the elephants in his care.
In 1999, the trial of Mary Chipperfield and Roger Cawley began . It was expected to last a day or two but ran for over a week. At the end of it Mary Chipperfield was convicted of 13 counts of cruelty to the chimpanzee Trudy and Roger Cawley (at the time a government zoo inspector) was convicted of cruelty to a sick elephant called Flora.
As a result of the ADI exposé, Mary Chipperfield Promotions closed down its UK operations - the heart of its empire.
The Mary Chipperfield trial remains the defining legal case in circus campaigning around the world. The video of the cruelty swept the world and legislation on animal circuses, as well as local bans on animal use were introduced in many countries in Asia, Central and South America, the USA, Canada, and several European countries. The investigation and the subsequent trial showed that not only did the circus industry consider violence towards animals to be acceptable, but that the law could not protect animals in the entertainment industry from a daily level of deprivation and violence that the public finds unacceptable. Although the Cawleys were convicted and received fines for the worst of the abuse, the inadequacies of the law in the UK were revealed in the bulk of the charges for which they received no punishment whatsoever. Furthermore, they were not banned from keeping or working with animals again, despite that they showed no remorse for their actions, insisting that they would do it all again.
Some of the animals that featured in the trial disappeared, only Trudy was rescued. Chipperfield sold her farm in Hampshire, England, and moved to Spain. ADI continues to monitor her appearances in European circuses, as well as those of other Chipperfield family members.
An incredible journey for Toto, the tragic circus chimp, ended in joy in September 2003 when, for the first time in over 20 years, he shared his first embrace with another chimpanzee. This moment capped a rescue mission by ADI which saw Toto seized from a circus in Chile, and transported 7,000 miles to the world-renowned chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimfunshi
Wildlife Orphanage in Northern Zambia.
27-year old Toto was taken from the wild in Africa as a baby. Aged just 2–3 years old, Toto is believed to have been purchased in the USA by Chile’s Circus Konig, along with three other baby chimpanzees. The other three died, leaving Toto alone with the circus for at least twenty years.
Toto was chained by the neck, and his act involved dressing up in human clothes, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. He lived in a tiny wooden packing crate little more than a metre wide, with bars on the front. Toto’s only comfort during cold days and nights was to huddle beneath a small blanket; he slept surrounded by empty plastic bottles and sweet wrappers.
Chimfunshi is the optimal location for Toto since it has hundreds of acres of natural African vegetation, and has vast experience with orphaned, and damaged chimps. It is one of the very few places in the world (if not the only one) where Toto can integrate with a family group of his own species.
Entire circus seized in Mozambique
In an international rescue mission, ADI secured every single animal from the Akef Egyptian Circus, stationed in Maputo, Mozambique. This was the first time such a broad-based rescue had ever taken place. The animals – 6 lions, 3 tigers, 1 African rock python, 3 horses (a mare and her very young foal, plus a stallion), and 7 dogs – had been abandoned to starve.
The Mozambique government confiscated all of the animals and placed them in the care of ADI. The python, tigers and lions were confiscated for CITES and import permit contraventions, in addition to welfare reasons. The horses were rehomed in Mozambique and the lions, tigers, pythons and dogs were moved to South Africa where they spent some time in quarantine whilst waiting for a permanent home.
Murphy the python could not be released and went to a protected enclosure at Fitzsimons Snake Park in South Africa. Three of the lions, from the extinct-listed Barbary sub-species, lived at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre until they died of old age a decade later; the other three lions were placed with the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, by 2009, one remains to a fit and healthy old age, the others having succumbed to the passage of time. The tigers were rehomed with the Milimani Game Lodge, but after about 8 years, their home was lost in a land claim and ADI retrieved and relocated them to live at Hoesdpruit, where they spent the remainder of their lives.
Tarzan, Sarah and Ceaser
In 2007 ADI rescued two lions, Sarah and Caesar, and a tiger, Tarzan, from Circo Universal in Portugal. Having been spotted by an ADI Field Officer in 2006, the animals appeared to be abandoned but were in fact off the road due to lack of funds.
The Portuguese authorities seized the animals, who were held at Lisbon Zoo before they were handed over to ADI, who then arranged for them to be moved to their rescue centre in South Africa, where they remain.
in Cambridgeshire.
Their investigations revealed owl monkeys torn from the trees of the rainforest to be taken for malaria experiments in Colombia; monkeys in rusting, collapsing cages at a Home Office-approved monkey supplier in Vietnam and in the UK the most vivid insight ever of primates in commercial testing caught on film at Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire, a major contract testing operation for multi-national product brands which can hold up to 550 monkeys at a time. During the one-year ADI undercover investigation, 217 monkeys were killed in just five studies, which included struggling monkeys being strapped into chairs and forced to inhale products.
Following an ADI campaign across Europe, there is considerable momentum for strong measures to end experiments on primates.
In September 2007, the European Parliament
adopted a Declaration co-originated by ADI calling for bans on the use of wild-caught primates and great apes, along with a timetable for phasing out the use of all primates in experiments. 55% of MEPs signed the Declaration, making it the most supported on an animal protection matter ever.
In November 2008, the European Commission
published its proposal for a new Directive on animal testing, replacing Directive 86/609/EEC. It included a requirement for prior authorisation for all animal experiments; the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, refinement) as a cornerstone of the legislation with particular emphasis on replacement; ethical reviews; a licensing system for suppliers, establishments and individuals using animals; an upper limit of pain; uniform implementation of Council of Europe
standards of housing; the extension of the scope of the Directive to some invertebrate species and foetal animals, and other measures. However, there were also shortcomings. Notably, bans on the use of great apes
and endangered species contained loopholes and exemptions.
The Directive will now go to the Council of Ministers
, where every Member State will have its say on the Commission’s proposal and on the European Parliament’s amendments. The Directive can only be adopted if both the Council and the Parliament agree on the same text. The Commission would play an important conciliatory role if the two institutions were to disagree.
With no prospect of a complete ban on primate use being on the table, ADI is working to achieve the best possible outcome for laboratory animals in the revision of EU regulations, due to be finalized in 2009.
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
; factory farming
Factory farming
Factory farming is a term referring to the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption...
; pollution and conservation.
The organization has been involved with several international animal rescues, funding both the relocation and rehoming of circus lions, tigers, chimpanzees and other animals and has become a major force for animal protection, succeeding through its undercover investigations in securing legal protection for animals.
ADI is part of the National Anti-Vivisection Society
National Anti-Vivisection Society
The National Anti-Vivisection Society, is a national, not-for-profit animal welfare organization based in London whose purpose is to eliminate product testing, education and biomedical research on animals....
group (NAVS) which comprises ADI, the NAVS, the world’s first anti-vivisection group, and the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research
Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research
The Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research – a department of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, the world’s first anti-vivisection organisation – awards grants to scientists undertaking medical research which benefits humans, without the use of animals.Founded in 1974, the name of the Fund is...
, which supports the replacement of animals in research through funding alternatives.
Animals in Entertainment
Stop Circus Suffering is ADI’s global campaign against the use of animals in circuses. With country specific investigations and launches, since its inception there has been major progress made, with Bolivia passing a law to ban both wild and domestic animal acts in all circuses ; Brazil voting to introduce a similar ban and similar legislation under consideration in Colombia and Peru.In the UK, despite the Government’s 2006 promise to ban “certain non-domesticated animals” from traveling circuses , no changes to existing legislation have been made to date, which has allowed the continued use of wild animal acts in circuses. ADI continues to press Defra (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to honor its pledge to introduce a ban.
ADI’s groundbreaking investigation of the use of animals in circuses in the UK and Europe stunned the world in 1998, when the first-ever footage of behind-the-scenes abuse of circus animals resulted in the prosecution of international animal trainer (and Hollywood animal supplier) Mary Chipperfield, her husband Roger Cawley and their elephant keeper ‘Steve’ Gills. Chipperfield was filmed beating a baby chimpanzee, whilst Cawley and Gills were filmed beating elephants at their headquarters in Hampshire, England. This resulted in the collapse of the UK animal circus industry, and a wholescale move over to human-only circuses. Only a few circuses remained with wild animals.
The Stop Circus Suffering campaign is also active across Europe (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Norway), and the US.
In 2008, ADI released the findings of an undercover investigation of 9 US circuses, and exposed the beatings of elephants by trainer Mike Swain, at Bailey Brothers Circus. The USDA contacted Swain but took no further action. ADI is pursuing this. For US campaigns update, see the ADI USA website..
Footage from investigations and ADI’s scientific report Science on Suffering can be viewed on ADI's Stop Circus Suffering website.
After a long campaign, in 2002 CITES (Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) introduced new regulations for live travelling exhibitions introducing a ‘passport style’ system . ADI first pressed for this tightening up of the rules on circuses in 1997, after exposing a circus in Africa as an animal trafficking front.
As well as its major campaigning activities on animal circuses, ADI also campaigns against the use of animals in advertising, television, films and video. Companies dropping advertising campaigns featuring animals include Toyota, Bombay Sapphire Gin, GMB Union and Careerbuilder.
For ADI’s My Mate’s a Primate campaign – which highlights the threats and exploitation of primates as a result of the bushmeat trade, in entertainment, the pet trade and in experiments – a TV advert was produced in which a young actress highlighted the suffering of chimpanzees in advertising. In the UK, the advert was banned on the grounds that it was “political”. ADI’s challenge against the ban – which prevents advertising by animal, environmental and human rights organizations – has now moved to the European Court of Human Rights. The advert can be viewed on ADI's My Mate's a Primate website.
In 2011 ADI contacted American Humane Association
American Humane Association
The American Humane Association is an organization founded in 1877 dedicated to the welfare of animals and children.The AHA's Film and Television Unit has monitored the welfare of animals during the production of films and television programs since 1940. They are the source of the familiar...
(AHA), urging them to re-evaluate how they assess the use of animals in films and the statements being made which effectively endorse the use of performing animals. This came after they learned that Tai, the elephant star of the film Water For Elephants was abused prior to the movie, even though AHA gave the film their “No Animals Were Harmed” in the making certification.
The Chipperfield case
Before an ADI expose led to the successful prosecutions of the elephant keeper and two directors, Mary Chipperfield Promotions Ltd was one of Europe’s largest suppliers of animals for TV, advertising, movies, zoos, and circuses. The company had perhaps the best image in the business. The reality behind the scenes was a different story.From autumn 1997 to early 1998 ADI Field Officers worked undercover at Mary Chipperfield Promotions (MCP) in Hampshire, UK; this was the final assignment in an 18-month investigation. They recorded evidence of elephants, camels, and a baby chimpanzee being beaten. The chimp, Trudy, was seen being kicked, screamed at, and thrashed with a stick by the international trainer, Mary Chipperfield
Mary Chipperfield
Mary Chipperfield was a 1970s circus entertainer who specialised in a chimpanzee act. She was also known as an animal trainer, providing numerous animals for various BBC productions and the 1967 movie Dr. Doolittle.-The Chipperfield heritage:...
. The videotape shook the circus world to its foundations.
In 1998, ADI issued multiple summonses for cruelty against Mary Chipperfield Promotions Ltd., the MCP elephant keeper Steve Gills, Mary Chipperfield (nee Cawley), and Roger Cawley and later that year Gills was convicted on multiple counts of cruelty and jailed because of his sustained and repeated attacks on the elephants in his care.
In 1999, the trial of Mary Chipperfield and Roger Cawley began . It was expected to last a day or two but ran for over a week. At the end of it Mary Chipperfield was convicted of 13 counts of cruelty to the chimpanzee Trudy and Roger Cawley (at the time a government zoo inspector) was convicted of cruelty to a sick elephant called Flora.
As a result of the ADI exposé, Mary Chipperfield Promotions closed down its UK operations - the heart of its empire.
The Mary Chipperfield trial remains the defining legal case in circus campaigning around the world. The video of the cruelty swept the world and legislation on animal circuses, as well as local bans on animal use were introduced in many countries in Asia, Central and South America, the USA, Canada, and several European countries. The investigation and the subsequent trial showed that not only did the circus industry consider violence towards animals to be acceptable, but that the law could not protect animals in the entertainment industry from a daily level of deprivation and violence that the public finds unacceptable. Although the Cawleys were convicted and received fines for the worst of the abuse, the inadequacies of the law in the UK were revealed in the bulk of the charges for which they received no punishment whatsoever. Furthermore, they were not banned from keeping or working with animals again, despite that they showed no remorse for their actions, insisting that they would do it all again.
Some of the animals that featured in the trial disappeared, only Trudy was rescued. Chipperfield sold her farm in Hampshire, England, and moved to Spain. ADI continues to monitor her appearances in European circuses, as well as those of other Chipperfield family members.
Animal rescues
The story of TotoAn incredible journey for Toto, the tragic circus chimp, ended in joy in September 2003 when, for the first time in over 20 years, he shared his first embrace with another chimpanzee. This moment capped a rescue mission by ADI which saw Toto seized from a circus in Chile, and transported 7,000 miles to the world-renowned chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimfunshi
Chimfunshi
Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage is a world renowned orphanage and sanctuary for Chimpanzees, the only one of its kind in the world, located in Zambia's Copperbelt Province. The sanctuary was started by David and Sheila Siddle in 1983, when a badly wounded Chimpanzee was brought to the farm, having...
Wildlife Orphanage in Northern Zambia.
27-year old Toto was taken from the wild in Africa as a baby. Aged just 2–3 years old, Toto is believed to have been purchased in the USA by Chile’s Circus Konig, along with three other baby chimpanzees. The other three died, leaving Toto alone with the circus for at least twenty years.
Toto was chained by the neck, and his act involved dressing up in human clothes, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. He lived in a tiny wooden packing crate little more than a metre wide, with bars on the front. Toto’s only comfort during cold days and nights was to huddle beneath a small blanket; he slept surrounded by empty plastic bottles and sweet wrappers.
Chimfunshi is the optimal location for Toto since it has hundreds of acres of natural African vegetation, and has vast experience with orphaned, and damaged chimps. It is one of the very few places in the world (if not the only one) where Toto can integrate with a family group of his own species.
Entire circus seized in Mozambique
In an international rescue mission, ADI secured every single animal from the Akef Egyptian Circus, stationed in Maputo, Mozambique. This was the first time such a broad-based rescue had ever taken place. The animals – 6 lions, 3 tigers, 1 African rock python, 3 horses (a mare and her very young foal, plus a stallion), and 7 dogs – had been abandoned to starve.
The Mozambique government confiscated all of the animals and placed them in the care of ADI. The python, tigers and lions were confiscated for CITES and import permit contraventions, in addition to welfare reasons. The horses were rehomed in Mozambique and the lions, tigers, pythons and dogs were moved to South Africa where they spent some time in quarantine whilst waiting for a permanent home.
Murphy the python could not be released and went to a protected enclosure at Fitzsimons Snake Park in South Africa. Three of the lions, from the extinct-listed Barbary sub-species, lived at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre until they died of old age a decade later; the other three lions were placed with the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, by 2009, one remains to a fit and healthy old age, the others having succumbed to the passage of time. The tigers were rehomed with the Milimani Game Lodge, but after about 8 years, their home was lost in a land claim and ADI retrieved and relocated them to live at Hoesdpruit, where they spent the remainder of their lives.
Tarzan, Sarah and Ceaser
In 2007 ADI rescued two lions, Sarah and Caesar, and a tiger, Tarzan, from Circo Universal in Portugal. Having been spotted by an ADI Field Officer in 2006, the animals appeared to be abandoned but were in fact off the road due to lack of funds.
The Portuguese authorities seized the animals, who were held at Lisbon Zoo before they were handed over to ADI, who then arranged for them to be moved to their rescue centre in South Africa, where they remain.
Animal experiments
Whilst the NAVS campaigns against animal experiments on a national level in the UK, the ADI supports this activity on an international level. Together, the campaign Save The Primates was launched in 2009, exposing every aspect of the global primate trade across three continents, including one of Europe’s largest testing facilities – Huntingdon Life SciencesHuntingdon Life Sciences
Huntingdon Life Sciences is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, with facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire; Eye, Suffolk; New Jersey in the U.S., and Japan...
in Cambridgeshire.
Their investigations revealed owl monkeys torn from the trees of the rainforest to be taken for malaria experiments in Colombia; monkeys in rusting, collapsing cages at a Home Office-approved monkey supplier in Vietnam and in the UK the most vivid insight ever of primates in commercial testing caught on film at Huntingdon Life Sciences in Cambridgeshire, a major contract testing operation for multi-national product brands which can hold up to 550 monkeys at a time. During the one-year ADI undercover investigation, 217 monkeys were killed in just five studies, which included struggling monkeys being strapped into chairs and forced to inhale products.
Following an ADI campaign across Europe, there is considerable momentum for strong measures to end experiments on primates.
In September 2007, the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
adopted a Declaration co-originated by ADI calling for bans on the use of wild-caught primates and great apes, along with a timetable for phasing out the use of all primates in experiments. 55% of MEPs signed the Declaration, making it the most supported on an animal protection matter ever.
In November 2008, the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
published its proposal for a new Directive on animal testing, replacing Directive 86/609/EEC. It included a requirement for prior authorisation for all animal experiments; the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, refinement) as a cornerstone of the legislation with particular emphasis on replacement; ethical reviews; a licensing system for suppliers, establishments and individuals using animals; an upper limit of pain; uniform implementation of Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
standards of housing; the extension of the scope of the Directive to some invertebrate species and foetal animals, and other measures. However, there were also shortcomings. Notably, bans on the use of great apes
Great Apes
Great Apes may refer to*Great apes, species in the biological family Hominidae, including humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans*Great Apes , a 1997 novel by Will Self...
and endangered species contained loopholes and exemptions.
The Directive will now go to the Council of Ministers
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union is the institution in the legislature of the European Union representing the executives of member states, the other legislative body being the European Parliament. The Council is composed of twenty-seven national ministers...
, where every Member State will have its say on the Commission’s proposal and on the European Parliament’s amendments. The Directive can only be adopted if both the Council and the Parliament agree on the same text. The Commission would play an important conciliatory role if the two institutions were to disagree.
With no prospect of a complete ban on primate use being on the table, ADI is working to achieve the best possible outcome for laboratory animals in the revision of EU regulations, due to be finalized in 2009.