Gene Baur
Encyclopedia
Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary is an American animal protection organization, founded in 1986 as an advocate for farm animals. It promotes laws and policies that support animal welfare, animal protection and vegetarianism/veganism through rescue, education and advocacy...
, the first animal rescue organization dedicated to farmed animals. He is vegan and has been at the forefront of animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
since he began the Sanctuary in 1986.
Baur grew up in Hollywood, California, and went to Loyola High School (Los Angeles)
Loyola High School (Los Angeles)
Loyola High School of Los Angeles is a Jesuit preparatory school for young men. It is the oldest high school in Southern California, and one of the oldest in California...
. He attended Cal State Northridge where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. He paid for college in part by doing background work in television and movies, including commercials for McDonalds and KFC
KFC
KFC, founded and also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. KFC has been a brand and operating segment, termed a concept of Yum! Brands since 1997 when that company was spun off from PepsiCo as Tricon Global...
, about which he later expressed regret. During high school and college, he had various jobs, including dishwasher, day laborer, bartender, and teacher, and he volunteered to help children suffering from terminal illnesses as well as abused adolescents. He also participated in the efforts of human rights, animal rights, consumer and environmental organizations. In the 1980s he began investigations into factory farms, stockyards
Feedlot
A feedlot or feedyard is a type of animal feeding operation which is used in factory farming for finishing livestock, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter. Large beef feedlots are called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations . They...
, and slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
s. Baur felt the conditions he observed were unacceptable, and these experiences helped motivate the creation of Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary is an American animal protection organization, founded in 1986 as an advocate for farm animals. It promotes laws and policies that support animal welfare, animal protection and vegetarianism/veganism through rescue, education and advocacy...
. The sanctuary's first rescued animal was a downed sheep found on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster stockyards in 1986.
Baur's investigative exposés and advocacy efforts on behalf of farm animals have earned international media coverage, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. TIME called Baur, "the conscience of the food movement."
Baur later obtained a Master's degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, in order to better understand 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...
. He has testified before local, state and federal legislative bodies, and appeared on various expert panels. In 1996, The Peace Abbey awarded Baur with its Courage of Conscience Award, other recipients of which include Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
, Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
, Ram Dass
Ram Dass
Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...
, and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
.
He played a key role in the passage of several animal-protection ordinances, including a 2004 California law banning the production and sale of foie gras
Foie gras
Foie gras ; French for "fat liver") is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. This fattening is typically achieved through gavage corn, according to French law, though outside of France it is occasionally produced using natural feeding...
, and a 2002 Florida initiative banning gestation crates. After the Florida campaign the Florida Elections Commission found that Farm Sanctuary, and Gene Bauston personally, had willfully broken campaign finance laws. Farm Sanctuary and Gene Baur consented to pay a fine of $50,000. More recently, he was instrumental in passing a 2006 (repealed in 2008) Chicago ordinance banning the sale of foie gras
Foie gras
Foie gras ; French for "fat liver") is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. This fattening is typically achieved through gavage corn, according to French law, though outside of France it is occasionally produced using natural feeding...
and a 2006 ballot measure in Arizona banning gestation crates and veal
Veal
Veal is the meat of young cattle , as opposed to meat from older cattle. Though veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed, most veal comes from male calves of dairy cattle breeds...
crates. Gene and Farm Sanctuary were key sponsors of a California initiative (Proposition 2
California Proposition 2 (2008)
Proposition 2 was a California ballot proposition in that state's general election on November 4, 2008. It passed with 63% of the votes in favor and 37% against...
) to ban veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages which passed on November 4, 2008, when it was approved with over 63% of the vote.
Baur was one of several people who provided information used in the writing of the book Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism
Striking at the Roots
Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism is a non-fiction book by Mark Hawthorne that examines a number of strategies for animal activism in countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States...
(2008) by Mark Hawthorne.
In March 2008, Baur released a book entitled Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food published by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
. It has appeared on the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
and Boston Globe bestseller lists and was named to Booklist
Booklist
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...
's Top 10 Sci-Tech Books: 2008.
Baur was featured in the documentary Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Lee Fulkerson, an American independent filmmaker. The film examines the "profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of...
. He appears in a documentary film called Peaceable Kingdom
Peaceable Kingdom (documentary)
Peaceable Kingdom is a documentary produced in 2004 by Tribe of Heart that shows how some farmers refuse to kill animals and how they convert to veganism as a way of life. They create an animal sanctuary farm called "Farm Sanctuary" where they rescue injured animals, half dead, abandoned and...
, that was made about Farm Sanctuary and people who work or visit there (especially Gene Baur and Lorri Houston, his ex-wife).
External links
- Personal home page of Gene Baur
- Farm Sanctuary home page
- "Making Hay with Gene Baur" - Gene Baur's blog
- Gene Baur talks about his book "Farm Sanctuary" in mp3 recorded July 25, 2008 in Sacramento, California