Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [71]
After doing some promotional work for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Los Angeles (SPCALA), in 1979 I was asked to be honorary chairman of Be Kind to Animals Week in Los Angeles. I accepted, and as a result, I did interviews on radio and television and with newspapers. This led to invitations from animal-oriented groups to participate in their activities. I had contributed financially to animal organizations prior to that, but I had never become involved in their work. I decided to give it a try, and as I did, I began for the first time to really become aware of the terrible exploitation, cruelty, and mistreatment animals suffer in our country—or in the world, for that matter.
As my awareness grew, I began making changes in my life. Dorothy Jo suggested I become a vegetarian in 1980. I learned about the terrible things that happen in slaughterhouses, and I decided to cut out red meat. Then later I learned more about fishing and the treatment of poultry, and I stopped eating chicken and fish. Originally, I did it out of concern for animals, but I can also see why people become vegetarians for health reasons. My energy level rose sharply, and my weight has never been an issue. I felt better immediately. I do not think I ever would have been able to work as long as I did had I not become a vegetarian.
So for about seven years prior to the fur flap, which came during the Miss USA pageant of 1987, I had been increasingly active and outspoken on animal rights issues. As I learned more about the horrendous exploitation of animals, I felt compelled to do what I could to change the situation.
Looking back, I can see a progression of events leading up to the pageant controversy. I was fired from two radio shows for speaking out against laboratory research on animals. In the early 1980s, I convinced the producers of The Price Is Right to stop giving furs away as prizes. I had also resigned as host of the American Humane Association’s Patsy Awards show, which honors animal actors and their trainers, when I learned that some trainers beat animals unmercifully to make them perform.
Animal exploitation comes in many forms, and the more I learned, the more appalled I was by the practices of the fur industry and the idea of slaughtering millions of animals for leisure coats, which are worn strictly to show off wealth. Wearing furs is a reprehensible method of displaying affluence. I’ve always said there are better ways. Diamonds, wristwatches, and automobiles are a few examples. There is no way to make a fur coat without causing pain to God’s creatures. If you really want to impress people with how much money you have, buy a cloth coat and hang bills on it. The more money you have, the bigger bills you should use.
It was not just the killing of the animals to make a leisure garment, but it was the cruelty and methodology involved. First, there are the steel leg traps. The animals have their legs shattered in these traps; their bones are broken, their tendons and ligaments are crushed, and then they die a slow agonizing death. A trapped animal often suffers for days before death.
I remember hearing about many barbaric practices and atrocities, but I specifically remember one horrible instance where an Alaskan lynx was stuck in a leg-hold trap for six weeks until the trapper checked his traps. The lynx was able to stay alive so long only because another lynx in his family brought the poor creature food.
On farms and ranches all over the world—including the United States—animals are kept in cramped cages and subjected to drowning, neck wringing, poison gas, injection, and electrocution. I try to focus attention on these barbaric practices whenever I can. I have said that the fur industry is one of the worst exploiters of animals, whether they are trapping animals in the wild or raising them