How Bob Barker Used His Influence To Rescue Elephants

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As the host of The Value is Right for 35 decades, Bob Barker spent the morning in quite a few people’s residing rooms. He utilised his situation to not only carry joy to tens of millions but to teach the community about animal overpopulation. Starting in 1979, and till his very last episode in 2007, Barker finished every exhibit with the phrase, “Help regulate the pet population—have your pets spayed and neutered.”

When Barker handed away on Saturday, August 26, 2023, at age 99, the animal planet shed one particular of its most crucial advocates. Mainly because in addition to his warning at the stop of The Price tag is Right, he employed his system and influence to assist animals. His advocacy started out early in his vocation when he stepped down as the host of the Miss United states of america and Skip Universe pageants simply because the organizers would not ban fur coats from the competition.

Barker donated millions to animal rights teams, together with $25 million to a basis that aids spay and neuter animals, $5 million to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society so they could invest in a boat to aid in their anti-whaling initiatives, and $2.5 million to support PETA renovate their West Coastline Headquarters.

But one of the teams Barker was most actively included with was the Doing Animal Welfare Culture (PAWS). Founded in 1984, the corporation rescues and supplies sanctuary for unique and performing animals. Barker was a longtime supporter of PAWS, and the organization’s founder, Ed Stewart, fondly recalls their time with each other in a message produced following his death.

“I am privileged to have fought for animal legal rights along with Bob for more than 35 years. We traveled to Alaska North Carolina Washington, D.C. Canada and other spots to ensure that animals would be safeguarded. Bob broke down barriers when businesses like ours could not get a foot in the doorway, during an period when animal exploitation went unquestioned.”

Perhaps one of Barker’s most amazing acts with PAWS was organizing a military services airlift to get a lonely African elephant out of the Alaska Zoo and into a warmer local weather. Maggie was an African elephant who had been captured as a calf and was obtained by the zoo in 1983. She invested 24 years at the Alaska Zoo and the last decade of that by itself as the zoo’s other elephant had passed absent.

Soon after a general public outcry in 2007, the zoo’s board of administrators voted to send out her to California, the place she would be in the warmer weather intended for her. PAWS has an tremendous elephant sanctuary and was eager to choose her in. The only challenge was transportation. No commercial airline was in a position to transfer her, so the U.S. armed forces loaned one particular of the greatest cargo jets available—a C-17 Globemaster III—and she was equipped to make the excursion.

Of system, utilizing a armed service plane is no tiny expenditure, and which is in which Barker stepped in. He not only compensated the invoice for the military services flight but also sponsored Maggie’s initial few several years of treatment at the sanctuary. Many thanks to him, she was in a position to live with other elephants for the very last 13 yrs of her everyday living and get the companionship she was craving.

This wasn’t the only elephant rescue Barker organized. In 2011, he persuaded the Toronto Zoo to deliver their 3 elephants to PAWS when the zoo could no for a longer period treatment for them. Not only that, he also paid out for their flights to the sanctuary to the tune of practically $1 million. Although 1 of the elephants experienced to be euthanized several several years later on after a extensive health issues, the other two—Thika and Toka—continue to thrive at the sanctuary.

In his once-a-year Christmas cards to Barker, Stewart resolved the beloved Tv host as “The Most Critical Animal Rights Activist of All Time.” He certainly wasn’t mistaken. Thanks to Barker’s tireless get the job done, several animals were in a position to live delighted, satisfying life, and this legacy will undoubtedly carry on on many thanks to corporations, like PAWS, that Barker supported.

Bob Barker was a committed animal activist who employed his platform and influence to help animals in require.

In 2007, Barker compensated for a military cargo jet to transfer an elephant from the Alaska Zoo to a sanctuary in California.

https://www.youtube.com/view?v=tCn8qaeMuJg

Check out the beloved Tv set host go over his animal activism and his desire to assist elephants in require.

https://www.youtube.com/look at?v=jSIfGO3y3NI

h/t: [New York Times]

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