For taking on a number of animal-protection causes – including, most recently, using his trademark wit and charm to urge the Prime Minister to introduce a long-overdue ban on wild-animal circuses in Britain – PETA has named the late actor, humanitarian, and long-time animal advocate Sir Roger Moore its 2017 Person of the Year.
“Animals in dire need had a caring, charming friend in Sir Roger Moore,” says PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is honoured to recognise this wonderful man for sticking his neck out for the vulnerable amongst us time and again. We will continue campaigning to help the animals he cared so deeply about.”
In addition to offering to pop a champagne cork with Theresa May should she bring forward a long-awaited ban on wild-animal circuses, Moore also led a successful campaign to push Selfridges to stop stocking foie gras and boldly called for the Queen’s Guard’s caps to be made with synthetic materials instead of bearskin. In a blistering condemnation of trophy hunting penned after Cecil the lion’s killing in 2015, he wrote, “We know that we should protect the most vulnerable and helpless in society, not destroy them” – words he lived by in his own life every day.
PETA’s motto is “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”, and past title recipients include Pamela Anderson, Brian May, Ricky Gervais, and the late Tony Benn.
