Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid Newkirk, feisty author of 'Free the Animals: The Amazing, True Story of the Animal Liberation Front in North America,' has been arrested dozens of times for protesting the abuse of animals on fur farms and in laboratories and was jailed for disrupting a pigeon shoot attended by the Ku Klux Klan. 

She has pulled a carriage through the streets of Mumbai, India, to secure the retirement of horses from hard labor; caged herself to prevent the drowning of stray dogs in Taiwan; and closed down a live-rat exhibit in the sewers of Paris. She is the founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) U.S. and all international PETA entities.

Joaquin Phoenix, who wrote the foreword to 'Free the Animals,' has acquired the rights to turn it into a movie, and the book has received enthusiastic endorsements from such stars as Oliver Stone, Bill Maher, Pamela Anderson, James Cromwell, and Kim Basinger.

Newkirk’s work is the subject of the on-demand HBO special 'I Am an Animal,' she was named a top businessperson of the year in Forbes magazine, and she has been profiled in The New Yorker and People magazine.

Among her accomplishments, Newkirk achieved the passage of legislation to create the first spay/neuter clinic in Washington, D.C.; coordinated the first arrest in U.S. history of a scientist on cruelty-to-animals charges; and, most recently, orchestrated the closure of a beagle-breeding facility that sold thousands of dogs into experimentation. She spearheaded the shutdown of the U.S. Department of Defense’s underground “wound laboratory” and ended General Motors’ crash tests on animals.

She is the author of several other books, including 'Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion,' '250 Vital Things Your Cat Wants You to Know: The Cat Guardian’s Bible,' 'Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living,' 'You Can Save the Animals: 251 Simple Ways to Stop Thoughtless Cruelty,' and 'The PETA Celebrity Cookbook.'