Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid E. Newkirk is an Englishborn BritishAmerican animal rights activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals , the worlds largest animal rights organization. She is the author of several books, including Making Kind Choices and The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble . Newkirk has worked for the animalprotection movement since 1972. Under her leadership in the 1970s as the District of Columbias first female poundmaster, legislation was passed to create the first spayneuter clinic in Washington, D.C., as well as an adoption program and the public funding of veterinary services, leading her to be among those chosen in 1980 as Washingtonians of the Year.

Newkirk was born in Britain, where she lived in the Orkney Islands and in Ware, Hertfordshire. Her father was a navigational engineer, and when she was seven, the family moved to New Delhi, India, where her father worked for the government, while her mother volunteered for Mother Teresa in a leper colony and a home for unwed mothers. Newkirk attended a convent boarding school in the Himalayas for welltodo Indian nationals and nonnatives. It was the done thing for a British girl in India, she told Michael Specter for The New Yorker. But I was the only British girl in this school. I was hit constantly by nuns, starved by nuns. The whole God thing was shoved right down my throat.

Source: Wikipedia