I guess at some level I have always known that animal rights/welfare was important to Bob, I mean anyone who has seen an episode from one of the first forty seasons of The Price is Right knows that he always reminded his studio and TV audiences to be responsible pet owners at the end of each episode. I guess what I didn't know is how far his influence as an animal rights activist welfarist has spread. Let me demonstrate:
(1) It seems that every time I visit the Edmonton Journal website yearning for some local news there is mention of the lawsuit pending against the Edmonton Zoo re: the future of Lucy, our elephant who is without companionship. This lawsuit was dismissed on August 20th, but more to the point Bob Barker was frequently mentioned in these stories and even came to Edmonton to visit Lucy...
(2) Whilst reading about recent whaling matters I came across the story about the Sea Shepherd vessel that was suck earlier this year after having collided with a Japanese factory whaling ship. To my surprise, the article I was reading mentioned that at the time it sank the vessel in question was being towed by another Sea Shepherd boat named... ya you guessed it... the Bob Barker! Apparently he donated somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000,000.00 bucks towards the purchase of this boat...
(3) Last but not least, today was the first class for Animal Law and apparently the whole Animal Law program at UVa is generously sponsored by Bob!
Who knew.
In other news, this weekend will be spent catching up on some readings and also floating down some river in rural Virginia on a raft with the other LLMs! Should be delightful!
In the meantime, here's to Bob and I will leave you with one final thought (in the words of the man himself as quoted from a 1972 episode of The Price is Right):
"help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered. Goodbye, everybody!"
Cheers to Mr. Bob Barker!
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