Rocky Mountain
Animal Defense is a non-profit (501-C-3) organization founded in
1994. Our mission is to help eliminate the human-imposed suffering
of animals in the Rocky Mountain region.
RMAD is a volunteer-based
organization with a small paid staff. Gernal inquiries can be sent to .
Executive Director: Lynne Sprague. Lynne has been involved in social justice movements for the past 15 years. She spends lots of time working on the broader connections around violence and the intersections between animal rights, intimate partner violence, immigrant rights, anti-racism work, poverty, and LGBTQ communities. Building a vibrant and sustainable anti-violence movement is central to her work. E-mail Lynne: .
Operations Director: Christopher Ryan Jones.Chris has been with the organization since 2002, and involved with animal and environmental issues since 1996. Originally from Massachusetts, he has a bachelor’s degree in English from The University of Maine at Orono, and a master’s degree in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University. E-mail Chris: .
Our work covers
six general areas: animals as food, animals as companions, animals
in "research," animals as clothing, animals in entertainment,
and wildlife. We advocate for these issues in the following ways.
Public
Education
This is the foundation of all of our efforts. Whether we're speaking
to a college class, staffing a table at a festival, posting a new
website, or demonstrating outside a fur store, our message is the
same — animals are suffering and together we can stop it.
Research
and Investigation
A week doesn't go by without calls coming in to RMAD regarding incidents
of animal abuse. A skunk is beaten to death by a gang of children.
A veterinarian looks the other way while an animal collector accrues
more and more dogs. We work with individual citizens and law enforcement
officials in making every effort to see that justice is served.
Activist
Mobilization
RMAD's e-mail list serve and phone tree are at the ready when animal
abuse occurs. These systems alert people immediately to the need
for action.
On-the-Ground
Assistance
RMAD responds to emergencies regarding animals in trouble. We've
helped get cats down from utility poles, chickens out of abandoned
egg farms, prairie dogs out of the way of bulldozers, and rattlesnakes
off of roads. We support the work of several animal sanctuaries
and wildlife rehabilitators, and they, in turn, serve as a great
resource for us.
Legal
Efforts
Animals are given very little protection under the law. And, often,
the scant laws that do exist are poorly enforced. RMAD has been
a party to several lawsuits demanding proper law enforcement, including
recent suits challenging the poisoning of wildlife in Colorado.
Legislation
RMAD supports municipal, county, state, and federal legislation
designed to help eliminate the human-imposed suffering of animals.
In 1999, for example, we helped citizens of Estes Park, Colorado,
ban the exhibition of wildlife within city limits, thereby stopping
a zoo from being built at the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain
National Park.
RMAD in action: check out pictures of RMAD events, demos and more here.
DID
YOU KNOW?
RMAD's
first campaign was to expose conditions inside a local factory egg
farm with videotape shot by our co-founder and director, David Crawford.
The tape was edited into a groundbreaking 12-minute film that documents
the factory's violations of Colorado state anti-cruelty laws and details
the inherent cruelty of intensive egg production. "Raw Footage,
Raw Pain" has aired on cable stations across the United States.
