Interview with Katie Cleary

Photo provided by Katie Cleary

Katie: I grew up in Chicago and my mom was a huge animal lover and my dad as well, so it was just in my blood. I would rescue all types of animals. We had a family vet that we would take these wild animals to. Whether it was a baby fawn that we found in our yard, or squirrels that had fallen out of a nest, baby birds, and even kittens and puppies.

I loved big cats growing up and so my mom would give me these encyclopedia books about all these big cats and beautiful pictures of all the exotic cats - the Servals, the ocelots, the lions, leopards,  you name it - cheetahs. I thought they were such beautiful cats but they're so misunderstood. We can't protect their critical habitat so there's no hope for these big cats in the wild.

Photo provided by Katie Cleary

I was working in entertainment for a very long time, since I was 11 years old. I thought, I feel

like I'm not accomplishing my mission on this Earth. What I need to do is to raise awareness for animals. it really started with the fact that 2500 Tigers were left in the wild when I was a child. Now the population doubled, but it's still, I believe, not sufficient to recover the species. So we really have to focus on the conservation of the species. I mean 5000 is still not enough. 

When I founded Peace4Animals and World Animal News I had no donations coming in so I was the one who was funding it through the acting, through the modeling, through the hosting and it wasn't easy. I would go to auditions and I thought, gosh, if I could land this job that would really help me with my animal activism projects.

Photo by Bob Brewer https://unsplash.com/photos/8_5sEk7Ay18

We had an anti-palm oil campaign that was one of our first campaigns, along with the tiger conservation campaign. Palm oil is destroying the rainforest, not only in Costa Rica but Indonesia, Sumatra, and Borneo.

They're clearing football fields sized pieces of land which are critical primary rainforest habitats of orangutans every half an hour. Orangutans are critically endangered as a result.

There are now these little corridors that are the only thing that's connecting one species to another or one genetically diverse species to another as far as trying to get those genetics and diversify them so they're not inbreeding. So if we can't connect these, if the habitat's destroyed because of the palm oil, it's going to lead to the destruction and the extinction of orangutans if we don't do something.

Palm oil is in 50 percent of all products that we consume in the grocery store. It's in cookies, it's in lotions, it's in shampoos…It's just a very cheap oil that is literally destroying critical primary rainforest habitats around the world.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/O4A-zGH8u-Y

The wildlife trade - I think it’s third or fourth behind illegal arms, drugs, and child and sex trafficking. It's a billion-dollar industry. I think Customs are involved, people are getting paid off in the airlines and I believe government officials are involved because it's such a big business.  These animals are being stolen from the wild. Their mothers and fathers are being killed. These babies are being trafficked just like human babies and they're being sold to the illegal wildlife trade. It’s a billion-dollar industry and it needs to end.

We've helped a lot of organizations on the ground save animals, typically chimpanzees.

I mentioned that I can imagine that many people think chimpanzees are very cute, so they buy one and then realize that the chimp is more than they can handle.

Photo provided by Katie Cleary

During the pandemic, unfortunately, there weren't enough eyes on the ground so I think that right now it's critical to go and visit these countries. Whether it's checking with orangutans in Indonesia, whether it's going to see elephants and rhinos in the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which is one of the largest elephant sanctuaries in the world, and visiting them.

Contributing your tourism dollars to those places that help to protect animals and the national parks is important. You can go to the Congo and see the mountain gorillas - that is an unforgettable experience.

Photo provided by Katie Cleary

People still like to go hunting, specifically trophy hunting. In South Africa it's legal and they pay 25,000 to 50,000 dollars to shoot a lion.  It's happening illegally as well.

You would never think but Florida has a lot of commercial hunting facilities. People don't really know about it but with Safari Club International leading the way and they have lobbyists and they fight all the legislation that we've put forth.

It's really a shame that it's a small minority of people but they have a lot of money and they fight the Animal Welfare Community like I've never seen. So there's a way of combating that by traveling yourself to visit sanctuaries and taking videos. Whether you're in Thailand and visiting Elephant Nature Park, which is an amazing place, or the largest rhino sanctuary in South Africa, taking videos and showing people - wow, you can actually visit these amazing countries! It's not expensive to do so!

You can also volunteer to help these foundations and these animals and raise funds. A lot of people just don't know how to help. They don't know where their money is going to. They want to be hands-on and help these animals in a Sanctuary or the natural habitat.

Photo provided by Katie Cleary

I think that the growing plant-based movement will help so many, not only farm animals (billions of animals a year that we consume) but also wild animals all around the world.

A lot of these endangered species have hardly anything to eat, let alone any habitat left so if you're grazing cattle on public lands, the wild animals are going to go after cattle.  Then the cattle rancher is going to go and shoot and kill that big cat or that wolf. They had nothing to eat and we're taking their habitat.

We're grazing cattle on public lands, we're polluting our environment, and all for a moment of satisfaction for a burger when you have so many alternatives. It doesn't really make sense. So I would say try to incorporate more plants and plant-based options and eventually, build to plant-based 100 percent.