Spotlight on CAPS’ Patrons
May 2008

What do a Grammy-award winning musician, two MPs, a marathon runner, two professors and a photographer have in common? They are all patrons of CAPS!

CAPS is pleased to have a number of patrons who lend their credibility and high profile support to our organisation. They come from a variety of backgrounds and professions, all united in their opposition to the use of animals in entertainment and determination to do something about it!

Some of our patrons have been with us for many years, others are new supporters.

Sally Banks, Lady Stratford

Sally is wife of the late Tony Banks, Lord Stratford, who was an outspoken advocate for animals during his time as a member of both houses of Parliament. Her own strength of feeling about animal protection issues led to the formation of the Sally Banks Seal Campaign, to campaign against the horrific annual slaughter of harp seals in Canada. Recently retired from her work as a senior social worker, Sally is now a freelance consultant in health and social care. She is a trustee of the Newham branch of the charity, Age Concern, and is on the board of directors of the Theatre Royal Stratford East, which has a strong tradition of working with young people from ethnically-diverse local communities. Two rescued cats share Sally’s east London home, together with a 70-year-old tortoise, who has lived with the family for many years.

From Sally: “I am honoured to be a patron of CAPS and fully support their campaigns to protect animals. Their work in highlighting the cruelty of using animals in circuses and the unnatural conditions of animals in zoos have been effective but there is always more to be done to safeguard the welfare of animals.”


Marc Bekoff

Marc is Professor of Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including the Encyclopaedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, Minding Animals, Ten Trusts (with Dr Jane Goodall), The Emotional Lives of Animals, and Animals Matter. Marc co-founded the organisation Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Citizens for Responsible Animal Behavior Studies in 2000, with Jane Goodall. In 2005, Marc was presented with The Bank One Faculty Community Service Award for the work he has done with children, senior citizens, and prisoners. Marc's main areas of research include animal behaviour, cognitive ethology (the study of animal minds), and behavioural ecology.

From Marc: “I’m pleased to be a patron of CAPS because I deeply believe in their mission to protect animals from the wanton and unnecessary abuse they suffer in circuses and zoos and on television.”


Mike Hancock CBE MP

Mike is the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South. Following time as an engineer and a local councillor, he first became a member of parliament in 1984 for the SDP. Before becoming a MP for the Liberal Democrats during the 1997 General Election, Mike was a director of BBC Daytime and a district officer for the charity MENCAP. Mike has been chair of the southern region of the NSPCC since 1989 and was appointed CBE in 1992. He has a very keen interest in a wide range of animal protection issues, including those relating to animals in circuses and zoos. Mike has tabled many Early Day Motions relating to animal issues - and signed many more. He has been a patron of CAPS for many years.

From Mike: "Over the past fifty years CAPS has done excellent work highlighting the plight of captive animals and I am very proud to be one of its patrons and associated with its important campaigning work. This has highlighted the dreadful and unnatural conditions that animals in circuses and zoos are often kept in and thanks to CAPS, opinion is increasing in this country that animals should not be in captivity but in their natural habitats.

I wish CAPS well in the future and hope that it will go from strength to strength as many animals are relying on it to speak up for them when they can't."


Britta Jaschinski

Born in Bremen, Germany, world-renowned photographer Britta Jaschinski has lived in London since 1993. She is a photographer of nature - but not in a conventional way. While her work encompasses the inherent beauty and purity of the natural world, she is also keenly attuned to the frailty of nature: its susceptibility to manipulation and desecration at the hands of its most self-important element, Homo sapiens. In the 1990s, Britta worked to document the sad world of captive animals in zoos. Dark, disjointed representations of creatures in concrete and metal compounds conveyed the displacement that characterised their existence. ZOO gained her instant recognition in 1996 following a show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London and an accompanying book, depicting 75 haunting black and white images from zoos around the world. There followed a series of awards including the Agfa International Award for Young Photojournalism. Her second book Wild Things was published in 2003.

From Britta: “We talk to animals but we don’t listen to them. We stroke them with one hand and beat them with the other. CAPS gives animals a voice and fights for their rights. Animals don’t need us but we need them. We must protect them from ourselves.”


Jay Kay

Jay Kay is a Grammy-award winning musician and lead singer of multi-million selling band Jamiroquai, one of the most successful UK acts of a generation. Well known for wearing big hats, Jay is also an outspoken life-long animal lover. Evidence of Jamiroquai’s success can be seen in the 6 multi-platinum albums, 5 MTV awards and the Grammy. In 1992, long before many bands and musicians adopted a social conscience, Jay and Jamiroquai had already begun singing about the damaging effect humans were having on the world. Their aptly titled debut album, Emergency on Planet Earth, included the hit When You Gonna Learn?, with thought-provoking and harrowing images of primates in vivisection labs in the accompanying video. In Jamiroquai’s 1996 hit single Virtual Insanity, Jay wrote about his concern that the modern technological world can mess up what Mother Nature created. Was Jay prophetic? This single was released the same year that Dolly the sheep was cloned!

From Jay: “In the 21st century there should be no place in our world for zoos or circuses that use animals. The conditions these animals are kept in are often beyond words. Just imagine yourself being locked behind bars for the rest of your life for human entertainment.”


Randy Malamud

Randy is Professor of English at Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA. His fields of interest are modern literature and cultural studies. Much of his recent work has been in the academic field of ecocriticism (studies of literature and culture from a nature-centred perspective) and more specifically anthrozoology (studies of human-animal relations). He has written two books on these topics: Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity (London:MacMillan, 1998) and Poetic Animals and Animal Souls (New York:Palgrave MacMillan, 2003). Randy is the editor of the recently published A Cultural History of Animals in the Modern Age.

From Randy: “Over the past several years, I have felt honoured to have been associated with CAPS. I think that the organisation is doing great work informing the public about the exploitation of animals, and inspiring people to work for reform on many fronts. Those who work with CAPS, and its excellent magazine Release, strike me as having a tremendously sincere and focused insight into the array of issues that comprise the Animal Rights movement. Every time I receive a mailing from CAPS I feel thankful that you are out there, tirelessly working on behalf of the community of animals (human and other).”


Dr Edgar Mann

Edgar has been a patron of CAPS for many years. He has been a general practitioner and a longstanding member of the ancient Isle of Man Parliament, the Tynwald, where, over the years, he held major positions in the Manx Government. At the same time he has been involved in most of the Manx animal charities and has chaired the Pets Aid League, the Manx SPLG and is currently the Chair of the Home of Rest for Old Horses. Edgar was also involved in the formation of the Manx Cat Sanctuary. He negotiated the end of the annual auction of the retiring old tram horses, who now live out their lives in peace at the Home of Rest for Old Horses, just outside Douglas, on the Isle of Man.

From Edgar: “I am very proud to be a patron of CAPS. There is never any excuse for keeping animals locked up in circuses, zoos and similar captive environments. CAPS has been doing sterling work for 50 years, and I am sure they will continue to do so for as long as there are animals being held in captivity.”


Fiona Oakes

Fiona runs the Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary in Essex and is also an elite marathon runner, being invited to take part in marathons throughout the world. Her animal family now extends to almost 300 individuals – anyone from a hamster to fully grown cow! All of the animals under Fiona’s loving care stay with her until the day they die, their backgrounds making it especially difficult to re-home them. She runs 80-100 miles each week in training, seeing the marathons as another way of promoting a healthy vegan lifestyle. In addition to all of this, Fiona still manages to find time to actively support rescued animals in Russia, including ex-circus animals. Her work also extends to helping disadvantaged young African women too. The Lornah Kiplagat Foundation in Kenya provides young girls with a suitable education, opportunity to train as athletes and information about HIV.

From Fiona: “Happy 50th birthday CAPS! I’m honoured to be a patron of an organisation that campaigns on behalf of captive animals. Animals aren’t here for our entertainment, whether that be in a circus, zoo, aquarium or any other place. I fully support the tremendous work CAPS is doing in trying to bring an end to this suffering.”


Brian Sewell

Since 1984 Brian has been the art critic of the London Evening Standard and one of its political columnists, winning national and international press awards including The George Orwell prize for his political/current affairs column and the Art Critic of the Year Award for his weekly column on Visual Arts. He is a prolific broadcaster across news, arts and documentary programming on both radio and television. Brian also uses his literary talents to highlight the suffering of animals, including the plight of endangered species, the exploitation of farmed animals and his opposition to zoos, vivisection and the fur trade. He raises funds for the rescue and re-homing of abandoned and ill-treated domestic pets. His London garden has been deliberately developed as a haven for wildlife.

From Brian: “I have a rescued parrot. She perfectly encapsulates the misery of a wild animal in the wrong environment, but in the wrong climate and with access to the wrong natural resources, I cannot do for her what I have done for captive songbirds in Mediterranean countries - bought them and released them. She is for me the lonely circus elephant in Germany, the caged tiger in Spain, the dancing bear in Turkey, the baited bear in Pakistan - all of which, and many more, are reasons for my patronage of CAPS.”


Angela Smith MP

Angela has been the Labour MP for Basildon and East Thurrock since 1997. During her political career, Angela has been a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Animal Welfare. Before becoming a politician, she was head of politics and public relations for the League Against Cruel Sports. Although supportive of all animal protection issues, Angela has been a particularly strong opponent of circuses which use animals. As patron of CAPS, she has written articles for the Labour Animal Welfare Society, in which she reiterated the call for a ban on all species of animals in circuses. Angela produces a quarterly Animal Welfare Newsletter.

From Angela: "CAPS should be congratulated as one of the most active and effective animal protection groups in the country. Its campaigns are well researched and there is a scientific base for its actions, which means I know I can use its campaign materials with confidence."


Peter Tatchell

Now living in London, Peter was born in Australia and has campaigned for human rights since 1969. He is a high-profile lecturer, author, journalist and activist on a wide range of issues. Although he has focused primarily on campaigning for gay emancipation, Peter believes human rights are universal and indivisible, and he has been involved in campaigns opposing capital punishment, apartheid, nuclear weapons and Britain's war in Ireland and the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq. For several years, Peter has spoken in support of animal issues and has highlighted comparisons between human and animal rights. Thought-provoking and unafraid to ask awkward questions, he is the author of six books and over 3,000 published articles. In recognition of his work, Peter was nominated for the 1992 Martin Ennals Civil Liberties Award.

From Peter: “I'm honoured to be a patron of CAPS. Human rights and animal rights are two aspects of the same struggle against injustice. Many animals suffer terribly, both physically and mentally, in circuses, zoos and other captive situations. Imprisoning animals and manipulating them for human fun and entertainment is cruel and barbaric. CAPS campaigns for the rights of these animals, without compromise. It is dedicated to stop suffering. CAPS has my admiration and appreciation. Please give CAPS your support, too.”