| 
 PETA's Augustus Club is a complimentary club honoring those who have named PETA in their last will and testament or as a beneficiary of another planned gift. There are no fees or charges, and members receive quarterly newsletters containing special features on PETA's history, PETA's impact on animal-abusing industries, and profiles of members and animals they've saved. Augustus Club members also receive invitations to special events, including PETA's biannual Vanguard Society and Augustus Club weekends.
The late actress Bea Arthur helped launch the Augustus Club. Bea began working with PETA in 1987 when she and her Golden Girls costars made an anti-fur ad on the set of their show. She put ads in theater programs asking people to turn their backs on fur and send their coats to PETA instead so that we could give them to the homeless and use them in demonstrations. She also asked companies to stop endorsing the force-feeding of ducks for foie gras, which upset her greatly, and called on KFC to change the cruel way that chickens have their wings and legs broken while they are still alive. And she did much more to help animals.
Bea became an honorary PETA director almost 20 years ago and worked hard to expose horrific conditions for animals on factory farms, appeared in ad advocating great alternatives to experimenting on animals, and joined us in demonstrations against the use of elephants in the circus. Bea never, ever turned down an appeal for help! She also made a planned gift to PETA, ensuring that her efforts for animals will live on through PETA's work.
The club is named in memory of Augustus, one of the Silver Spring monkeys whose senseless and tragic plight in laboratories led to the founding of PETA and the modern animal rights movement in the U.S.
Augustus' noble image, dignity, and innocence make him a fitting symbol of the plight of all animals who have endured—and are still enduring—callous and horrible treatment at the hands of humans.
The Augustus Club honors our shared dedication to the liberation of every animal whose life is being made miserable, as was Augustus', by human exploitation.
Augustus was one of the 17 macaque "Silver Spring monkeys," most of whom were taken from their jungle homes in the late 1970s and purchased for $200.00 each by animal experimenter Edward Taub for testing purposes. After PETA exposed the extreme cruelty and neglect that Augustus and the others were suffering at Taub's hands, the police raided the Institute for Behavioral Research laboratory, and Taub became the first experimenter to be convicted of cruelty to animals.
During the legal battle that went on for years, PETA succeeded
in getting five of the monkeys transferred to indoor/outdoor
enclosures where they could live together at the San Diego Zoo.
However, despite the ongoing custody battles, most of the monkeys
were killed by experimenters, including Augustus, who was experimented
on and killed at the Delta Regional Primate Research Center
in July 1990. |
|
Printer-Friendly