Cleveland Amory
Cleveland Amory was an influential American author and animal rights activist renowned for his best-selling books featuring his beloved cat, Polar Bear. His notable works include *The Cat Who Came for Christmas* and *The Cat and the Curmudgeon*. Beyond his literary contributions, Amory was a passionate advocate for animal welfare, founding the Fund for Animals in 1967, a nonprofit aimed at protecting and rescuing animals from harm. His organization gained significant recognition for successful rescues, including the airlift of wild burros from the Grand Canyon and Spanish Andalusian goats from San Clemente Island, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Texas. This sanctuary has provided refuge to thousands of domestic and exotic animals, promoting awareness of animal cruelty and neglect. Amory's work not only emphasized the importance of animal rights but also played a pivotal role in shaping the antihunting movement in the United States. His legacy continues to inspire those dedicated to animal advocacy and conservation efforts.
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Cleveland Amory
- Born: September 2, 1917
- Birthplace: Nahant, Massachusetts
- Died: October 14, 1998
- Place of death: New York, New York
Identification: American author and animal rights activist
Amory’s decades of activism for animal rights and animal protection saved thousands of animals from extermination and helped bring the issue of cruelty to animals into the public spotlight.
As an author, Cleveland Amory is perhaps best known for his best-selling books featuring his cat, Polar Bear: The Cat Who Came for Christmas (1987), The Cat and the Curmudgeon (1990), and The Best Cat Ever (1993). He also published a number of social history studies, and in 1974 he published Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife, a work that has been credited with influencing the antihunting movement in the United States.
From the time he was a young child, Amory harbored a dream to create a sanctuary for animals where they would be protected from harm and allowed to roam free. To this end, he established the Fund for Animals, a nonprofit organization, in 1967. In 1977, the Fund for Animals initiated its first major rescue of animals when the U.S. Park Service scheduled the extermination, by shooting, of all the wild burros living in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Over the next two years, Amory’s organization orchestrated a helicopter airlift of 577 burros from the floor of the Grand Canyon, some seven thousand feet below its rim. An intensive, nationwide adoption campaign was conducted for the burros; those animals not adopted found homes at the Black Beauty Ranch, an animal sanctuary founded by Amory in Murchison, Texas, in 1979. Two years later, the Fund for Animals rescued another 5,000 burros that had been earmarked for destruction at Death Valley National Monument and the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, both in California.
In the early 1980’s the organization rescued more than sixty wild Spanish Andalusian goats from San Clemente Island off the coast of California after the U.S. Navy had decided to eradicate the island’s population of the animals, saying that the move was mandated by the Endangered Species Act (1973) because the goats were eating the native, endangered species of vegetation on the island. The Navy intended to allow hunters to kill the animals for a fee. The Fund for Animals arranged a helicopter airlift of the animals to temporary quarters in San Diego, California, and another adoption campaign was successfully conducted.
Black Beauty Ranch, which was renamed Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in 2004 to honor its founder, has been home to thousands of domestic and exotic animals rescued from neglectful or abusive situations. Among the animals given sanctuary at the ranch since its founding have been chimpanzees, kangaroos, wild horses, buffalo, and elephants.
Through his work with the Fund for Animals, Amory developed the resources to conduct high-profile rescues of large numbers of animals, and the organization’s continuing efforts have received much national and international publicity. This publicity has helped raise the public’s consciousness about issues of cruelty and neglect toward animals.
Bibliography
Greenwald, Marilyn S. Cleveland Amory: Media Curmudgeon and Animal Rights Crusader. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2009.
Marshall, Julie Hoffman. Making Burros Fly: Cleveland Amory, Animal Rescue Pioneer. Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books, 2006.