Animal rights
Mills has been actively involved with the Britain's leading
vegetarian,
vegan and
animal rights organisation,
Juliet Gellatley's
Viva!. She is also involved with Gellatley's
Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation.
[8] Mills became a patron to both organisations in 2005. In 2006 she attended, along with Gellatley, a debate on fur at the Oxford Union. When Mills was speaking she gave a prearranged signal to her sister Fiona who stood up, faced the audience and turned on the body TV which had been hidden under her coat. It showed a dog being skinned alive and its piercing screams of agony shrieked out into the hall; Mills reacted with tears.
[9] Mills joined a team from
Viva! to film at a pig farm in
Somerset in February 2007.
[10] This was to publicize the use of restrictive
farrowing crates, used for sows who are suckling piglets. A video of the investigation is available on the Internet.
[11]
In March 2006, Mills and McCartney ventured to eastern
Canada to bring attention to the country's annual
seal hunt. Sponsored by the
Humane Society of the United States, they claimed the hunt was inhumane and called on the Canadian government to put it to an end. Their arrival on the floes sparked much attention in
Newfoundland and Labrador where 90% of the sealers live. Due to the intense media attention,
Newfoundland and Labrador's Premier
Danny Williams debated them on
Larry King Live.
[12]
Mills also campaigns against the trade in dog fur (which is often passed off as fur from other animals), and particularly the live skinning of dogs. She posed with her dog, in an anti-fur advertisement for a
PETA campaign, which had the catchline: "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur" campaign.
[13]
However, a video has come to light
[14] of Mills wearing a mink coat she owned and wrote about in her autobiography; the video was taken in 1989, years before being involved in animal rights or vegetarianism. Mills has stated that "It's only since I met Paul [McCartney] that I really got to understand how vegetarianism not only benefits your health massively but also makes a huge difference to the planet, to animals and to feeding the world."
[15]
Mills became involved with
Animal Rights group
PETA through McCartney, who had been involved with them for years prior. Since the couple's divorce, it is alleged that she has been dropped by PETA over her controversial behavior and because McCartney's daughter Mary refused to continue her work with the organization unless it cut ties with Mills.[
citation needed] However, this is unsubstantiated by any major news network, but rather the mainstream press says that she was dropped
"because the zealot organization doesn't want to offend her ex, longtime PETA supporter Paul McCartney."[16][17] A PETA representative had told the
New York Post that
"Heather's exposé of the Chinese fur industry remains one of most popular videos on our site...although we don't have any imminent campaigns planned with her."[18] [19]
In November 2007 she spoke out at
Hyde Park in Central London arguing that people should turn
vegan as
livestock create far more
carbon emissions than transport. "There are many other kinds of milk available" she said. "Why don't we try drinking rats' milk and dogs' milk? Eighty per cent of global warming comes from livestock and deforestation. I'm not telling people to go vegan overnight. But if they stop drinking their cows' milk lattes, maybe this sort of thing won't have to happen."
[20]
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Brody's Mum
), I'd demand more money too. I wouldn't let my ex take control like that so that he could finally dispose of me.
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