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Animal Rights/Vegan Activists' Strategies

Dr. Rich McLellan peacefully passed away last week

Posted by Jerry Friedman on Facebook
November 11, 2024

Rich persistently sought ways to improve the lives of others—his friends, his patients, and surely the animals who do not deserve to live in misery or to die prematurely.

Rich and Judy

Dr Rich McLellan peacefully passed away last week.

I met hm at an LA Zoo protest in the '90s. He later recruited me and others to start the Animal Legislative Action Network to advocate for 'humane' legislation.

In 1996, we were both falsely arrested at an anti-fur protest. While sitting at the defense table, Rich told me that he thought I'd be a better lawyer than a defendant. His was the seed that started me on my path to become an attorney.

Rich persistently sought ways to improve the lives of others—his friends, his patients, and surely the animals who do not deserve to live in misery or to die prematurely.

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One of our mutual friends has more to say about him:

This world is a poorer place after Richard McLellan died peacefully this week; he will be sorely missed by all those who knew him, and by the animal rights movement he supported for more than 30 years.

Although historically Rich's primary focus was on legislative action at the local level to improve the plight of animals, forming Animal Legislative Action Network, he was also vastly supportive of the grassroots animal liberation and direct action sides of the movement. He just recently contributed to the campaign by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade to finish off the fur industry once and for all.

Richard also founded Rewind Rhino Extinction (https://www.nwrextinction.org/) in 2019 in an effort to save the northern white rhino from extinction. In just 2024, he started The Sally Judith McLellan Wildlife Foundation whose mission is to restore lands, wetlands and waterways to a pre-Colombian condition.

After retiring from medicine, Rich also loved to travel when he wasn't involved in helping animals. He married the lovely Judy Scheig on December 26, 2018, and she was his constant companion thereafter, and brought so much joy into his life. Judy was and is a wonderful woman who Rich was lucky to have met in 1965 in Berkeley where Rich was a student. 50 years later they would reunite and become life partners.

Born May 19, 1945 Richard is survived his loving wife, and a sister, Sara. In lieu of condolences, please feel free to support any of the organizations Rich cared so much about. (Here is a video link with Rich talking about bringing the white rhino back from extinction.

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: November 12, 2024
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