Mad About Animals
Created by passionate vegan / animal rights activists, Nigel and Kerry, ‘Mad About Animals’ began as a YouTube channel in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, as a means of continuing to get the vegan message out there during lockdown, when street activism became almost impossible.
Kerry and Nigel’s hope for the channel was that it would provide comfort to isolated Vystopia-sufferers and inspire new and pre-existing vegans to get active in whatever way they were able, both for themselves and for the animals.
The other aim was to appeal to non-vegans through asking hard, thought-provoking questions about human empathy and conscience, in addition to sharing informative, factual videos that they believed would shine a light on the unnecessary barbarity that is animal agriculture.
In 2022, Mad About Animals expanded to other social media platforms and the pair have recently begun to host information stalls, and plan to open an online shop which will raise vital funds for animal charities.
Who We Are
Kerry
Kerry has felt an innate longing to observe, protect and care for animals, as well as earn their trust, ever since she was old enough to think.
A quiet and introspective child, Kerry was always quick to pick up on the moral of a story and take it to heart. So, when she was five, after watching Babe the Pig and coming to realise that meat is the dead body of a murdered animal, she, of course, decided she didn’t want to eat her friends. However, her mum – much to her regret now – wouldn’t allow it, for fear that Kerry, who was always anaemic at the time, wouldn’t get sufficient iron.
When she was fourteen, though, Kerry did become a vegetarian, and like countless other veggies, believed from that point on she was no longer contributing to animal suffering. In addition to going meatless, she also avoided leather, animal-tested products and so on, and would often share animal rights petitions online and donate to animal charities.
It wasn’t until August 2017, after seeing a clip posted by PETA on Twitter about the “downer cows” in the dairy industry that Kerry learned that cows didn’t, in fact, produce milk naturally like she’d always thought, but, like all mammals, only did so when they were pregnant or have recently given birth.
Upon further investigation, Kerry also found that free-range was a myth and that the egg industry either macerate or suffocate male chicks immediately after hatching. Wracked with guilt, angered and horrified by these revelations, she went vegan overnight.
In 2018, Kerry began to battle with her social anxieties and decided to speak up for the animals by going along to a local Anonymous for the Voiceless event. Standing there alongside other activists with a TV around her neck, showing the public the terrible reality of animal agriculture, Kerry felt the greatest sense of pride and purpose, like she’d finally found her place in the world. And it was there she met Nigel, who would eventually become her partner, both in activism and in life.
These days, Kerry remains a dedicated activist, continuing to regularly take part in street activism, such as We the Free, outreach stalls and protests, as well as putting her creative skills to good use by helping to raise money for animal rights charities and sanctuaries. She is currently writing ‘An Introduction to Vegan Activism’, in the hopes it will encourage other vegans to get active for the animals.
Nigel
Nigel was raised in a very traditional working-class home. He learned a lot from both his father and older brother who were both strong trades unionists. He followed in their footsteps and became very active in the Labour party. Looking back on these days he remembers that he was always so concerned with human rights but never even considered that animals might have rights too.
When his eldest son got to the age where he was starting to ask lots of questions (as children often do), one question was about where meat came from. This got Nigel and his then-wife talking about how best to answer the question without upsetting their son. By sheer chance, they watched a horror movie that night set in a slaughterhouse. The opening scenes were of real animals being killed in a working slaughterhouse. These two things came together and caused the whole family to become vegetarian there and then.
Nigel spent the next 32 years as a strict vegetarian. He now says that he is ashamed to say that he thought that he was doing enough and that he never considered being vegan. It was the case that he had never met a vegan and nobody had told him of the horrors of the egg and dairy industries.
Then one day he met a vegan who had the good sense to educate Nigel. He went vegan there and then. Swearing that he would never let anyone go on for so long thinking they were doing the right thing while still harming others.
Nigel’s favorite saying is now “You might not go vegan immediately, but you will go vegan one day and on that day you will regret not going vegan today.” he has still to meet any vegan for whom that isn’t true.
Having abused animals for so long Nigel feels the only moral thing he can do is not only be vegan himself but work as hard as he can to educate others and make them see the error of their ways. He says that he can’t bring back all those poor babies that he killed but he can do his best to make sure their friends don’t have the same fate.
He says, being vegan simply is not enough. It is our moral duty to be activists.
These days Nigel does as much activism as he can and especially likes street activism such as WeTheFree. He also helps run the Mad About Animals YouTube and Tiktok channels with Kerry.