Powerfully, Steve described the injustice he sought to remedy as a thick legal wall that separates humans who have rights from animals who don’t—and who suffer because of it.
Steve used to say that the battle for nonhuman rights, like any social justice battle, would be very long and that he didn’t expect the wall to come down during his lifetime. His goal was to begin the arduous work of punching holes in it and bringing animals through–work that others who came after him would continue.
In February of 2024, Steve passed away from glioblastoma, which was profoundly difficult for everyone in the NhRP community. As he predicted, the wall is still standing–but, thanks to Steve’s life’s work, justice for animals has now started to gleam through the cracks. And the NhRP is steadily widening them.
In 2023, ten years after we filed our first lawsuits, we celebrated the progress the NhRP has made as an organization under Steve’s leadership. Moving forward, our job is to build on this progress. As detailed in this annual report, that’s exactly what we did throughout the last year–expanding our litigation, helping develop and pass the first-ever animal rights law in the US, and launching our first national educational and grassroots campaign, Free to Be Elephants.
