Dear John,
Today, the Nonhuman Rights Project’s founder Steven Wise would have turned 75 years old. As his wife and as the NhRP’s board chair, I miss him terribly and am sorry he isn’t here for us to celebrate this important birthday. I’m comforted by the fact that his life’s work continues. I know he’d be proud of the progress made by the NhRP to use the legal system to get rights for nonhuman animals.
Steve knew that getting rights for animals would take many years because it required a profound change in social norms, specifically the way human beings think about our role on this earth compared to other beings. He saw the achievement of rights as the most effective path to reducing the exploitation and the suffering of nonhuman animals.
This was what he thought about, talked about, read about, wrote about, and dreamed about, almost all of the time.
One summer, we took our children on vacation and went tubing on a tranquil river in Vermont. Steve sat in the rubber tube floating down the river, all the while on the phone loudly discussing one of our animal rights cases. Our children were laughing at him and yelling, “Dad, get off the phone!” But he took one call after another. That was Steve’s idea of vacation. He never wanted to be away from his work, and for him, talking about an animal rights case only enhanced the experience of floating on a river.
Many NhRP supporters know Steve was fortunate to have had Dr. Jane Goodall as a close colleague and friend and that Jane died in October. Jane was one of the earliest board members of the NhRP and a great admirer of Steve’s work. He felt honored that she so respected him and what he was trying to accomplish. After Steve died in February of 2024 from glioblastoma, Jane wrote:
