Vicki Moore; Animal Activist

Vicki Moore, 44, a leading campaigner against cruelty to animals in Europe. The founder of Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe, she traveled widely across the continent to chronicle officially sanctioned acts of cruelty. She came to public attention in 1987 when she purchased a donkey from a Spanish village to keep it from being ridden through the streets until it collapsed as part of a traditional ceremony. Moore took the animal to a sanctuary in England. In 1993, revelers in a village in northwest Spain assaulted Moore and her husband when they protested an annual rite in which army conscripts dropped live nanny goats more than 60 feet from a church tower into the square below. The Moores also chronicled several “fire bull runs,” in which balls of hemp, which burn for three hours, are tied to bulls’ horns and set afire. The animals are then released and run through the streets while crowds kick and hit the dying creatures. In 1995, Moore was badly gored while videotaping one of these ceremonies. On Feb. 6 at Royal Liverpool Hospital in Liverpool, England.