Princess Elizabeth de Croy

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2009:

 

 

Obituaries

 

Princess Elizabeth de Croy, 88, died on

May 18, 2009 at the Refuge de Thiernay she

founded in 1968, three miles from the Chateau

d'Azy, her birthplace and the de Croy ancestral

home. The Princess worked as a flight attendant

in the early years of commercial aviation,

traveled with actor Rex Harrison, and knew

General Charles DeGaulle. She did humanitarian

relief work in Biafra, and with her six sisters,

helped to raise funds for Mother Teresa. Her

first experience in humane work included

introducing the use of captive bolt guns to

French slaughterhouses in 1962, as a member of

the French organization ‘uvre d'Assistance aux

Bêtes d'Abattoirs. She demonstrated stun guns

donated by the International Society for the

Protection of Animals, a subsidiary of the

Massachusetts SPCA which was in 1981 merged with

a subsidiary of the Royal SPCA of Britain to form

the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

The Princess started the Refuge de Thiernay and

the Association Defense et Protection des

Animaux, she told Alice Furlaud of The New York

Times in 1988, " with a very small legacy from my

aunt, Princess Marie de Croy, and people gave

me building materials. " Her mother contributed

the farmhouse that became the refuge

headquarters. The Princess in 1980 joined

Michael Seymour Rouse in founding Eurogroup for

Animals, which represents humane concerns to the

European Parliament; accompanied Annabella

Singh, the Maharani of Udaipur, India, in a

landmark 1981 investigation of the largest

slaughterhouse serving Delhi, India; and

beginning in 1980, actively encouraged the

growth of humane societies in Poland. " Animals

and animal groups in Asia could always count on

her help, " testified Pei-Feng Su, executive

director of ACTAsia for Animals. " In the last 20

years, the Princess was an advocate for animals

in Indonesia, Thai-land, Korea, Japan, the

Philippines, Taiwan and China, " Pei-Feng Su

remembered. " In 2006 she supported ACTAsia's

first workshop in China. The day before she

passed away, I was at her bedside. I thanked

her on behalf of all the animals who benefited

from her presence in this world. "

 

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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