Victory
Beau the Dog Tops Most Popular Animal Victories of All Time
People love animals, especially on the internet.
But it’s more than funny videos of cats and pictures of puppies that get people clicking online. It’s uplifting stories of disabled animals being able to walk again. And it’s stories of homeless animals finding new families. Really, animal stories of all kinds gain traction online.
Animal petitions also very popular on Change.org. We looked at the causes people care about on Change.org and petitions about animals had more supporters than any other cause area.
Again, our petitions feature more than cute puppies and kittens, although there are plenty of those. We’ve seen almost every type of animal featured in petitions on Change.org from the smallest – bees – to the largest – whales.
Some petitions aim to protect whole groups of animals. The 5 most popular animal victories, listed below, includes a victory from Russia that asked the government to ban seal hunting.
But the list is topped by a much more personal story. It’s a local petition that asked the city of Dyersburg, TN to save Beau, a two and a half year old dog who was to be euthanized for allegedly killing a duck on his owner’s property.
Beau was saved by more than 630,000 people who signed a petition. The most incredible part is that the town of Dyersburg only has a population of 17,000, so the vast majority of people who signed Beau’s petition didn’t know him or his owner, and they had probably never set foot in Dyersburg.
To create this list, below, we took looked at all of the winning animal petitions on Change.org and highlighted the most popular victories by signature count.
Top 5 Most Popular Animal Victories
1. Save Beau’s Life and Return him to his Owner with No Fees
Country: United States
Date of Victory: January 31, 2015
Number of Signatures: 636,067
Beau the dog was going to be euthanized for allegedly killing a duck and attempting to bite a child on his owner’s property. Karol Wilcox started a petition that drew national attention to his plight and saved Beau. See Victory
2. Keep Raju the Crying Elephant Free!
Country: United States
Date of Victory: December 2, 2014
Number of Signatures: 468,188
Wildlife SOS successfully petitioned the courts in India to make sure that an elephant that was kept chained and beaten for 50 years, Raju, was not returned to his owners after being rescued by Wildlife SOS. See Victory
3. Tell Tyson to Stop Torturing Pigs
Image Source
Country: United States
Date of Victory: January 14, 2014
Number of Signatures: 370,005
Mercy For Animals petitioned Tyson Foods Inc., the second-largest pork producer in the U.S., to phase out gestational crates in its hog factory farms after witnessing the treatment of pigs during an undercover investigation. See Victory
4. Criminalize animal abuse
Image Source
Country: Turkey
Date of Victory: June 26, 2014
Number of Signatures: 250,473
After learning about a man who was arrested for killing a cat, Neşe Akcan successfully petitioned the Turkish government to change the torture of animals from a misdemeanor to a criminal offense. See Victory
5. Don’t allow the commercial slaughter of seals!
Country: Russia
Date of Victory: June 6, 2015
Number of Signatures: 243,134
George Mzhavanadze started a petition to protect seals native to Russian (many of them endangered) from hunting, resulting in a ban from the Federal Fisheries Agency. See Victory
Passionate about animal rights? Here are some petitions that might interest you: