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Today, it really is Their Turn! We have three victories to celebrate – each better the next.

First up – Eight female pigs are jumping for joy – literally – because their recent journey from gestation cage to slaughterhouse was pleasantly interrupted by people who liberated them. The brains behind the rescue? A student taking a “swine production” class who fell in love with them. The money? None other than Sam Simon, the Simpsons co-creator who is donating his fortune to animal rights causes.

Last, but not least, lawmakers in Oakland, California, have voted to ban the use of bull hooks, the weapons used by circuses to beat their elephants into submission (see video below). Los Angeles is the only other U.S. city with a bull hook ban. Without these weapons, the monsters at Ringling Bros. will be unable to bring their battered elephants into the city limits. The ban doesn’t go into effect until 2017, but it’s a major victory, and it sets a precedent for other municipalities. Let’s hope that Ringling employees don’t take out their anger on the elephants.

Hit the pause button to celebrate, share and be re-energized by the victories.

Sam Simon, the Simpson’s co-creator who has donated millions to animal rights causes since being diagnosed with terminal cancer, is probably having a bigger impact than he ever imagined. That’s because the media are not only reporting on the extent of his philanthropy but are also describing, in detail, the animal abuses that motivate him to give.

In Vanity Fair, a reporter writes about the plight of 17 captive bears whose rescue was funded by Simon: “The bears lived their lives pacing back and forth in the concrete holes of a grim roadside bear-pit attraction in rural Georgia, subsisting on white bread and soda thrown to them by tourists.”

Sam Simon Liberates Bear

In a Reuters story about Simon’s decision to purchase of a fur farm in order to permanently shut it down, the reporter writes that, as Simon walked through the facility’s “cramped rows of mesh-wire cages,” he said to the animals, “This is your last day of abuse. This is your first day of freedom.”

Photo: REUTERS/Mike Blake

During an interview on NBC, Simon talks about “liberating animals from abusive situations” and says that horses in the racing industry are treated as poorly as animals on factory farms.

These are the kinds of messages that animal rights groups would kill for (figuratively speaking) when they talk to the press.

In 2012, Sam Simon bought a $2 million ship for Sea Shepherd, which is being used to protect dolphins, whales and other sea animals from slaughter. If only the Sam Simon could have saved these salmon who, oddly, share his name.

His name is Sam Simon, and, in the last months of his life, this Hollywood mogul has been donating a fortune to liberate animals. Today, he bought a fur farm in Southern California and rescued 425 chinchillas from a life of intensive confinement in wire cages: “This is your last day of abuse” and “first day of freedom,” he said to the animals while walking through the fur farm. PETA helped to broker the deal with the fur farm, though the owner was unaware of that. 

Photo: REUTERS/Mike Blake

In June, Mr. Simon freed Sunder, an abused elephant in India, and, before that, he rescued bears being held captive in a Georgia roadside attraction. Simon, who is dying from colorectal cancer, donated $100,000 to the San Diego Humane Society to take care of the newly-released chinchillas until they are adopted. When this animal hero does die, we know exactly where he’s going.

Simpson’s creator Sam Simon, PETA and the Atlanta Humane Society fought and won a battle to free 17 bears confined for years in concrete pits at a Georgia tourist attraction called the Black Forest Bear Park. The bears have been transferred to The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado and are now running freely on grass. Two of the bears were pregnant at the time of the liberation, and, for the first time in their lives, they will be able to raise their cubs. In the pits, their cubs were kidnapped shortly after birth.

Being held captive in a pit is like living in a horror movie. The activists who freed these bears and the rescuers who are providing them with a sanctuary are heroes. Please visit The Wild Animal Sanctuary to find out ways you can support their work and help captive animals.