I first met Suzy in the early 1990s. At the time Auckland was quite active with animal rights demos every weekend. Suzy was Auckland coordinator for Save Animals From Exploitation until late 1996 but after that preferred to work on her own

In 1998 and 99 she lived in the UK for a year, causing all sorts of bother for shops selling fur coats in London.

One day Suzy and a couple of others were in her car driving around checking out factory farms around Auckland. We got to a turkey farm and she drove right up the driveway past the farmers living room. We could clearly see Mr and Mrs factory farmer watching TV on a Saturday afternoon. Are you sure this is a good idea Suzy? Shouldn't we wait until the farmer is gone? or maybe at night time? Too late, we are already here, stop asking questions and grab a turkey!

We waved at the farmer as we drove back down the driveway with two enormous turkeys on our laps! Suzy was like that, when it came to rescuing animals, careful planning and thinking ahead just slowed her down! I was constantly amazed at how much she got away with...

In November 1999 while traveling back to Auckland after a demo she was arrested at 3am in Bulls and accused of trashing several butcher shops, a meat warehouse and a bacon factory as she passed through Levin and Bulls. (She eventually got off most of it but was convicted for the meat warehouse)

In 2000 Suzy started the Fur Free Auckland campaign and became the main organiser of Auckland Animal Action. I didn't see her much after that as we ended up in different towns working on different things, but I still remember the old days when we would all pile into Suzies car for an expensive night out (well, expensive for animal abusers anyway!), almost every weekend, way back in the day.

good times
M@x