From ranching to radical change - Former cattle rancher Renee King-Sonnen speaks out for the animals on #nationalanimalrightsday 2025 in Austin.
Renee King-Sonnen, former cattle rancher turned vegan sanctuary founder and animal rights activist, shares her transformative journey at the Tanglewood Fruit Festival in Costa Rica, February 9, 2025.
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On June 2, 2024, I had the opportunity to speak my heart’s truth at the National Animal Rights Day event in New York City. This event, organized in NYC by Jamie Logan and worldwide by Our Planet, Theirs Too, Animal Save, Anonymous for the Voiceless and We the Free, is a growing, revolutionary movement to bring the truth to the public - through our collective grief and hope. With speeches, poems, songs, performances, marches and direct action, this day is an incredible demonstration of our purpose to end animal exploitation. I was honored to be a speaker at this event where I could pour out my heart and be heard by the people who truly get it and are on the vanguard of ethical progress for our culture.
Doing this work can be soul crushing. I am driven by an intense passion but it takes a toll. Having this space to air my grief and desire for animal liberation and really be heard was invaluable. I felt buoyed by our collective work and intention and held by the united compassion of our hearts. This is truly a special and historic day and I encourage you to get involved and participate next June. We are building a critical mass of resistance to our system of speciesist tyranny.
It was very powerful being there as a former cattle rancher who experienced a vegan spiritual awakening. Our story brings hope and possibility and it is our members who allow us to keep spreading this message far and wide, ensuring that the monthly costs of caring for our many animals are covered. We need to see this system end, y’all. I need it. I long for the day that I will be able to see with my own eyes, the liberation of all animals.
Renee participates in a panel discussion at the Himalayan Vegan Festival.
The 5th Annual Humane Hoax Online Conference was held on Saturday, February 24, 2024. Attendees heard presentations from experts and activists on informative and interesting aspects of humanewashing and greenwashing.
Renee gave a presentation on “There’s No Right Way to do the Wrong Thing”.
Presentation by Renee King-Sonnen at the Whole Foods Plant Based Potluck for First Methodist Church in Seguin, Texas on Thursday, August 24, 2023.
Renee spoke at the AVA Summit in Los Angeles July 27-30, 2023. The AVA Summit is an overarching conference series for the animal and vegan advocacy movement, bringing advocates together from around the world who are focusing on systemic change and working on various tactics, strategies, and approaches toward one shared vision: removing animals from our food system and other human use.
Saturday, April 22, 2023 in Austin, Texas
We had an incredible talk with the inspiring Renee King-Sonnen of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in our AJA Lunchtime Live: From Cattle Rancher to Animal Activist. In 2015, after feeling like she could no longer be a part of the cruelty of the animal agriculture industry, Renee King-Sonnen and her husband converted their Texas beef cattle ranch into an animal sanctuary. At the end of the month a documentary about Renee and Rowdy Girl Sanctuary will premiere at North America's premiere documentary festival, Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto. In this AJA Lunchtime Live, we find out what the turning point was for Renee deciding to make herself and the ranch vegan, the viral sensation that resulted, and her hopes for the "Rowdy Girl" documentary. We also dig into the mindsets of animal ag farmers, the possibilities for the AR movement to collaborate with farmers, and the top things about animal farmers and the industry that Renee thinks animal advocates should be informed around.
Dr. Sailesh Rao interviews Renee King-Sonnen about her Rancher Advocacy Program (RAP). You'll learn about ranchers and animal farmers who have gone vegan and transitioned their businesses to plant-based farms and sanctuaries.
About Renee: After witnessing time and time again the ranch’s baby calves going to the sale barn, she became more and more depressed about the inherent cruelty of the ranching business. By October 2014, she had decided she no longer wanted any part of ranching. She went vegan and began her pursuit of a dream to open a farm animal sanctuary. She forged relationships with many key leaders in the vegan movement who offered insight and counsel, and with tremendous determination worked toward creating a sanctuary out of what was once a beef cattle ranch.
As a result of her transformation numerous media stories have been published, and have gone viral. Their story has been seen all over America numerous times on CBS, ABC, RFD, and Animal Planet. Rancher families reach out to Renee on a regular basis because her story has landed in their living room via the news, a TV story or a documentary. Ranchers and their families relate to Renee, and it wasn’t long before she realized that she was also a Ranchers Advocate–and the Rancher Advocacy Program was born.
Dr. Sailesh Rao is your host of the Exploring Solutions Summit, and the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Healers, a non-profit dedicated towards healing the Earth’s climate. Dr. Rao is the author of two books, Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of Butterflies and Carbon Yoga: The Vegan Metamorphosis, and an Executive Producer of four documentaries, The Human Experiment (2013), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014), What The Health (2017), and A Prayer for Compassion (2019).
For more info and other summit replays, click here: https://www.climatehealers.org/summit
Animal Studies Initiative and the Animal Welfare Collective at New York University Panel
Renee participated on a panel in New York on November 10, 2016 about the role of farm animal sanctuaries in the animal rights movement. The panel, which featured three other sanctuary founders and directors and was moderated by Jasmin Singer of Our Hen House, endeavored to present the many and varied perspectives on this important topic. The topics ranged from the direction sanctuaries will play in the future to the strengths and weaknesses of them as a system for animal liberation. With an audience comprised of NYU’s vibrant animal rights community, and drawing on the city’s activists, and supported by strong social media and traditional promotional campaigns, there was a lively discussion and Q&A session.