Gene Baur

Gene Baur (formerly Gene Bauston) is an activist, best-selling author, and president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, the first animal rescue organization dedicated to farmed animals. He is vegan and has been at the forefront of animal rights since he began the Sanctuary in 1986.

Baur grew up in Hollywood, California, and went to Loyola High School (Los Angeles). He attended Cal State Northridge where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. He paid for college in part by doing background work in television and movies, including commercials for McDonalds and KFC, about which he later expressed regret. During high school and college, he had various jobs, including dishwasher, day laborer, bartender, and teacher, and he volunteered to help children suffering from terminal illnesses as well as abused adolescents. He also participated in the efforts of human rights, animal rights, consumer and environmental organizations. In the 1980s he began investigations into factory farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses. Baur felt the conditions he observed were unacceptable, and these experiences helped motivate the creation of Farm Sanctuary. The sanctuary's first rescued animal was a downed sheep found on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster stockyards in 1986.