Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Brigitte Bardot, the beautiful French actress and singer, retired in 1973 at the age of thirty-eight. Always a lover of animals, she sold her jewelry and other personal possessions in 1986 in order to start the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals.

Since then, Bardot has been a passionate advocate for animals all over the world, rescuing and speaking out for animal rights and against cruelty to animals, including the slaughtering horses for consumption, bullfighting, seal hunting and whaling.

In 2011, The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society renamed one of its fast interceptor vessels the MV Brigitte Bardot, as a tribute to her support of their mission to protect whales, primarily from the Japanese. Bardot wrote to the president of China, protesting the "torturing of bears and killing the world's last tigers and rhinos to make aphrodisiacs." She sent a letter to the Queen of Denmark criticizing the "macabre spectacle" and "mass slaughter" of dolphins in the Faroe Islands, and protested to the French Minister of Culture for including bullfighting as part of France's culture.

Brigitte Bardot is a great supporter of spay/neuter, donating more than $140,000 USD for a mass sterilization and adoption program for Bucharest's estimated 300,000 dogs. This week's clinic was funded by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation as part of its 7,000 euro grant to PEACEAnimals free mobile spay/neuter clinics.

The PEACEAnimals clinic took place in the parking lot at the back side of Plaza Caracól, a shopping center adjacent to several residential areas. The Ayuntamiento loaned the clinic a tarp, under which the pre-op and post-op tables were set up. Surgeries took place inside the mobile clinic, which is a horse trailer with PEACE written on every side.

This was a Tuesday to half-day Friday schedule, as the team needed to be in Tepic, four hours away, for a mega-clinic on Saturday. The Tuesday clinic had a strong start, with twenty-nine animals sterilized; Wednesday – thirty-one; on Thursday before 9 AM, a long line of people were already waiting. No one was turned away. The first break for the vet team took place at 6 PM, when they were finally able to have lunch. A total of sixty-four animals were sterilized that day; Friday (half-day) – twenty-seven. Several individuals who arrived shortly after 9 AM on Friday were asked to come back to another clinic location later this month. I helped register pets every morning, and every person with whom I spoke either belonged to rescue organizations, was fostering animals, or had rescued and adopted at least one street cat or dog.

All in all, the total number of free sterilizations performed during the March 4-7 PEACEAnimals spay/neuter clinic at Plaza Caracól to one hundred and fifty-seven! (Male dogs: 31; Female dogs: 56; Male cats: 24; Female cats: 46)

Thank you, Brigitte Bardot, and thank you to Lily Jurado for promoting this clinic, for giving us a safe and protected place and for providing meals for our team.

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PEACEAnimals endeavors to prevent the future suffering of cats and dogs by providing free mobile spay and neuter clinics, primarily in communities throughout the Bay of Banderas (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico). To learn more about the workings of this registered Mexican non-profit, please visit PeaceAnimals.org.