Why a Media Executive Left His Career to Help Save Mexico’s Donkeys Sydney Page - The Washington Post
go to original December 27, 2021

Ron King was a New York media executive for 20 years with the lifestyle to show for it. He was successful and loved his career, though he was increasingly aware of the frenetic pace of his days and nights.

He wondered: “Do I really want to be in the rat race for the rest of my life?”

As he mindlessly scrolled on his phone one day, he happened upon a TikTok video, of all things, showing a rescued herd of donkeys that had been bound for slaughter. And pretty quickly, he had a realization: Rats, no. Donkeys, yes.

“I never thought about donkeys in my entire life,” said King, 52, a former senior vice president at Time, who ran some of the country’s largest magazines, including InStyle and Southern Living, and had a front-row seat at the world’s premier fashion shows.

But after watching the video, he was intrigued about the high rate of donkey slaughter. He dug into the topic and learned that donkeys are one of the most maligned, mistreated and misunderstood animals on the planet. In fact, their intelligence is measured in a 2019 study in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior titled Dumb or smart asses? (Answer: smart.)

“Scientific evidence for intelligence in donkeys could expose their historical unmerited cognitive derogatory status,” the report begins about the species – the male of which is called a jack and the female is a jenny. Co-founder and chairman of Oscar’s Place Phil Selway with Goose, Pickles and Shadow.

King read an article in the Guardian explaining that the global donkey population was being “decimated”. It cited a report from the Donkey Sanctuary, a United Kindom (UK)-based rescue charity, which predicted that half the global population of donkeys could be wiped out in the span of five years due to the increasing demand for their hides.

Upon further exploration, King learned that the donkey population in the United States was suffering, too. As of March, the U.S. donkey population sat at 14,454, though the number of animals that are killed annually is not known.

“Evidence points to the fact that America’s donkeys are ending up in slaughterhouses in Mexico with their skins taken off them and being shipped to China,” explained Sian Edwards, a campaign manager at the Donkey Sanctuary.

King was deeply disturbed. Amid the pandemic and his itch to shake up his professional life, he decided it was time to change that.

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