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Steven Omar Hindi (born c. 1953/1954) is an American animal rights activist and businessman. He is the founder and president of the animal rights organization Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK). Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hindi grew up in a hunting and fishing culture. In 1985, he caught a 230-pound Mako shark in a feat that received a writeup in the New York Daily News. He ceased hunting and fishing after witnessing a live pigeon shoot in Pennsylvania on Labor Day, September 4, 1989. Shocked and disgusted by the sight of thousands of pigeons getting shot after flying from boxes, Hindi vowed to give up his hunting hobby and fight against it instead. Hindi founded the Fox Valley Animal Protectors, which evolved into the Chicago Animal Rights Coalition (CHARC) in 1993 and is currently called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), to document animal abuse and disseminate information. Hindi's animal rights activism with the organization has involved lobbying legislators to pass laws against animal cruelty and documenting and protesting against rodeos, live pigeon shoots, geese shoots, bullfighting, horse slaughter, and deer killing. He posts video footage of animal abuse on SHARK's YouTube channel. Hindi served a stint as shipping and receiving clerk at Carol Stream, Illinois-based Allied Rivet (then called Allied Tubular Rivet), a company that manufactures tubular rivets, before purchasing the company in the mid-1980s, becoming its president, and moving it to Geneva, Illinois. In 1992, he ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly against Tom Cross. (en) |
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In 1993 he founded CHARC and decided to take a very direct approach to activism. Instead of picketing events or just describing cruelty to others, he espouses a version of the motto "Show me the money"—in his words, "Give me the proof." For Hindi, technology is the weapon of choice. CHARC specializes in filming animal abuse and distributing footage to news outlets so that the world can see cruelty in its uncensored ugliness. (en) I know there is a certain mystique in bullfighting, with the costumes and everything. But the nerve of the bullfighter is really more about having the nerve to walk in front of anybody after what he's done to the bull. These people are among the worst animal abusers on the planet. (en) I used to be a hunter and fisherman. Now, I hunt hunters. I get more satisfaction in saving the lives of animals instead of taking them. (en) You take dolphins that travel 100 miles a day in pods, with their own children, and now they are going to spend the rest of their lives in a concrete coffin, eating dead fish and swimming in circles. The Oceanarium is a chlorinated toilet bowl compared to where the whales come from, and now they're swimming in circles, too, or they just lay there. (en) |
