Angi has organized hundreds of demonstrations, marches, outreach events, educational conferences and seminars. APLNJ is actively involved in litigation, legislation, and education to promote animal protection objectives. APLNJ’s newsletter publicizes other New Jersey grassroots organizations in the spirit of cooperation and unity. To that end, APLNJ was the proud recipient of the Dodge Foundation’s Scott McVey Unity Award for working with other organizations.

After becoming aware of the typical American eating habit's devastating effects on billions of animals, our planet, and the health of millions of people, Angi became vegan in 1983. APLNJ’s community outreach program, “Food for Life” promotes the health, humane, environmental and economic benefits of a plant-based diet.

Since 1988, Angi has been involved with black bear protection and education and was instrumental in forming the Coalition to Protect New Jersey Black Bears. APLNJ and the Bear Education And Resource Group host the coalition, which represents over 600,000 New Jersey residents, and has been successful in stopping eight bear hunts, and prevented seven others from moving forward. With Susan Russell, Angi also serves as co-chair of the League of Humane Voters of New Jersey. In 2012, the BEAR Group became a project of APLNJ.

Angi lives in Vernon Township, in the heart of bear country, with Guy, her husband of 37-years and their daughter, Sarah.

Before long Janine became the volunteer coordinator in the then-Northeast District of APLNJ (formerly NJARA). In that capacity Janine organized monthly meetings, held protests and leafletings, staffed outreach tablings at area shopping malls and orchestrated local campaigns, making the Northeast District a dynamic and active region of the state. Janine's new-found passion brought her to the organization's Woodbridge office as a regular volunteer and in May of 1989, Janine joined the staff as our Office Manager.

Since 1988, Janine has been a staple in the APLNJ office. She has handled almost all aspects of the organization from fundraising to bookkeeping to outreach to public presentations to overseeing our many programs - a Jack, or Jill, of all trades. With an acute sense of purpose, Janine has used her passion, professionalism and dedication to further the mission of APLNJ.

When not working, Janine enjoys musical theatre, cycling, hiking, camping, canoeing, swimming, dancing, singing and amateur horticulture.

Janine holds a Bachelor of Science from Southern Connecticut State University in Recreation and Leisure, specializing in Community Recreation & Youth Development. But life often takes many twists and turns and Janine's epiphany in 1988 set the course for the rest of her life.

Before focusing her advocacy efforts primarily on black bear protection, Elaine taught middle school social studies in Mahwah, New Jersey and earned her MA in counseling. She was the peer medication advisor training her students in conflict resolution. Elaine also offered seminars to the staff familiarizing them with the necessary skills. She sometimes served as mediator between staff members. She was adept at planting the seeds of compassion in her students by consistently demonstrating a love and respect for them as well as for animals. Throughout four decades of teaching she also volunteered in local animal shelters and continues to do therapy visits with her phenomenal newfoundland, Gretchen. They visit Alzheimer facilities, hospitals and libraries in order to continue connecting people and animals. Elaine was an active member of a DVRT team (domestic violence response team) for three towns in Passaic County where she focused on offering choices and suggestions to victims of domestic violence.

Elaine was introduced to black bear advocacy when she noticed a “stop the bear hunt” sign on the window of her dog groomer’s shop. She spoke with several people that lived in “bear country,” and all were appalled at the possibility of hunting black bear, as well as hunting any animal. After inquiring more extensively, she discovered the already existing BEAR Group in West Milford, New Jersey and made it her business to join and become an active member. She is in this for life and becomes more determined every year to end the abuse of all animals. Her objective is to stop the bear hunt and to educate New Jersey residents to become “Bear Smart” so that they can live in harmony with nature.

As an attorney, she represented NJARA and the BEAR Group in a lawsuit against the state of NJ, successfully invalidating the state's bear hunt plan in 2007. She is also a former chair of the NJ State Bar Association's Animal Law Committee, and is the author of "Bear Hunt Controversy Shines the Spotlight on New Jersey's Wildlife Law," published in New Jersey Lawyer Magazine.

She has also worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Doris has been an animal rights activist for over 25 years, vegetarian for nearly as long, and vegan for over 20 years. She shares a home with three humans, two rabbits and four guinea pigs, and is a life member of the House Rabbit Society.

Doris holds a B.S. in Applied Biological Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a J.D. from the University of Southern California Law Center.

She wanted to help other community cats in Trenton in this way and she formed the group Trenton TNR, which arranged weekly transport to a low cost clinic, transporting 20 or so cats every week for almost 3 years. In 2009 one of her original mentors told her about a position at Animal Protection League of New Jersey and she has been with us since then. Trained as a teacher, Sandra has a way of speaking to people that allows them to realize they can do TNR too! She has fashioned our own 3 hour training workshop based on the manual by Neighborhood Cats but with a wealth of her own experiences thrown in.

Sandra has orchestrated a mass TNR project of 125 cats, which was completed in 2 weeks and she has personally TNR'd countless numbers of cats and faced many different situations such as nursing mothers, cats who gave birth in the traps, and cats who escaped in her basement from traps!

Sandra is married with 3 young children and they are joined by 2 cats inside and she maintains a colony of cats outside whom they also adore.

Russell has been a repeat NGO (non-governmental observer) at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), where she participated in working groups. She wrote the AWI petition brief to the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to halt trade in exotic birds from Senegal and participated in lobbying for re-authorization of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Wild Bird Conservation Act.

Russell has researched and written in-depth analyses of the U.S. fur trafficking and trapping trades. Her "Urban Wildlife Series" focuses on three mismanaged species currently under the gun, and exploited for hunter access: white-tailed deer, Canada geese, and the American black bear. (See APLNJ’s “Urban Wildlife Series: The Black Bear”). Russell, whose family arrived on these shores at Jamestowne and on the Mayflower, was deeply involved in the successful campaign to halt Disney’s planned edge city at Manassas National Battlefield. She has been published by theNew York Times and other national publications, and has appeared on national, state, and Canadian television and radio.

As a result of her experience with the leghold trap and subsequent litigation, Russell honed her expertise on the coziness of government wildlife regulators - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and related state wildlife agencies -- with ammunition, firearms, archery, and fur trade associations, and the unseemly "partnerships" that dominate U.S. wildlife policy.

Russell's "Urban Wildlife Series: State Wildlife Action Plans and Wildlife-Use Trade Associations." (link) focuses on the involvement of partnered corporate conservation groups, trade, and green washing.

When asked why she chose her field, she responds: "A deep and abiding love and respect for animals. I enjoy them, I 'get' their ways. A corresponding abhorrence of cruelty. I agree with Twain; animals often put the human race to shame. Secondly, I actually expect our government to represent everyone, not special interests. Thirdly, a low tolerance for what is euphemistically called 'bunk." Put those three together, and it was a given."

Russell attended Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and was graduated with an education degree from Monmouth University. Her other interests are books, politics, wildflower and perennial gardening, Nantucket, colonial American history, and of course, her beloved wild Canada geese, ducks, and swans. She lives on the Navesink River in Fair Haven, New Jersey.

Photo credit: Bob Bielk/Staff Photographer / Bob Bielk/Asbury Park Press - used with permission/licensed.