Good Food Podcast<\/a>, the legendary musician discussed the experiences that shaped his views on animal rights and explained why he believes every living creature deserves consideration.<\/p>\nI\u2019m definitely committed to trying to decrease the suffering of animals, \u2019cause I think every animal matters \u2014 not just species, not just numbers, but every single creature matters. And you probably know we have a wildlife rescue. We just rescued a couple of toads from the drains who couldn\u2019t get out, and that gives me great pleasure. And\u00a0Anne Brummer, who runs my\u00a0Save Me\u00a0wildlife rescue, has rescued literally thousands of animals over the years we\u2019ve been involved together, and that makes me very happy. And whatever you can do. <\/p>\n
And that\u2019s wild animals \u2014 it\u2019s foxes and badgers, deer, many, many kinds of birds, hedgehogs. And we do that. We do intermediate level outreach to people, trying to educate people about wild animals and what they need and how we\u2019re destroying their habitats, et cetera. And we do top-level lobbying with [the U.K.] government and the Houses of Parliament just to try and change the laws that potentially can protect wild animals from exploitation and abuse.<\/p>\n
When asked if he has always loved animals or if there was a particular moment that inspired him to go vegan, May gave this response.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been an animal lover, yeah. There are certain moments in your life \u2014 aren\u2019t there? I don\u2019t know how you feel about it \u2014 which change your feelings. I do remember being scared of things that buzzed, like bees and wasps and everything. And in those days, my mom used to have a thing called a FLIT gun, which I suppose was DDT [dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane] in a can, and you pumped it and pumped it and pumped it. It was a spray. And I remember in the understairs cupboard, suddenly there was this huge insect, which I suppose was a\u2026 I don\u2019t know if it was a wasp or\u2026 I think it was a wasp, but it was big, and I felt really threatened by it. I was only young. <\/p>\n
I was only probably eight or nine or whatever, and the FLIT gun was there, so I picked up the FLIT gun and started kind of firing it at it, like defending myself. And I watched it buzz and buzz and fall to the ground and buzz and buzz and buzz and buzz and buzz and buzz. And I watched it in what seemed like agony, and it absolutely killed me. I thought, \u2018I\u2019ve done this. Why have I destroyed this animal?\u2019 Because I was afraid of it. That stuck with me for a long time, and I wouldn\u2019t touch any of those sprays ever again. There\u2019s a number of incidents, I think, which made me realize that animals are just like us.<\/p>\n
David Attenborough\u00a0[English broadcaster, naturalist and writer] was quoted quite recently as saying, \u2018Why is it we have the arrogance to think that the human race, that humans are the only significant animal on the planet? Why do we think we\u2019re more important than all the other animals?\u2019 There\u2019s no basis for that. I mean, I\u2019ve said very often, if an alien came to Earth and looked at all the different animals, creatures on Earth, they wouldn\u2019t necessarily come to the conclusion that humans were the best and the most worthy of preserving. We\u2019ve done a lot of damage, and we still do a lot of damage, and I\u2019m not convinced that we do a very good job as a species. So why do we assume all the other species are there for our exploitation? It\u2019s not a logical assumption. To me, it\u2019s self-evident that every animal matters.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not aware enough yet of how much we need to look after not just the planet, but the wild animals that live on it, all the animals that live on it. And we are all wild animals, basically. I mean, how do you feel when you go out in the country, in the trees or the grass and everything? You think, \u2018Oh, my God, this is where I belong.\u2019 And you do belong. We don\u2019t belong in this concrete stuff that we\u2019ve manufactured for ourselves. We are wild animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Author Benedetta Baldin – 2.11.2026 Queen guitarist Brian May has opened up about his commitment to veganism and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[664,9,24,63,666,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-390666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-brian-may","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queen","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}