Brigitte Bardot, a Seal of Approval—And Wyoming Critters in Distress

I didn’t even know she was still alive. But when the announcement came that Brigitte Bardot had passed away in late December 2025, I read her obituary. In doing so I remembered one thing and learned another. 

I knew she retired from the film industry while young. She was only 39, a good age to bag it. I knew she spent the rest of her life advocating for animals. Those included seals. She objected to the clubbing of seal pups on ice floes. In the 1970s these flawless white pelts were favored by fashionistas for high-dollar coats and boots. Bardot got involved when the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made a pitch for her to get involved. She did. Knowing the media’s obsession with fame and beauty, she lay on the ice alongside seal pups. 

Photographs were taken. They went worldwide. 

As a result of her work and that of others, the seal fur trade contracted. It is now illegal in Canada to kill newborn harp seal pups (whitecoats) and young hooded seals (bluebacks) for their fur. There are international bans on seal products, including by the European Union. A powerful poster made during the campaign depicted a person dragging a fur coat on the ground, leaving in its wake a crimson trail of blood. The slogan: Real people wear fake fur. It worked. 

She established a charity, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. It advocated for the welfare and protection of animals. Among other campaigns, she and her foundation opposed the sale of horse meat, the use of animal tissues like rhinoceros horn as aphrodisiacs, and the slaughter of wild dolphins. 

What I didn’t know was that, later in life, she aligned herself with the politics of the populist far-right. Her last husband was an advisor to the founder of the National Front, Jean Marie Le Pen. She was recurrently fined by the courts for inciting racial hatred, particularly toward Muslims. Simultaneously, she advocated for sensible animal protections. 

The realization that people have political stances we find hard to understand and yet take a stand for animal protections is something we might keep in mind In Wyoming. It is, for now, a conservative place. But we have common ground with many ethical hunters, WGFD biologists (if not WGFD leadership!), and ranchers. 

A few days ago, I visited a property where a group of horses had been starved. The person who stepped up to feed the animals for months was a local rancher. He did it on his own dime. Starving horses, he said, “just wasn’t right.” 

If you have animals, he said, you have an obligation to take care of them. On alternate days, although he is a busy fellow, he went out to the horses to ensure the water tank was working. 

As part of Wyoming’s cultural drumbeat, we are often told that ranchers are Wyoming’s backbone. I confess I sometimes tire of the dominance of landowners and their lobbyists at the legislature. But many in the ranching community walk the walk. It is an honor to work with this man whose reflex was to step up and help ameliorate the situation. Neither he nor WYCAP know how this mess, which is ongoing, will be fixed. He’s keeping the horses alive. Winter has only just begun. 

A lot of people want to do the right thing for animals. Many have a sense of justice. Please remember that the next time you recoil at someone’s politics, or they recoil at yours. When it comes it animals, odds are they are just like you.