{"id":782245,"date":"2026-10-30T09:35:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=782245"},"modified":"2026-10-30T09:54:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:54:39","slug":"r-i-p-mad-cowboy-howard-lyman-former-cattle-rancher-turned-vegan-activist-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=782245","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. &#8216;Mad Cowboy&#8217;: Howard Lyman, former cattle rancher-turned-vegan activist is dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<div id=\"post-body\" class=\"metabox-holder columns-2\">\n<div id=\"postbox-container-2\" class=\"postbox-container\">\n<div id=\"advanced-sortables\" class=\"meta-box-sortables ui-sortable\">\n<div id=\"page-links-to\" class=\"postbox \" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Page Links To\">\n<div class=\"inside\">\n<p><em><strong>For 20 years Howard Lyman raised both dairy and beef cattle, pigs, and chickens. Diagnosed with a spinal tumor in 1979, and facing the possibility of paralysis, Lyman turned to organic farming. By that time, Lyman had begun to investigate &#8216;mad cow disease,&#8217; and again was suffering health issues. Lyman credited turning vegetarian, and later vegan, with his recovery. In 1998, Lyman wrote the foreword to Erik Marcus\u2019s book &#8216;Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating&#8217;\u00a0 and\u00a0 published his first book, &#8216;Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won\u2019t Eat Meat&#8217;. According to PETA, &#8216;Howard Lyman set an example for farmers and kind people everywhere: once you open your eyes to animals\u2019 suffering, you can change. You can grow vegan foods, eat vegan, and choose kindness.&#8217;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>MERRITT CLIFTON:<\/strong> \u201cIt is with extreme sadness that I report the passing this morning of Howard Lyman at age 88,\u201d VegNews founder and former publisher Joseph Connelly posted to Facebook on October 27, 2026. \u201cHoward was a former cattle rancher-turned-vegan activist and the most powerful voice the animal rights and vegan movements had for many years,\u201d Connelly assessed&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>For the next 20 years Lyman raised both dairy and beef cattle, pigs, chickens, hay, and feed grains. Diagnosed with a spinal tumor in 1979, facing the possibility of paralysis, Lyman turned to organic farming&#8230; By that time Lyman had begun to investigate \u201cmad cow disease,\u201d formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and again was suffering health issues. Lyman credited turning vegetarian, and later vegan, with his recovery&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>In 1995, the Humane Society of the U.S. introduced an \u201cEating with a Conscience\u201d campaign, directed by Lyman. In that capacity, Lyman on April 16, 1996 made a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey television talk show. Asked by Oprah Winfrey to explain what \u201cmad cow disease\u201d is, Lyman \u201cdescribed the irresponsible industry practice of feeding dead cows to live cows,\u201d recalled Farm Sanctuary founder Gene Baur. Responded Winfrey, \u201cYou have just stopped me cold from eating another burger.\u201d Six Texas cattle companies sued Lyman and Winfrey for defamation of beef. Lyman and Winfrey won the case in 1998, and won again on appeal in February 2000&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Lyman was later in 1996 elected president of the International Vegetarian Union, serving through 1999; was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in 1997; and in 1998 became a founding member of the Organic Consumers Association policy board. Lyman also in 1998 wrote the foreword to Erik Marcus\u2019s book Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating. On June 3, 1998, Scribner published Lyman\u2019s first book, Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won\u2019t Eat Meat, co-authored with Glen Merzer&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Remembered People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), \u201cHoward Lyman set an example for farmers and kind people everywhere: once you open your eyes to animals\u2019 suffering, you can change. You can grow vegan foods, eat vegan, and choose kindness. We\u2019ll remember his courage and decades of speaking up for animals.\u201d Concluded Gene Baur, \u201cHe was a longtime friend who often spoke at Farm Sanctuary and collaborated with us in numerous ways&#8221;. <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.animals24-7.org\/2026\/10\/29\/mad-cowboy-howard-lyman-88-roped-in-a-generation-of-vegans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>SOURCE<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED VIDEOS:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eOmyQFQ6HBM?si=5qV9TQL1uvGCfpmp\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hAvteH3P2qA?si=ce37460uG8iR7tn5\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For 20 years Howard Lyman raised both dairy and beef cattle, pigs, and chickens. Diagnosed with a spinal tumor in 1979, and facing the possibility of paralysis, Lyman turned to organic farming. By that time, Lyman had begun to investigate &#8216;mad cow disease,&#8217; and again was suffering health issues. Lyman credited turning vegetarian, and later [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":782251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,18,19,20,22,23,25],"tags":[26,27,30,31,35,38],"class_list":["post-782245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-ethics","category-health","category-justice","category-morality","category-rights","category-welfare","tag-compassion","tag-cruelty","tag-exploitation","tag-farming","tag-protection","tag-veganism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=782245"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782252,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782245\/revisions\/782252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/782251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=782245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=782245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=782245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}