About Shiranee Pereira
Dr. Shiranee Pereira is a research scientist by profession - a diehard animal lover at heart and a proud tamilian by birth from Southern India. Born in a family known for their quiet philanthropy for the Tamil community- her family and ancestral home were honoured with the visits of Mahatma Gandhi, the Maharaja of Travancore - Sree Chithira Thirunal and Mother Theresa of Kolkata.
With a grand uncle who was invested the Diwan Bahadur title and uncles who were given the titles of Chevalier and Knight for their compassion and help they rendered to the needy - she grew up in a space and time seeing her own family and hearing real life stories of kindness and goodness of icons of history, kings and saints from her father - which left an indelible impression on her. But most of all to quote her " I am what I am and do what I do in the way I do what I do -is for what my dear parents taught in me - their love for nature, their fear of God and that there is just no alternative to honesty - and hard work is the narrow and only road to success." Having qualified the Agricultural Research Services (ARS) after her M. Phil and Ph.D she juggled her career in research with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and her passion for animal care for 22 years. ...
But finally gave up her job in 2012 to dedicate her life for the cause of the voiceless .Having been conferred more than a dozen national / international awards/ accolades for her service for the animals in the last thirty years she believes this is her divine destiny - to be a 'Voice for the Voiceless.'
During her research career she also worked as Expert Consultant with the CPCSEA (Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals) Animal Welfare Division, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GOI for 5 years and then as the nominated member of CPCSEA national committee for another 5 years -being an expert in the knowledge of alternatives to the use of animals in research / education / testing.
She pioneered the science of alternatives movement in India - introducing for the first time to the scientific and teaching community in India -alternatives to the use of animals in biomedical research and education in February 2002 -when she organized the very first Indian Congress on Alternatives under the aegis of CPCSEA.
Further to her credit is in that she conceived the idea and brought to fruition two national policies during her tenure with CPCSEA - one in the use of equines in the production of immuno-biologicals and the second in the use and rehabilitation of dogs in toxicity testing in India. Both these policies are unique in that they are also first of its kind in the world.
At the city / state level she again changed the face of animal welfare in the city of Chennai - where she led her team -braving a two year battle with the civic authorities in Chennai in 1994 - 1995 to put an end to the 72 year old practice of brutal electrocution of dogs- introduced by the British in 1932 - where in around 20000 dogs were killed annually in Chennai.
With her team she started a mass Animal Birth Control / Immunisation program for street dogs in the city of Chennai in the very premises of the lethal chamber in 1995.This further became a state Policy across Tamilnadu in 2007.
Again in 2009 on her initiative and request- the Tamil Nadu Govt agreed to initiate a retirement plan for police horses when found unfit for duty. Tamil Nadu became the first state in India to initiate a retirement plan for condemned police horses.
These horses now retire at the PFA shelter - which has an exclusive police horse retirement centre. They are taken care of by her and live out their lives in this their forever home until natural death.
Her crowning glory came in 2022- 23 - the culmination of ten years of work she initiated in 2013 - where she first sought to prove to the scientific community and regulatory authorities in India and to the world that the dog is just not man’s best friend but the dog is as sentient as a 2 year old human child .She questioned the use of the dog as a laboratory animal with her publication in the Journal of Medical Ethics where she co-authored it with Jarrod Bailey.
...Then in 2018 she conceived the idea of using AI / machine learning as an alternative to using dogs in toxicity testing in a project called D.O.N.T.( Dogs are Not for Testing).
The project was taken up by IBM Watson Research Laboratory, New York, under the “Science for Social Good “Program headed by Dr.Payel Das. A team of five Scientists worked to bring out a brilliant machine learning model which has proved to be more precise in predicting human toxicity of drugs and chemicals than animals. The research publication has been accepted and published in NATURE Scientific Reports. This model if validated by regulatory authorities can save the lives of billions of laboratory animals and not just dogs.
She otherwise runs a unique " Cage free - Chain free " shelter for more than 900 animals- cows, horses, ponies, donkeys, dogs, cats, pigs, camels and birds -who live out their second chance in life in peace and with no fear - in absolute freedom until their natural death - in Thiruvallur in Tamilnadu, South India. The shelter is a "forever home "for the blind , the sick, the dying, the injured, the abandoned, the condemned and those rescued from slaughter- each one of them a victim to purposeful human violence.