Animal Rescue Biker Gang: Don’t Sign That Paper!
Portrait by Ann-Eve. More from this set on Flickr.
Rescue Ink is awesome for two reasons. One, they rescue puppies and kittens. As their mission statement says:
“We’re not a gang, vigilantes or a social organization, but we do have that certain “in your face” style when it comes to animal abusers. You may find us hanging out together at a hot rod show, tattoo parlors, or even hitting up the blacktop together on our bikes for a little road trip, but the main thing that brings us together is our love of animals. We met because we were all doing the same thing on our spare time: rescuing and finding homes for abandoned and abused animals.”
Some entrepreneurial reality-TV scouts probably have this Long Island-based, multi-ethnic band of do-gooders in the crosshairs, ready to pounce on them with a condescending TV contract (“stipulation: you must team up with hot biker chicks, who will actually be actresses that we provide”). But in and of itself, the endeavor feels charmingly genuine. The other reason why the existence of Rescue Ink warms my heart is that one of the group’s most active members, Batso, is 74 years old. 74! That’s the kind of life I wanna be living when I’m his age. Riding around on motorcycles (or in Mer’s optimistic vision of the future, “prune fart-powered jet packs”), looking bad-ass, making the world a better place for fluffsters of all stripes.
Left: photographer unknown. Right: Barry Bland
March 19th, 2009 at 11:42 am
(deep breath)
DAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
March 19th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
So fab! The world is shinier today now I know these guys exist. [looove]
March 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
*infinite glee*
March 19th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
This warms the cockles of my black little heart :D
March 19th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
That little grey cat is badass and knows it and is totally giving somebody hell.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Inked Magazine did a feature on these guys in their August 2008 issue. Worth checking out. :)
March 19th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I can get behind this way more than PETA. I’m not a pet owner and not too fond of cats or dogs (really bad experiences with dogs as a kid that I never really got over…and cats are…well they’re cats.) but anyone who abuses or neglects them ALWAYS has some serious issues…
Luckily more and more states have dedicated resources for this. Even NYC goes after people who abuse or kill pigeons. Something I actually support cause as annoying as they may be…they are much more than “rats with wings” both in behavior and personality.
March 19th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
These guys restore my faith in humanity. Whenever I read some horrible animal story, I will go back to this page.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Yes!
March 20th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Is there anything cuter than that picture of the heavily tattoo’d man holding that tiny kitten and grinning that grin? No. No there isn’t.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:35 am
I think I did, in fact, see a TV special on these guys. And one of them was riding around in the backseat with a kitten in a duffle bag cause the poor thing needed to be bottle-fed every two hours.
My brain kept going “BADASS! No, CUTE!, No BADASS!”.
March 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Aww this melts my heart. I remember reading something on them some time ago. I am extremely happy that there are people like this out there trying to do something for animals. It restores some of my faith in humanity. Thanks for sharing!!
March 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Batso was a repeat customer of mine at the mall I worked at years and years ago. He is such an amazingly sweet guy. I can absolutely see him involved in something as charitable as this. Absolutely awesome!