Esther Rosenthal Mechler attended Bates College, where she spent her junior year abroad in Geneva studying with psychologist Jean Piaget. She received her Bachelor's Degree in 1964 and her Master's and Sixth Year degrees in education from The University of Rochester. She began her career in education, but has been involved with the animal rights/animal welfare movement since the 1970s. She started the Marian Rosenthal Koch fund with her parents. Named for Mechler's sister, the goal of the fund was to provide money for animal rights projects. Mechler was an instrumental figure in several organizations. Among her distinctions are serving as co-founder of Animal Rights Hawaii in the late 1970s and helping establish Animal Advocates in Massachusetts. A founding member of the Fairfield County, Connecticut branch of Friends of the Animals, she left that group and became a founding member of the Animal Rights Network in 1979. She served as an officer in that organization until her resignation in 1982. In the 1980s, Mechler worked to create newsletters for teachers and filmstrips for students. She started Focus on Animals to create, collect, and disseminate animal protection related audio-visual materials. Since this time, she has also co-produced two animal welfare videos.
Mechler has been particularly active in the prevention of pet overpopulation. In 1990 she founded SPAY/USA, a national referral service for low-cost spay/neutering. Originally a program of the Marion Rosenthal Koch Fund, SPAY/USA began with one vet. In 1993 the program was transferred to the direction of the North Shore Animal League International, now known as The Pet Savers Foundation. As of 2005, it is considered to be the largest spay/neuter advocacy and referral program in the world, with spay/neuter programs and clinics in 1000 locations nationwide and about 8,000 veterinarians in the network. Mechler also worked to spread her message on an international level. Several international organizations have been started based on her SPAY/USA model, including Spay/Israel, Spay/Costa Rica, and Spay/Panama, as well as various programs in Europe and Asia. For her work, Mechler won the first Geraldine R. Dodge Award for Humane Ethics in Action in 1995.
Esther Mechler is currently the co-editor of Paws to Think, the magazine of The Pet Savers Foundation. She regularly speaks at seminars and conferences around the world, and hosts a yearly SPAY/USA conference.
From the guide to the Esther Mechler Papers, 1974-2004, (Special Collections Research Center)
