Animal Rights Activist Gets 29 Days in Protest

Former child star Pamelyn Ferdin, now an animal rights activist, was sentenced Tuesday in San Fernando Superior Court to 29 days in county jail for having a “bull hook,” used to train circus elephants, at a demonstration.

A city law prohibits demonstrators from carrying potentially dangerous objects.

Ferdin, 40, of Santa Monica was released while her sentence is appealed.

She could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail. She refused an offer of two years’ probation and a month of “heavy work”--removing graffiti or trash--because probation would have prevented her from participating in demonstrations for two years.

“I couldn’t go to these protests because, if I was arrested, I would’ve broken my probation and then face more [jail] time,” said Ferdin, a co-founder of the Animal Defense League’s Los Angeles chapter. “I would rather protest and educate the public and spend [29] days in jail.”

Ferdin was convicted of having a bull hook while protesting a Circus Vargas performance in August at Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

Ferdin appeared in hundreds of sitcoms, commercials and television movies in the 1960s and ‘70s. For years she provided the voice of Lucy in animated versions of “Peanuts.”