When consummate animal rights activist Hazel Mortensen moved from Southern California to the Santa Ynez Valley eight years ago, she knew exactly what animal causes she needed to campaign for. She had struggled with similar issues before, but on a much larger scale.

Mortensen believes spaying and neutering is the ideal means of reducing the problem of unwanted animals, and her first priority here was to establish additional low-cost spaying and neuter clinics to attract pet owners who might otherwise allow their pets to reproduce.

She searched for local veterinarians who would be willing to accept reduced fees, paid from a fund Mortensen manages. The fund was originally established by a now-deceased woman who wanted her money to benefit animals after her death. Mortensen's attempts to work with some veterinarians failed, but she established an excellent relationship with Dr. Joni Samuels of the Buellton Veterinary Clinic, who runs the clinics two months a year. Dr. Samuels has been a gem, Mortensen says.

Mortensen's efforts serve to enhance the twice-monthly low cost spaying/neutering clinic offered by the Santa Ynez Valley Humane Society. She wages her own publicity campaign, through letters to the editor, and actively recruits pet owners to bring their animals to the minimal cost spaying/neutering clinics. She calculates that over the years she's been in the Valley her recruiting efforts have led to some additional 1,100 cats and dogs being altered, saving the lives of countless unwanted litters.

Mortensen grew up in England. Her first dog originally belonged to the commanding officer of a nearby American Air Force base, who was often invited to her house for home-cooked meals. The dog had received battlefield training, but there was one problem: he was afraid of gunfire. So when the officer shipped out to France during World War II, he gave the dog to Mortensen. She adored animals as a child. My mother used to get irritated with me because wherever we went I preferred to be with dogs instead of people. And I'm the same now, she laughs.

Mortensen's lifetime commitment to advocate for the humane treatment of animals began when she lived in Orange County 30 years ago. She met another English woman who volunteered at a local animal shelter, and Mortensen told her, I love animals too, but I could never work at a shelter. The woman's response had a huge impact on her. You see, we English people can be very outspoken, Mortensen says, and this woman said to me, Oh, well, you're one of those people who says they love animals but does nothing for them.

After a sleepless night reflecting on these words, Mortensen began volunteering at the shelter, and soon realized she was becoming obsessed with the desire to make changes in a system full of atrocities. So many beautiful but unwanted animals came in, she says, loving and kissing me and full of life, but half an hour later they were dead. She witnessed the results of human indifference, and the horrors of starved and abused animals. Sometimes on my way home I'd pull over to the side of the freeway and fall apart, she says, because I'd just seen too much that day.

Mortensen formed a volunteer group, holding rabies and distemper clinics in the parks to raise money for spaying and neutering. She joined the battle to eliminate the use of decompression chambers that were then killing 80-90 million unwanted dogs and cats in the U.S. annually. It was terribly inhumane.

Mortensen petitioned legislators and worked to raise public opinion against the decompression chambers. Her efforts became somewhat militant at times: she picketed, protested, and campaigned continually. Her husband joked that One of these days, you're going to call me from jail. But she firmly believes her actions were necessary. You see, she says in her proper British accent, You can't get changes made being a nice old lady in tennis shoes.

A turning point occurred when she invited a county supervisor to accompany her to witness animals being destroyed first hand. He left with tears in his eyes, she says. Decompression chambers are now outlawed in the State of California and have been replaced with the more humane technique of lethal injection.

Mortensen is intent upon continuing her mission in the Santa Ynez Valley, but she has been frustrated with many aspects of the Santa Barbara County Animal Services department. They're still in the Dark Ages, she says. She has tried to persuade County Animal Services to make improvements and policy changes that she feels would result in better treatment of animals, increased funding for the department, and more effective animal control.

Lately Mortensen's concern with County Animal Services is the lack of air conditioning for animals carried in Animal Services vehicles. The driver's area is cooled, but the metal animal compartments in back are not. She'd been successful in persuading officials in Orange County to air condition the backs of their vehicles, but so far she's only met with resistance here. Mortensen reports that on a hot day the temperature inside the enclosures can be 20 degrees higher than the outside air. If it's 110 degrees out, that means it's 130 degrees in the compartments.

Another issue for Mortensen is seeing dogs with nowhere to stand or lie but on the hot metal of a truck bed, and she doesn't mince her words when she sees an injustice. She once accosted a pick-up driver, demanding that he put his own hand on the metal of his truck bed, asking Do you expect your dog to lie on that hot metal while you're in the store?

As much as she loves animals, Mortensen believes people should not own more animals than they can care for (she shares her own home with only one small dog). Interestingly, she objects to the no-kill policy of the animal shelter in Santa Barbara. They get more donations because people think this is wonderful, Mortenson says, but as deep as my love is for dogs, she says, ìI would choose to euthanize most biters rather than risk a child being mauled by one.

She also thinks it's inhumane to keep them in cages for the rest of their lives, especially when this costs taxpayers thousands of dollars a year. Mortensen would rather see the money spent on spaying and neutering, treating animals humanely, and encouraging responsible ownership of pets.

Sometimes Mortensen thinks her passionate desire to help animals is a curse, because she's compelled to act whenever she sees animals suffering. Yet she shows no sign of slowing down. Her latest idea is to create a fund for senior citizens who would love to have a pet but can't afford one. The fund would subsidize the cost of adopting shelter animals and pay ongoing veterinary costs.

Mortensen may never abandon her life's mission, and she knows that in the future animals will always need more human intervention. When I die, she says, everything I have will go to help animals.