A well-known vegan activist has reached out to her followers, seeking their help to gather $30,000. This amount is needed for a travel bond that would allow her to attend an international animal rights event.

Tash Peterson, 31, surrendered her passport and declared bankruptcy in May this year after losing a defamation suit. 

In 2024, Western Australian Supreme Court Chief Justice Peter Quinlan concluded that the activist and her partner, Jack Higgs, had circulated false allegations about a veterinarian involved in consuming her own patients.

Peterson and Higgs were ordered to pay $280,000 in damages.

The activist is eager to visit the United Kingdom to deliver a speech at the Vegan Camp Out Festival in Hertfordshire, scheduled for the last weekend of August.

She and Higgs will have to pay a $30,000 bond for their bankruptcy trustees to retrieve their passports. 

‘We are bankrupt and need $30,000 to get to the UK for the Vegan Camp Out,’ she said in a video shared with her followers on social media. 

Higgs claimed the pair were ‘forced into bankruptcy’ by the defamation case. 

Peterson explained, “Our bankruptcy trustees demand we pay $30,000 if we wish to travel to the UK, as they suspect we might permanently leave Australia.”

“Due to this situation, we’re trying to gather funds to enable me to deliver my speech. The sole purpose of our trip is to advocate for non-human animals, not to escape,” she elaborated.

Higgs said the bond, once returned after the trip, would go to funding the Farm Transparency Project, which produced the vegan cult film Dominion.

Peterson’s mother, Sally, is hosting the pair’s GoFundMe page online, which has so far raised $3,200.

In April this year,  WA vet Kay McIntosh’s lawyer, Martin Bennett, said neither Peterson nor Higgs had ‘attempted to pay a cent’ of the defamation damages.

The Daily Mail has contacted Peterson for comment. 

Peterson has carried out controversial protests on several occasions including ‘gatecrashing’ restaurants and agricultural events. 

In March, she burst into The Lamb Shop at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast playing the ‘screams of terrified animals’ from a speaker attached to her belt.

‘Do the screams make you feel guilty?’ she asked customers before she was confronted by a worker.

She has also covered her body in fake blood on numerous occasions and paraded through public locations while carrying pro-veganism signs. 

Last year, the semi-clad activist protested in a bloodied stunt outside David Jones on Hay Street in Perth’s CBD.

She highlighted the message by lying on top of a ‘blood-soaked chopping block’ which read: ‘David Jones: Drop Wild-Animal Skins’.

Peterson launched an OnlyFans page in 2022 to fund her career-activist ambitions, publishing a lengthy video explaining the move at the time. 

‘I get accused of being an attention seeker, I get accused of sexualising myself, I get accused of just doing my animal rights activism to promote my OnlyFans account,’ she said.

‘Obviously in our society today we think women are treated equally however there is so much ingrained misogyny amongst men and women today because a lot of people are saying women shouldn’t be wearing lingerie, they shouldn’t be going on OnlyFans and getting paid to be topless or naked.

‘I completely dispute this because I think women should be able to do whatever the hell they want to with their bodies.’ 

Her OnlyFans revenue was scrutinised in court in April, following the bankruptcy declaration. 

The justice rejected the pursuant’s attempts to conflate Peterson’s activism and her trust company, V-Gan Booty PTY LTD, which owns her subscription operations. 

He said Peterson’s OnlyFans revenue was likely boosted by her notoriety as an activist, but said not all of her actions were ‘in her capacity as a director or agent of the company’, according to the West Australian.

The company raked in $250,952 in taxable income for the financial year 2021-22, of which $132,948 came from online subscription sales.