Steven Omar Hindi[1] (born c. 1953/1954)[2] is an American animal rights activist and businessman. He is the founder and president of the animal rights organization Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK).
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hindi grew up in a hunting and fishing culture. In 1985, he caught a 230-pound Mako shark in a feat that received a writeup in the New York Daily News. He ceased hunting and fishing after witnessing a live pigeon shoot in Pennsylvania on Labor Day, September 4, 1989. Shocked and disgusted by the sight of thousands of pigeons getting shot after flying from boxes, Hindi vowed to give up his hunting hobby and fight against it instead.
Hindi founded the Fox Valley Animal Protectors, which evolved into the Chicago Animal Rights Coalition (CHARC) in 1993 and is currently called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), to document animal abuse and disseminate information. Hindi's animal rights activism with the organization has involved lobbying legislators to pass laws against animal cruelty and documenting and protesting against rodeos, live pigeon shoots, geese shoots, bullfighting, horse slaughter, and deer killing. He posts video footage of animal abuse on SHARK's YouTube channel.
Hindi served a stint as shipping and receiving clerk at Carol Stream, Illinois-based Allied Rivet (then called Allied Tubular Rivet), a company that manufactures tubular rivets, before purchasing the company in the mid-1980s, becoming its president, and moving it to Geneva, Illinois. In 1992, he ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly against Tom Cross.