Animal Liberation Activists Burn 14 Trucks at Meat Company
Burned truck at Harris at a California feedlot.
Update, 1-11-12 @ 10.50am: The original post mistakenly credited this action to the Animal Liberation Front. In fact the ALF did not take credit for the fire. This action was claimed by anonymous activists who chose to not claim the arson under any title. There could be serious reasons for such decisions, and it is important these actions are represented with accuracy. – Peter Young
In an anonymous statement sent to the Animal Liberation Press Office, anonymous animal rights activists took credit for setting fire to 14 trucks at Harris Ranch, one of the country’s largest feedlots, located in Coalinga, California.
According to reports, the arson occurred in a fenced-off area early Sunday. A communique took credit for the fire Monday, and the feedlot confirmed that 14 trucks were burned.
Also known as “Cowschwitz”, Harris Ranch (also called Harris Farms) sends up to 250,000 cows to slaughter annually.
Details of the fire
The fire started just before 4 a.m. in the truck storage area at Highway 145 and Interstate 5. Several tractor-trailer rigs were said to be in flames when fire trucks arrived. It took firefighters about 45 minutes to put out the blaze.
The dollar amount of damage is still being assessed.
Activists describe the action
Another burned truck at Harris Ranch
“containers of accelerant were placed beneath a row of 14 trucks with four digital timers used to light four of the containers and kerosene-soaked rope carrying the fire to the other 10. … We were extremely pleased to see that all 14 trucks ‘were a total loss.”
And they highlighted the weaknesses in even the most secure targets –
“…despite guards, a constant worker presence, and razorwire fence, the enemy is still vulnerable.”
Harris Ranch CEO John Harris issued a statement which read, in part:
“I had suspected Animal Liberation Front may have been involved and now they are in fact claiming responsibility for it with multiple details… They are clearly a terrorist group intent on stopping American agriculture from producing the world’s safest food supply. This attack has not at all impacted our company’s operations and has only reinforced our commitment to produce high quality beef.
We must live in a society that is safe for all and no one can tolerate violence such as this. ALF and similar terrorist groups pose a real threat and I am confident that the many law enforcement agencies working on this case will bring them to justice soon.”
This is one of the largest and boldest underground animal liberation actions in recent memory. Anyone who has pulled off I-5 to look at Harris Ranch will know it is a heavily fortified complex. Many who have stopped to look at the feedlot have reported being confronted threatened with arrest by the farm’s private security.
The communique concluded with an implied promise of future actions:
“Until next time…”
*****
The entire communique reads in full:
Third burned truck at Harris Ranch
This is a good news indeed! It’d be perfect if I didn’t read this: “sends up to 250,000 cows to slaughter annually”. How sick!
you guys are straight idiots…..this will not be tolerated
The cattle business is as necessary as the farming business. Who do you guys think you are taking away one of our best sources of good, clean and safe food? Harris Ranch supplies us with the best steaks and meat money can buy, IMHO. Please take your energy and direct it at something else.
The production of FLESH for human consumption is an unsustainable business. Good, clean, safe food? Surely you jest. Filled with parasites if eaten raw. When cooked, still
filled with antibiotics, saturated fats, cholesterols, and God knows what else. Most importantly, the product of a life of horror and torture and a vicious death. Might I add that your “clean, safe meat” production uses insupportable amounts of water, sends methane gasses into the air, and fouls the soil and, often, crop irrigation. Then, of course, the is the incredible cruelty that you choose to ignore because you value you palate (but not your health) over the lives of others.
THANK YOU GUYS!!!! xxxx
THANK YOU GUYS WELL DONE!!!!!! XXXXXXXX
Thank you indeed. Those trucks were getting a bit old, but the overhead cost of buying new ones was just outrageous…now thanks to these self-titled Heros attempt to “protect” these animal’s rights, our insurance will cover in full the cost of new ones…this will infact make the delivery, feeding, and shipping process more efficient..I predict us being able to increase the amount of beef we produce by as much as 20% once we get the new ones in. However, in the meantime, these acts also had an immediate detrimental impact on the welfare of the animals present…without enough available trucks to deliver proper amounts of feed to each pen…many of these cattle are going to bed at night with a completely empty stomach. It’s just a shame they have to suffer like this on behalf of stupidity. Roll Tide.
How many times is your insurance company willing to pay? A time will come when people in your profession will no longer be considered eligible for coverage.
Agree with Anonymous!
Well then. We’ll just have to make sure that these “new” trucks have permanent engine trouble. Easy as a bowl of sugar. LOL!
WELL DONE THANK YOU GUYS! XXXXXXXX
2012 is off to a thrilling start! I notice butcher Harris can’t even acknowledge the arson without indulging in a little $elf-$erving $ale$ pitch. He is quite right however that “we must live in a society that is safe for all”–but that “all” includes the sentient beings he is murdering daily by the thousands. So glad his stinking stockyards got hit!
Brilliant WORK – very pleased to see such news!!!
This sort of symbolic action does absolutely nothing to help mistreated animals, gives the excuse to treat animal rights activists as terrorists. Gives their “enemies” increased public sympathy and support. Some who call themselves environmental activists have made exactly the same error . I deeply oppose violence as a tactic. Those who think it valid should recognize it only works as part of a strategy to win -symbolic violence does not do that.The notion that showing “the enemy is still vulnerable” validates it is insanity.If you want to win a chess game you don;t take a pawn to show the opponent you could take the queen- you just take the queen- if you want to win. If you just want to prove to yourself,that you’re not helpless ,or not an armchair activist,go climb a mountian or feed the homeles or something useful.
Same goes for other sorts of abstract symbolism as political action .Actions that are not part of an actual strategy to achieve a goal can only function to communicate to others not who are part of the movement in question . And if the symbolic action alienates more people than it attracts,it hurts the cause.
Seems to me that these folks are not only delusional,but are putting their own self image aka “participants peace of mind” above their cause
Blowing things up is just another manifestation of consumer mentality,wanting instant gratification. Throwing a tantrum. Real change takes long term commitment to real work
Okay Sam, when something goes “awry” in your life and your ass is in a sling, I’ll hold off on the emergency direct action and try to help you instead by writing a letter on your behalf to my congressman.
People and children go to bed hungry every night in this country Judith and your applauding these cowards attacking our nations food supply? Get a grip on reality.
Here’s my grip: Those “people and children” (aren’t children people too?) wouldn’t be going to bed hungry if we took the grain we waste on livestock and used it instead for human consumption. Those “cowards” you cite were not attacking a food supply, they were risking their freedom and well-being to interfere with a violent, evil operation that tortures and kills innocent victims for profit. These sentient creatures represent LIVES and are not a “food supply.”
cop
These aren’t symbolic actions – these are meant to do economic damage.
You say it’s violence and it’s your prerogative to think that – but you at least have to admit the definition of violence is open to interpretation. Like Voltaire said: “State your terms.”
What sucks is that this anonymous guy is right – big company like Harris can eat these costs right up. Their rates might go up a little bit, but they’re far from being uninsurable. It would take years and years and thousands of burnt trucks to do that.
So… That’s not to say that the action doesn’t mean anything – this is AWESOME! But you gotta keep the pressure on – keep protesting, keep burning, keep beating down their fucking doors… Sustained pressure… One little fire here and there (IS AWESOME) but it doesn’t do ENOUGH good.
Buy new trucks, asshole. Matches are way cheaper than trucks…
Ok. just sit home, eat McDonalds burgers and fake french fries, watch the dumbset and do nothing. Oh, wait. I forgot. You can write useless letters to these scumbags–the legislators, the factory owners, the pope himself! What do you get? NOTHING!!! Nothing gets changed. Although, I must say it’s only because the demand for eating dead cadavers is there by the zombie population in this country (and other countries) that we have this happening in the first place. But did you ever try to teach a rock to think and speak. Education will do nothing because these so-called people only understand what THEY want, never mind if what they want causes misery and hell for others! The people who cause this need are useless eaters and brainless vermin. They will pay someday. Karma really bites hard when the time comes!
Harris didn’t get hit,a bunch of truckers-some of them small time owner operators-and some workers,all of whom have a hard time making a living, got hit. This does nothing to help animals,doesn;t hurt the feedlots at all,and gest animal activists labelled as terorists which means they could get detained indefinately. This is an action that hurts the cause it claims to serve. Blowing thing sup and burning things in the name of creating change is just more consumer mentality demand for instant gratification.
Those truckers had no business helping you to murder and exploit living beings. When the props are knocked out from below, Evil cannot stand.
People and children go to bed hungry every night in this country Judith and your applauding these cowards attempting to attack our nations food supply? Get a grip on reality.
Thank you indeed. Those trucks were getting a bit old, but the overhead cost of buying new ones was just outrageous…now thanks to these self-titled Heros attempt to “protect” these animal’s rights, our insurance will cover in full the cost of new ones…this will infact make the delivery, feeding, and shipping process more efficient..I predict us being able to increase the amount of beef we produce by as much as 20% once we get the new ones in. However, in the meantime, these acts also had an immediate detrimental impact on the welfare of the animals present…without enough available trucks to deliver proper amounts of feed to each pen…many of these cattle are going to bed at night with a completely empty stomach. It’s just a shame they have to suffer like this on behalf of stupidity. Roll Tide.
Every single one of those animals will die eventually – in a ridiculously cruel way. The point is to shut you down (I think – I hope) not to save every individual animal. It would be awesome if was possible to do both, but… cows are heavy…
Hey, you suck man – don’t act like you care about them cows. Do you name them all? You don’t care. Even if you did, you could learn to stop caring (right quick) if caring interfered with making money. Yeah, they had empty stomachs – you didn’t. Bet you slept fine.
Bet if you put out a press release that said “OUR COWS CAN’T EAT – DONATE FOOD FOR OUR COWS – SOME SHITBAG BURNT OUR TRUCKS” the same kids who burnt your trucks would have hand-fed them cows all night. I’ll bet those kids who burnt down your truck read your little stupid complaint and lost more sleep over it than you ever will. Don’t pretend you care about them cows…
Meat is murder
EAT BEEF
BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER YESSIR!
I fully support P E T A
P – people
E – eating
T – tasty
A-animals
So how do you expect setting fire to trucks to “stop the violence” maybe these guys should go and set fire to your house in an effort to stand for what they believe. In the United States of America this is considered an act of terrorism this country was built on agriculture and it is one of the only things that keeps it going, hope you come to a realization on how stupid this actually was. I mean is setting fire to someones trucks really going to help anything?
So how do you expect setting fire to trucks to “stop the violence” maybe these guys should go and set fire to your house in an effort to stand for what they believe. In the United States of America this is considered an act of terrorism this country was built on agriculture and it is one of the only things that keeps it going, hope you come to a realization on how stupid this actually was. I mean is setting fire to someones trucks really going to help anything?
To all the dopes replying calling this a “terrorist” action, the only terrorists are the farmers who mutilate cows.
An example how stupid the farmers are, note in the statement by the CEO of Harris Ranch, John Harris. First he says:
“This attack has not at all impacted our company’s operations and has only reinforced our commitment to produce high quality beef.”
Then he says:
“ALF and similar terrorist groups pose a real threat”
Which is it? What a dope.
Ignore the trolls.
You guys are pathetic scum..