Damages at Colorado State University Equine Research lab estimated at $12 million, cause is “undetermined”.
As reported on Animal Liberation Frontline over the summer, a mysterious fire broke out overnight on July 26th at one of the country’s premier horse genetics labs in Colorado, completely destroying the facility. The “Equine Reproduction Laboratory” at Colorado State University did research to benefit the horse racing and horse breeding industries.
While investigators usually release the cause of the fire within days, there was no word on a cause of the CSU fire for six months. Finally, this month investigators announced the cause of the fire has been ruled “undetermined”.
There is no indication of an animal liberation motive behind the fire. However the fire broke out overnight, and the significance of the lab would make it a strategic target.
175 horse breeders stored sometimes priceless and irreplaceable genetic material at the lab. One breeder estimated the genetic material she had stored at the lab was worth $200,000, and said – “That’s nothing compared to what others have in there.”
The university has announced they will rebuild an even larger lab at the same location.
Overnight on January 8th, news broke on the “Portland Meat Collective” websitethat somewhere between 18 and 23 rabbits had disappeared from the backyard of one of their “instructors” the day before they were to be killed as part of a “how to” self-butchery class. Nearly a week passed without any further news or claim of responsibility.
Then, in a tragic development Friday, January 13th, news came that the rabbits had been located and returned to the school to be killed.
The story so far…
At 4am on January 8th, the same night rabbits vanished from the meat school, 17 rabbits were dropped off anonymously at the doorstep of a rabbit rescue called “Rabbit Advocates”.
The rescue had no knowledge that the rabbits may have been liberated from the Portland Meat Collective. Over the next few days, every rabbit was found a home.
What happened next is not clear, but somewhere along the way, one of the parties involved (either Rabbit Advocates, the PDX Meat Collective, or one of the guardians of the rehomed rabbits) made the connection between the missing meat-school rabbits, and the rabbits dropped off at Rabbit Advocates.
News that the rescued rabbits had been given to Rabbit Advocates reached the butchery school. Lawyers got involved, and the negotiation process with Rabbit Advocates began, to have all 17 rabbits returned to the Portland Meat Collective to be killed in their self-butchery meat classes.
On Saturday, January 13th, at noon, members of the Portland Meat Collective went to the office of the lawyer for Rabbit Advocates to pick up the 17 rabbits and return them to the school. According to the Portland Meat Collective website, others also showed up at the lawyers office: including a police detective assigned to the case, a reporter from the channel 2 news, and 8 people who took in the rabbits to protest the rabbits’ return.
Butchers respond
The Portland Meat Collective made this statement (to fully appreciate how sick and schizophrenic this is, keep in mind as you read – they operate a school that will kill these rabbits in classes to train people how to kill animals for food):
We appreciate that the Rabbit Advocates were willing to return the animals to their rightful owner. We also appreciate that the Rabbit Advocates members, so far as we can tell, very much took care of the rabbits while they were gone from Levi’s property…. We also appreciate their concern for the rabbits, and want to assure them that while their owners raise them for different purposes than Rabbit Advocate foster homes do, they always have been and will be very well cared for.
The good news
The only good news to come from this development is that one of the rabbits has not been returned to the school. The person the rabbit was re-homed to is, so far, refusing to return the rabbit.
In either a public-relations move, or just something akin to a serial killer taunting and humiliating a kidnapped victim before death, the Portland Meat Collective has named the rabbit “Roger”.
The person who is currently in custody of the rabbit has a lawyer, and is in discussions with the PDX Meat Collective.
Hipster-ism gone mad: the self-butchery meat trend
Backyard self-butchering is a growing trend among neuvo-bohemian “progressives” of the Michael Pollan school, who wish to cultivate an image of being “sustainable” in the most amoral and pretentious way possible. This is one of several species-oppressive fashions that come to mind which originated in anarchist-based subcultures, before percolating up to mainline liberals and the leisure class.
The school says they have moved the reclaimed rabbits to “an undisclosed location”.
The hope for a re-liberation
While there has been no claim of responsibility made by the ALF or anyone else, there is a precedent for the Animal Liberation Front locating and re-liberating animals that have been returned to their abusers after rescues.
In 1985, rabbits liberated from the City of Hope were found by police and placed temporarily in an animal shelter while they awaited return to the lab. The ALF broke in shortly after and re-liberated the rabbits.
And in 2001, after a mink farmer boasted he had recaptured most of the mink released from his farm, the Animal Liberation Front returned to they farm they had raided 5 nights prior, and re-liberated every recaptured mink. The farm shut down.
We can only hope rescuers locate the new location of the rabbits, and deliver them to freedom for the second time.
Mysterious break-in and vandalism at an animal market in New York.
Police are search for an unknown person caught on tape breaking into a kosher animal dealer in Lackawanna, New York. According to police, the individual broke through a glass door, and spent nearly two hours inside. Owners say the individual spent a “significant” amount of time trying to access the animals. Several chickens were said to have been let out of cages.
While releasing animals inside of a building (domesticated animals no less) would suggest this was not an Animal Liberation Front action, the owner did report a significant amount of damage to the building and nothing stolen, so an animal liberation motive cannot be ruled out.
According to the owner, around this time last year the market experienced a similar break-in. In that incident, several sheep were released from their pens and allowed to roam inside the building.
View a news report and surveillance footage from the break-in below.
Four days after 40,000 fish were released from nets, saboteurs return and release the remaining 20,000
“They came back”
In an incredible move, saboteurs returned to the Bay Area site where 40,000 salmon were released Monday night and released the remaining 20,000. The pen that was untouched in Monday’s action was cut open, releasing the last of the fish held captive by the Tiburon Salmon Institute.
The head of the institute stated:
“They clipped the zip ties that hold the nets in place. We were trying to solicit funds for a security camera. But we couldn’t get a security camera put up quick enough, and they came back.”
The Marin County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the vandalism, and said they have a meeting planned with the FBI.
The Animal Liberation Front has not claimed responsibility, and it is not yet confirmed this is the work of an animal liberation group.
Misguided action?
The conversation on these actions has centered on two things: (more…)
Anonymous saboteurs use wire cutters to release thousands of fish from nets
In what may be the largest liberation of animals in U.S. history, nets were cut at a holding pen in the San Francisco bay this week, releasing 40,000 fish into the wild. There has not yet been a claim of responsibility by the Animal Liberation Front or other group.
The police describes how the fish were released:
“(one or more people) came along with essentially what are wire cutters to do this. It was purposeful. Someone knew what they were doing.”
An employee at the institute where the salmon were held says he speculates this may be the act of an animal rights group.
The pens were part of a program run by the Tiburon Salmon Institute, in partnership with a pro-fishing student group at nearby Casa Grande High School. According to Tiburon, the fish were being tended to by the students, who intended to release them into the wild themselves later in the month.
The website for the Tiburon Salmon Institute would seem to corroborate this story, where they take credit for “releasing over a million salmon into our San Francisco Bay” over the last 30 years.
Were the fish going to be released into the wild anyway? There could be a couple of things at work here. The claims that the fish were to be released anyway could be a public relations-oriented lie. Those who cut the nets may not have known the fish were slated to be released in the coming weeks. Or, they could have chosen to risk themselves anyway to give the fish a few extra weeks of freedom, sparing them the psychological suffering of being kept in intense confinement with approximately 40,000 others in a small net.
If this was the act of animal liberators, it would be the largest recorded animal liberation ever in the U.S. The largest previous liberation was the Animal Liberation Front raid of the Drewelow and Sons fur farm in New Hampton, Iowa in 2000; where 14,000 mink were released.
The Tiburon Salmon Institute is now soliciting funds to purchase security cameras.
Hundreds of pigs vanish after break-ins at at least ten factory farms across the country
Thieves (or liberators?) entered this factory farm by cutting through mesh siding.
Police are looking into a wave of pig “disappearances” at factory farms across the U.S. In the last month, there have been overnight thefts of pigs reported at as many as ten pig farms in Minnesota and Iowa. In one incident, nearly 600 pigs were taken.
Neither police nor the media have openly speculated the thefts could be the work of animal rights activists or the Animal Liberation Front. Instead, theories have focused on theft-for-profit. However each of these “thefts” fit the model of an ALF action, and they raise the question about the possibility these break-ins are a coordinated series of unclaimed Animal Liberation Front raids. It’s an unlikely scenario given the scale and volume of the break-ins, but any wave of animal thefts at factory farms is worth a closer look.
To explain how anyone could get away with such large-scale theft and not be caught, the media has commented on the reality of most pig factory farms: the buildings that often house thousands of pigs are often off gravel roads, “far from most houses and busy towns”.
As many as eight factory farms have been hit in Iowa, with 20 or 30 pigs disappearing at a time. One Iowa sheriff who stated he had rarely heard of pig thefts in his decades on the job, remarked –
“Suddenly we’re plagued with them.”
After one almost undetectable break in where 150 pigs were taken, the owner commented:
“They definitely did their homework, and they definitely knew what they were doing.”
Unexplained fire at Colorado State University completely destroys laboratory
At 1am on July 26th, a fire was reported at the “Equine Reproduction Laboratory”, with 20-foot tall flames engulfing the building. The fire completely destroyed the facility, and damages are estimated at $9 million. The lab was described as a “total loss”.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The FBI has joined local investigators in trying to determine if the fire was deliberately set. As of this writing, neither the Animal Liberation Front nor other clandestine animal liberation group has claimed responsibility.
The lab is considered one of the country’s leading horse reproduction research labs, performing work to benefit the horse racing and horse breeding industries. The lab is described as “world-renown for its ground-breaking research.”
View a slideshow showing the destroyed laboratory here.
This lab would be a legitimate ALF target. I will post all updates on this as yet unexplained fire as I received them.
Anonymous artists spray-paint “Go Vegan” on billboard in California
The past six weeks have seen three billboards altered illegally (see photos here and here) by animal rights activists, and now we have a fourth. Today I received anonymous photos of yet another beautified billboard: this one a Burger King billboard in Berkeley, California. It was improved with a simple message: “Go Vegan”.
Great work to the anonymous artists who turned a death-promoting billboard into free advertising for the animals.
Trade group offers $7,500 reward for information in sabotage at multiple farms
Police have reported a rash of sabotage actions against pig and turkey farms across northeastern Iowa. Damage is described as “considerable”. Neither the Animal Liberation Front nor other clandestine animal liberation group has yet claimed responsibility.
The actions are described as occurring at “multiple” farms in three counties. Three pig factory farms were vandalized in Chickasaw and Fayette Counties. One turkey factory farm in Bremer County was also targeted. One of the sabotaged farms was 5 miles northwest of New Hampton, site of the largest Animal Liberation Front mink liberation in U.S. history.
The sabotage included damaged office equipment and broken windows. Police have not ruled out the actions could be merely apolitical vandalism. However if there was no danger of animal’s being harmed in the action, factory farms would be a likely A.L.F. target and these attacks would fit the model of an Animal Liberation Front action.
Police are advising farms to be vigilant in monitoring their farms, and call police if they notice suspicious vehicles.
Two weeks ago, it happened again: two 100-pound African lion cubs escaped their cages, and were found wandering in Bemidj. It was the second animal escape at the zoo in six months, and the third since 2007.
Lion cubs and kangaroos are non-native species, unlikely to survive in North America. As such, they would not be released into the wild by the Animal Liberation Front, whose only concern is for the animals’ well-being – not just their freedom.
This detail did not stop the owner of Paul Bunyan’s Animal Land from blaming the escapes not on her own ineptitude as a zookeeper, but on the Animal Liberation Front. In a statement on the escaped animals, owner Caara Holstrom said:
“The lion escape was a result of criminal activities which include tampering with the caging holding the cubs. Their escape was not a result of negligence on the part of Animal Land in any way shape or form. At animal land’s request, a criminal investigation has been opened with multiple law enforcement agencies…”
She believes animal rights activist has been loosening screws on the pens and releasing the animals.
It seems Caara did not do her research on the A.L.F. before making the claim: activists concerned with saving animals would not release lions and kangaroos into the Minnesota wilderness.
To cover for an animal abuser’s negligence, the A.L.F. makes an easy scapegoat. Another example occurred in 2001, when cows escaped from a farm in South Dakota. The farmer immediately pointed the finger at the A.L.F.
While police and the FBI might best look at Paul Bunyan’s Animal Land itself, the owner’s claim diverts their attention to “ecoterrorists”, and the Animal Liberation Front. And what better scapegoat? The A.L.F. is clandestine by nature, and unable to publicly speak for themselves. When placing blame on the A.L.F., animal abusers have entered into a one-sided debate in which the accused can’t respond.
With ex-prisoners setting up friends for fraudulent mink farm raid plots to get off probation early, and animal researchers pointing fingers at animal rights activists for a Santa Cruz home-arson when no evidence of an animal liberation motive existed (and pointing the blame to drive through tough anti-animal rights activism laws), we may see false blame on the A.L.F. become an emerging trend for those who wish to avert blame themselves.
Three wolves released, one remains free after a pen was opened in an overnight action.
Monday morning, workers discovered three wolves had been released from a pen at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, MN. Two wolves have been recaptured, but one remains free. Only 350 of the rare Mexican Grey Wolves are known to exist.
On Sunday night or early Monday morning, person(s) unknown climbed the center’s front fence and used a long pole to pry open a latch on the Mexican wolf pen.
Predictably, the wolves captors have called this freeing of caged animals “ecoterrorism”. The executive director of the center stated – ““I’m completely convinced this is an anti-hunting group that is out to get me”.
The Wildlife Science Center is said to house bears, wolves, lynx, cougars and other animals used for “education and research”. The facility is on Broadway Avenue, west of Forest Lake.
As of this writing, no communique has been received.
Media sources are reporting yet another animal liberation which has – so far – gone unclaimed. This time, the National Animal Interest Alliance (anti-animal rights organization) is reporting the release of 50 mink from a farm in Richmond, Minnesota in September.
Careful readers of mainstream news sources will occasionally notice reports of “vandalism” or arson against animal abuse targets, for which no claim of responsibility has been made, and no animal liberation motive is speculated. It is possible the true scope of clandestine animal liberation activity is much broader than reported. Egg farm warehouses have been burned down, slaughterhouses have mysteriously gone up in flames, and aviary cages have been torn open, all without a hint left behind as to the motive. A look at the A.L.F.’s 30-year diary of actions reveals well over 100 unclaimed actions against animal abuse targets, which were never claimed, and the motive behind which remains unknown.
in another apparently unclaimed action, this week the National Animal Interest Alliance (an animal abuse industry front group) reported that 50 mink were released from cages at a fur farm in Richmond, Minnesota on September 6th, before liberators were chased off the farm.
