Unpublicized arson & coyote release at Utah wildlife lab

Posted by Peter | 2 comments

20 coyotes released in a second, unclaimed action at a USDA predator research facility in 1999.

Occasionally an Animal Liberation Front action (or one that bears its mark) will go both unclaimed and unnoticed by nearly everyone. An attempted arson and release of 20 coyotes at the USDA Predatory Research Facility in Millville, Utah was just such an action.

On August 1st, 1999; persons unknown cut their way into locked coyote pens and released 20 coyotes. Subsequently, a fire was set near a building, but failed to do damage.

An employee at the facility bluntly explained how the liberators got through the perimeter fencing:

“They pretty much cut their way through”

The only known mention came in a small Logan, Utah newspaper, which reported the incident. There was no claim of responsibility, and to my knowledge, the action was never reported in any animal rights media source.

The USDA coyote research facility near the Utah State University campus.

Similar to previous raid at the coyote lab

The USDA Predatory Research Facility was put on the map seven years earlier in 1992 in a very similar action, when the Animal Liberation Front released dozens of coyotes and set fire to two buildings there. The action was part of the ALF’s “Operation Bite Back,” which targeted a half-dozen wildlife (primarily fur) operations in the early-1990s.

The attack temporarily halted research at the facility, and 33 coyotes were never recovered.

Coyote research facility continues to this day

The coyote research lab continues to operate to this day, imprisoning over 100 coyotes for experiments to benefit the trapping and livestock industries. The facility covers 164 acres and lies at the base of a mountain range just south of the Utah State University campus in Millville, Utah. It is the country’s only coyote research facility financed by the government.

Over 100 coyotes are imprisoned at the lab

The brief media report is all that we may ever know about this action.

If you come across reports of other unpublicized actions that bear the mark of the ALF, please submit to Animal Liberation Frontline so this history can be documented.