Terror on the Beasts' Behalf

By Traci Watson

Attacks in the name of animal rights are on the rise across the country, according to both the animal activists who commit such acts and those whom they target.

Raids on fur, leather and meat businesses have grown in the last few years, say those in the businesses, while raids on laboratories have fallen as labs have tightened security.

"I've never seen anything like this, affecting all animal industries on a nationwide basis," says Carol Wynne, executive director of the Fur Information Council of America, which represents fur retailers.

In response to the recent activity, fur farmers are beefing up security; some are even sleeping by their sheds, says Teresa Platt of the Fur Commission USA, which represents mink and fox farmers.

Last week, the FBI held a meeting on animal-rights crimes, after one of the most brazen animal-rights crimes of the '90s. On Oct. 19, arson destroyed ski-slope buildings and damaged chair lifts in Vail, Colo.

A little-known group called the Earth Liberation Front (E.L.F.) claimed responsibility. It said it set the fires to protest the destruction of potential habitat for the endangered lynx.

Splashy though the Vail event was, it is not the E.L.F. that people in the animal industry worry about. Their fears are reserved for the Animal Liberation Front (A.L.F.), the E.L.F.'s big brother.

The groups have cooperated on some protests, and some law-enforcement officials say the groups have overlapping membership. The A.L.F.'s spokesperson acknowledges that the groups have overlapping goals.

But the E.L.F.'s resume pales in comparison to that of the older and larger group. A look at the A.L.F.'s activities in the past few years reveals damage to hundreds of butcher shops, fast-food restaurants, fur stores, and other facilities that use animals. Examples:

• In March, A.L.F. activists etched anti-fur graffiti into the windows of a fur store in Washington, D.C.
• In May, A.L.F. mmbers set fire to a Wimauma, Fla., slaughterhouse that processes veal calves. The flames did $500,000 worth of damage.
• In August, the A.L.F. opened the pens at a fur farm near Rochester, Minn. Out scampered 3,000 minks, most of which were hit by cars or caught by neighbors.

No action on behalf of animals seems too grand or too trivial for the A.L.F. Its activities range from the 1997 firebombing of a plant in Sandy, Utah, that produces feed for fur farms, causing $1 million in damage, to the "rescue" in August of four turkeys from a petting zoo in Timonium, Md.

At least five people are in jail for crimes committed in the name of the A.L.F., and a dozen or more await trial. But most perpetrators of A.L.F.-claimed crimes have never been caught.

In truth, the A.L.F. is not really an organization. It can't be joined, and it has no budget or office. Anyone who wants to can spray paint anti-meat slogans on the local McDonald's and sign them with the telltale three letters.

Some activists work alone, but most operate out of small cells that act independently of one another. Groups usually include three to 10 long-standing animal-rights activists, says one A.L.F. member in jail for setting fire to a slaughterhouse.

Then, he says, "You always have ... people who've read about (the A.L.F.) and think it's cool and go and do stuff. Sometimes they mess up."

With no membership rolls, there is no way to identify A.L.F. members. They communicate through faxes or e-mail to the media and to their spokesperson, Katie Fedor, who calls the Animal Liberation Front "the Underground Railroad for the '90s."

The A.L.F. is an import from Europe, where animal activism is more radical and frequent. The A.L.F.'s first U.S. action was in 1979, when five lab animals were set loose from New York University Medical Center. Incidents were few at first but escalated this decade. As part of "Operation Bite Back," launched in the early 1990s, militants have attacked hundreds of fur stores and farms, breaking windows, gluing locks, spray-painting slogans and releasing animals.

These crimes, and the radical beliefs that motivate them, may not spur an outpouring of public sympathy, but to A.L.F. members, that's just fine.

"I don't think the people who take illegal direct action ... are looking for popular support," says former A.L.F. activist David Barbarash, who served four months in jail in Canada for releasing cats from a lab. "They do it because they know in their hearts that it's right."

A.L.F. activists justify their crimes by saying change is too slow and the political process too ineffective. "I wish I had never had to do these types of things," says Rod Coronado, who is serving time in federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., for an attack on a lab at Michigan State University. "People like to think the political system can work, but the evidence doesn't prove that."

The A.L.F. members may think of themselves as freedom fighters, but the other side thinks of them as common felons who are out of step with most Americans' thinking.

"I have nothing against someone having an opinion, and there's nothing wrong with peaceful protest," says Steve Frye, whose mink farm in Crystal Lake, Ill., was raided last year. "But if you break the law, you're a criminal. It's terrorism."

Frye says the attack, in which activists released 4,000 minks and destroyed breeding records, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Activists vow that such criminal acts will continue. Attacks may become more widespread when the A.L.F. gears up its new Internet brigade, which Fedor says is intended to harass the animal industries by deluging companies with e-mail and hacking into their computers.

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