• Elle Magazine: Article here.
  
  
  
  

• Cattle Network: Constant vigilance is needed to keep U.S. food safe, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation Section Chief Jenifer Smith Tuesday. Smith broke down threat sources as domestic and international. She said anti-biotechnical groups like the Earth Liberation Front and lesser-known domestic extremist groups often inflict vandalism and violence threats. These are meant to discourage research into genetically modified plants and organisms as well as disease research. Animal rights extremist groups like the Animal Liberation Front also have a history of attacking scientific establishments using animals for disease research, she said. These groups also are credited with vandalizing restaurants, swine facilities as well as individual scientists. more...
• UCSD Guardian: The mad scientist archetype seemed to die off with Dr. Moreau. But the image is still very much alive and well in the minds of animal-rights proponents, the most extreme of whom have subverted it to make a Dr. Frankenstein of university researchers. As such, the activists have dangerously taken researchers to task in a movement that sounds like an absurd cross between slapstick comedy and action thriller. The problems have bubbled enough to attract legislative action, which last week took a wise step in a long road to curb violence against the university's researching workforce. more...
• Times Higher Education: An escalation of intimidation tactics by animal-rights extremists in the US has prompted scientists to look to Britain for answers. This is World Laboratory Animal Liberation week, a flashpoint on the calendar for academics involved in animal experimentation. But whereas demonstrations outside US laboratories have been occurring for decades, recent events suggest an escalation of activities. "The attacks are more frequent and they are much more violent, and (targets) include not only the researcher's laboratory but also ... the researcher, his family, and his home," he told The Chronicle of Higher Education. more...
• KUTV Channel 2 News (Salt Lake): A controversial animal rights activist spoke in a conference in Salt Lake City, Saturday. 2NEWS' Brian Mullahy spoke with the Doctor who had some startling words about methods used for the cause of animal liberation. Dr. Vlasak is a trauma surgeon in Southern California. And to him, all forms of life are precious. But the doctor feels that if necessary, it's morally acceptable to take human lives, if it saves the lives of many animals. Years ago, Vlasak was quoted as saying, "I don't think you'd have to kill -assasinate- too many. I think for five lives, ten lives, fifteen human lives, we could save one million, two million maybe ten million non-human lives." At the "Confronting Animal Cruelty" conference in the Salt Lake City Library, 2NEWS Brian Mullahy got a chance to speak with Dr. Vlasak about the measures that activists should take. more...
• Counterpunch Magazine: In May 2005, FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism John Lewis told a Senate panel that ecoterrorism is "one of today's most serious domestic terrorism threats." Then the FBI's James Jarboe estimated that two organizations (the Earth Liberation Front - ELF and Animal Liberation Front - ALF) committed over 600 criminal acts since 1996, causing over $43 million in damage. For his part, Lewis said both groups committed more than 1100 such acts since 1976, "conservatively" resulting in around $110 million in damages. more...
  
  

• The Oregonian: The Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for raiding a fur farm in Jefferson on Monday, releasing mink and destroying breeding records. The front, described by the government as one of the nation's leading domestic terrorist organizations, wrote that it freed about 40 domesticated mink from the Jefferson Fur Farm to give them a chance at survival. The note was signed ALF-Cascadia. "These animals are not capitalist commodities to be bought and sold for fashion or vanity, but unique individuals deserving of liberation from human exploitation," said the note, released today by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office in Los Angeles. "Even if some of the mink do not make it, we feel it is better to die free, than at the hands of their speciesist captors." The participants warned that they would return if the fur farm was not dismantled. more...
• Seattle Times: The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is claiming responsibility for releasing 40 mink Monday from a fur farm in Jefferson, Ore., and for destroying the farm's breeding records. In a communiqué released Tuesday evening, ALF said the mink might face a tough road away from the farm but that it was better "to die free" than at the hands of captors. It also warned that the sabotage would continue unless the owners of the Jefferson Fur Farm shut down their operation. The sabotage was announced by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office in Los Angeles and attributed to ALF-Cascadia. The communiqué struck a defiant tone against federal efforts to track down and prosecute alleged members of the underground cells: "We want to make it very clear that we will not be intimidated by the state's continued witch hunt against the Earth and animal liberation movements." more...
• The Oregonian: The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for releasing mink and destroying breeding records at the Jefferson Fur Farm this week. FBI agents spent Wednesday morning gathering evidence at the farm, agency spokeswoman Beth Ann Steele said. The released mink were discovered about 6 a.m. Monday, Steele said. Guard dogs started barking, and the owners woke up and were able to recover them all, Steele said. A press release placed online Tuesday by the Animal Liberation Front contained a threat against the farm's owners. It was signed by ALF-Cascadia. "Consider this your first warning," it read. "Tear down this death camp and let the mink live free. If you don't, we will be back to finish the job." more...
• KOIN Channel 6 News (Oregon): The Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for releasing mink and destroying breeding records at the Jefferson Fur Farm this week. The Fur Commission USA reported that more than 50 mink were taken, but all were recovered. The dollar loss for the destroyed breeding records was $5,000. FBI agents gathered evidence at the farm Wednesday. The released mink were discovered about 6 a.m. Monday when guard dogs started barking, awakening the owners. A press release posted online by the Animal Liberation Front contained a threat against the farm's owners telling them if they did not stop breeding mink, they would be back to finish the job.
• The Statesman-Journal: Federal authorities were investigating the attempted release of about 50 mink by members of the Animal Liberation Front from a Jefferson farm, officials said. FBI agents spent Wednesday morning gathering evidence at the Jefferson Fur Farm, agency spokeswoman Beth Ann Steele said. A press release placed online Tuesday by the Animal Liberation Front contained an apparent threat against the farm's owners. It was signed by ALF-Cascadia. "Consider this your first warning," it read. "Tear down this death camp and let the mink live free. If you don't, we will be back to finish the job." more...
  
  

• San Diego Tribune: Authorities used a water canon to detonate a suspicious device found outside a Reno animal laboratory. Security guards found the device Monday night outside the Charles River Laboratories on Longley Lane and Maestro Drive. No on was injured. Police say the device made a loud pop when it was hit with water. The incident comes on the eve of a gathering planned Tuesday night by animal rights activists to bring attention to the use of animals in research. Stop Animal Exploitation Now says Charles River Laboratories was cited for 20 violations in 2006 and 11 in the first half of 2007.
  
  

• The Guardian (UCSD): Animal rights were a source of debate long before the UC system was formed, but over the last five years, actions taken by both sides have escalated, bringing the issue to a head with increasingly violent animal-rights protests and stringent new UC-sponsored legislation. The UCLA protests returned with full force on June 24, 2007 . An incendiary device, along with one gallon of fuel, was found next to UCLA researcher Arthur Rosenbaum's vehicle. NAALPO press officer Jerry Vlasak said Rosenbaum “glues steel coils onto the eyes of primates,” and a group calling itself the Animal Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility in a June 27 communique released by NAALPO. Director of the UCLA Primate Freedom Project Jean Green told Newsweek she would comply with the restraining order but said, “We're not going to just lay down.” Green has since removed the researchers' addresses from her Web site, but reportedly hinted to Newsweek that she may continue the fight through e-mail. “Calling a person an animal abuser and a puppy killer is protected speech,” said animal-rights attorney Christine Garcia, according to a March 5 article in the Daily Cal. “Constitutionally protected speech is not harassment.” Currently, the UC system is sponsoring an extensive state assembly bill aimed at protecting its researchers from animal-rights groups. The bill — the California Animal Enterprise Protection Act, Assembly Bill 2296 — is authored by Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco) and was passed by a 9-0 vote in the state's judiciary committee on April 17. Vlasak expects both the restraining order and the legislation in progress will have no effect on the activity of underground organizations such as ALF. “If someone's willing to risk 20 years of prison by … burning a building used for animal torture, I don't think they're going to worry about a silly restraining order that UCLA cooks up,” Vlasak said. “The same goes for AB 2296.” He attributed the steadily rising numbers of animal rights protests and attacks over the last five years to the ineffectiveness of peaceful protests. “I think out of frustration of legal means, with passing laws, with peacefully protesting, with writing letters to congressmen — all those sorts of things — after seeing those techniques frustrated I think people have said ‘Well, if this doesn't work, then … we should try something different,” Vlasak said. “And that's when I think groups like the ALF and other organizations step up to the plate and say, ‘… We're going to make sure that you're not going to ignore us.'” Vlasak said that although ALF has a specific set of guidelines in place — allowing for property damage, the liberation of animals and economic sabotage — they denounce violence toward humans or animals. However, he said, “Other organizations don't have those guidelines.” more...
• The Daily Breeze: Attorneys for UCLA on Tuesday obtained a preliminary injunction against animal rights groups and activists accused of harassing university researchers who conduct experiments using animals. The injunction granted by Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Terry B. Friedman extends and expands a temporary restraining order granted Feb. 22, according to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. "Two of the groups (the Animal Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Brigade) are clandestine organizations that regularly break the law," Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon and press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, told City News Service. "The Animal Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Brigade neither care nor know about the restraining order." more...
  
  

• Chronicles of Higher Education: The e-mail reply was polite but firm. "No. I will not be available for an interview," wrote a researcher from the University of California at Los Angeles, when asked about the effects of recent animal-rights protests there. That scientist was downright chatty compared with most of the other investigators around the country contacted by The Chronicle . Most simply refused to answer phone calls or e-mail messages, while a few recruited university public-relations officials to explain why scientists were clamming up. In the past few months, animal-rights groups have stepped up their demonstrations against academic researchers who use animals, spawning a new wave of concern among scientists. In February, extremists caused a fire at the home of a researcher from the University of California at Los Angeles, and protesters struck the husband of a scientist from the University of California at Santa Cruz."We're responding with silence, and we've lost the war for public opinion," says Jacquie Calnan, president of Americans for Medical Progress, a nonprofit organization that supports the use of animals in research. "The attacks are more frequent and they're much more violent, and they include not only the researcher's laboratory but also the personage of the researcher, his family, and his home," says Jeffrey H. Kordower, a professor of neurological sciences at Rush University Medical Center and chairman of the Committee on Animals in Research at the Society for Neuroscience. The prevailing wisdom among some scientists and university administrators is that the altered tactics are driving investigators away from animal research. They point to a few highly publicized departures. In 2006, Dario L. Ringach, an associate professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of California at Los Angeles medical school announced he was curtailing his research using primates, after extremists from the Animal Liberation Front left an incendiary device near the home of another UCLA researcher. Protesters had previously threatened Mr. Ringach and his family. In 2002, Michael Podell, a professor and veterinary researcher at Ohio State University, announced he was leaving the university after receiving death threats. Beyond its effects on senior scientists, the intimidation has also scared away students, says Lindy F. Greene, an animal-rights protester in Los Angeles who was arrested last month outside the home of a UCLA researcher. "The combined effect is that graduate students don't want to get into animal research," she says. number of researchers fear that Ms. Greene is right. more...
  
  

• Contra Costa Times: The University of California has gone to the Legislature seeking to restrict public access to information about academics who do animal research and to make it illegal to post personal information about them online. The prohibited online information would include the researchers' names, home addresses and photographs. The measure, AB2296, also would outlaw activities targeting corporate researchers. Such a law would curtail free speech, said Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles-area surgeon who acts as a spokesman for the more extreme branch of the animal-rights movement. It would not stop vandalism and other protests, he said. "The people who are doing underground direct action don't care what the law says anyway," he said. The measure "is aimed at those who are exercising their free-speech rights." more...
• San Jose Mercury News: Legislation aimed at curtailing violence against scientists who conduct experiments on animals is being retooled to address concerns that it would cloak research laboratories at UC Santa Cruz and elsewhere in secrecy. Assemblyman Gene Mullin, who chairs the Select Committee on Biotechnology, acknowledged Monday that the bill's major obstacle will be satisfying fears about the effect on public access to information about research activities at academic and nonprofit labs. The bill would also cover commercial research labs, but not farms, meat packing plants or similar businesses. AB 2296 would make it a misdemeanor to harm or intimidate a researcher who works with animals, including publicly posting the names, photographs, home addresses and home telephone numbers of researchers online or elsewhere. Anyone convicted under the legislation could face up to a year in county jail and fines up to $25,000. The bill also allows researchers or their employers to seek an injunction against animal rights advocates or Web sites publishing their photos or personal information. Jerry Vlasak, a Southern California physician who acts as a spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Press Office, said the bill will not deter underground activists from illegally entering private property to set lab animals free or conduct other demonstrations. Rather, he said the measure is aimed at advocates who are "trying to obey the law" by conducting legal protests and boycotts. The Animal Liberation Front has not claimed responsibility for the UCSC attack, but Vlasak said the fact that lawmakers are getting involved in protecting researchers has served the group's purpose because it has clearly "made these people feel uncomfortable" about the experiments he said take place "in these torture chambers they call laboratories." more...
• GreenIsTheNew Red : NOTE: There is a hearing on this legislation on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 in the Judiciary Committee, Room 4202, at 8 a.m. or perhaps later ( you can view what else is on the schedule here ). California has been a hotbed of both legal and illegal activity in the name of animal rights lately. The largest beef recall in history began here , after an undercover investigation by an animal welfare group. Meanwhile, California universities have been the site of a protracted battle between animal experimenters and underground activists using threats and property destruction. And last week, the secretary of state announced that a proposal to eliminate some of the cruelest confinements in animal agriculture will go before voters in November. more...
• Daily Californian (Berkeley): University of California officials are backing a state assembly bill proposing harsher punishments on animal rights activists who demonstrate against animal testing research. Several officials held a teleconference yesterday to discuss the implications of the bill, which would make it illegal to post the address or phone number of animal researchers on the Internet. Animal rights attorney and UC Berkeley alumna Christine Garcia said she recognizes that the government does have the right to restrict speech in some cases. But in this case, she said, free speech would be limited based on content rather than time, place, or manner-the only restrictions on speech that are deemed constitutional. "You can't censor people," Garcia said. "They are not allowing information to be shared in the public forum of a Web site. It is really sad, especially since the forefathers of the UC system, UC Berkeley, was founded on and has such a rich tradition and history of free speech. more...
  
  

• Biological Psychiatry: Terrorists are attacking scientists who are attempting to alleviate human suffering. We need a concerted public effort to eliminate these acts, particularly the harassment of scientists studying nonhuman primates. This need is highlighted by the attacks upon the home of our friend and colleague, the noted medical scientist, Dr. Edythe London, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Her work exemplifies the unique role of research involving nonhuman primates in enabling the results of research in simple systems (oocytes, cell culture) and lower organisms to be applied to human diseases. The importance of Dr. London's research was highlighted in a public letter issued on February 8, 2008 from the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who stated, "her work is a prime example of NIH's efforts to develop effective treatments for people suffering from addiction, a disease that devastates individuals, families, communities, and costs society more than half a trillion dollars annually in health and crime-related costs and losses in productivity." more...
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• Press Release
• American Scientist: Anti-animal-research terrorists in the United States aim to intimidate biomedical scientists into giving up their research programs, and these radicals are growing bolder. They have planted bombs, issued death threats and targeted the children of scientists who don't comply with their strong-arm tactics. And the leaders of this cabal aspire to greater crimes. Tim Daley of the Animal Liberation Front has said, "In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps." Dario Ringach is a tenured professor at UCLA who walked away from a successful, funded research program in neuroscience after constant harassment from extremists. The barrage of insulting phone calls must have been unpleasant, certainly, but the physical intimidation from people demonstrating in front of his home was on another level: The demonstrators wanted him to fear for his family's safety. When strangers began approaching and frightening his children, it became too much. For the unlucky individuals who happen to become targets, a life devoted to medical science comes to resemble that of a soldier in a war zone. Most persevere, but not all. Who pays when research scientists give up productive careers? We all do. When Ringach announced his decision to stop his research, UCLA issued a statement saying, "we all suffer when animal rights activists attempt to intimidate researchers by physically threatening and harassing them and their families, including young children." more...
• Washington Times : Scientists and physicians concerned about their own safety challenged animal protection activists yesterday, calling them "terrorists" and condemning their repeated attacks on researchers who use live animals in experiments. "We felt it was important to respond publicly to the attacks that have been directed at scientists, their families, and their neighbors because to be silent in the face of the attacks is to condone them," said Dr. John Krystal, a Yale University psychiatrist who authored a joint statement signed by 87 researchers from Yale, the University of California, Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions. "We find it galling that these researchers would call us terrorists when they are the ones inducing terror in animals in the name of science," said Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles-based trauma surgeon who acts as spokesman for ALF, specifying that he is not an active member of the group, but sympathizes with their cause. "The vast majority of animal research doesn't produce anything useful for human beings. Even if it was useful, it isn't justified. It is still immoral," he added. more...
• Washington Post : Each year, American doctors inject more than 3 million doses of Botox to temporarily smooth their patients' wrinkles and frown lines. But before each batch is shipped, the manufacturer puts it through one of the oldest and most controversial animal tests available. Animal protection groups consider "lethal dose 50," as the test is known, to be "the poster child for everything that's wrong with animal testing," said Martin Stephens, vice president for animal research issues at the Humane Society of the United States . "It's as bad as it gets, poisoning animals to death." An e-mail exchange last summer between the panel's chair and other government scientists reinforced the suspicions of animal advocates that panel members are resistant to newer tests. In the exchange, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Post , the scientists discussed two recent papers by a prominent European researcher favoring an alternative approach known as evidence-based toxicology. One scientist asked what they could do "to combat these papers." The chair, Marilyn L. Wind, responded: "What I see is them trying to build a case to not use animals for testing." more...
  
  

• Associated Press: In the wake of several violent threats, the San Francisco Art Institute announced it has permanently closed a controversial art exhibit. Adel Abdessemed's Don't Trust Me exhibit, made up of video footage showing animals being hit by sledgehammers, was scheduled to be on display March 20 through March 31. Art Institute officials said they received a series of threats by animal-rights extremists and decided to close the exhibit for good. "My first concern is with the safety and security of SFAI's students, faculty, staff and their families, as well as members of the public that regularly visit the campus," said institute President Chris Bratton in a prepared statement. "In light of the violent threats by extremists against this institution, we are unfortunately forced to cancel any public discussion or display regarding this artwork." Officials said that a campaign by groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, In Defense of Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals aimed to get the exhibit shut down. more...
  
  

• Associated Press: A disabled fishing trawler getting a tow from a Canadian coast guard vessel slammed into a piece of ice and capsized Saturday in the icy waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, killing thre e s eal hunters and leaving one missing. The vessel was headed toward a larg e s eal herd in the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as part of th e s eal hunt season that opened Friday, the largest marine mammal hunt in the world. The tragedy came as th e s eal hunting industry finds itself under pressure from animals rights activists. Activists from the Humane Society of the United States and the International Fund for Animal Welfare were using helicopters to monitor the hunt's opening day. Hunters are allowed to take up to 275,000 animals this season. The 40-foot fishing boat from Iles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec, carrying a crew of six, had reported steering problems late Friday north of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, when the coast guard ship took it in tow. Bruno-Pierre Bourque, whose father died in Saturday's accident but who survived it himself, said a combination of speed and inattention by the coast guard crew led caused the fishing boat to flip over. Bourqu e s aid he was at the helm of the rudderless trawler when the light Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker giving them a tow sped up. "A big piece of ice was suddenly in front of us, we couldn't avoid it. We tried what we could but without a rudder there wasn't much we could do," Bourque told Radio-Canada's all-news channel RDI. Later Saturday, the Canadian military said it had safely rescued seven sealers from another ship when their wooden vessel was abandoned when it began taking on water. The men were being transported home to the Iles-De-La-Madeleine in a Canadian Forces helicopter. more...
• Canadian Press: Canada's seal hunt has been dominated for years by the bitter debate over saving seals, but the deaths of three hunters in the icy North Atlantic on Saturday is drawing attention to the safety of seal hunters. Three hunters died in a tragic accident in which L'Acadien II, a 40-foot (12-meter) fishing boat based in Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, capsized while being towed behind an icebreaker. Of the six crew members on board, only two were pulled alive from the waters of the Cabot Strait. The three bodies of the captain of L'Acadien II, Bruno Bourque, and sealers Gilles Leblanc and Marc-Andre Deraspe were recovered, while another sealer remained missing and is feared dead. The coast guard ended the active search for the missing man, Carl Aucoin, on Sunday evening. The Sea Shepherd ship, Farley Mowat, which is currently making its way through the ice of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was directed by Transport Canada not to enter Canadian waters until it complies with international marine safety conventions. The Farley Mowat is a large, ice-class vessel with a steel hull. "I find it strange the (Transportation) minister is talking about how unsafe my vessel is in the ice, but he's allowing these wooden boats to go out," Watson said. more...
• CBC News: Fishermen in the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon cut the mooring ropes of anti-sealing activist Paul Watson's ship Friday after hearing Watson make disparaging comments about the deaths this week of four hunters. Meanwhile, Green party Leader Elizabeth May is cutting ties of her own with Watson, saying his most recent comments are extreme. The Sea Shepherd Society was attempting to refuel its vessel Farley Mowat on Friday morning when fishermen confronted it at the wharf in St-Pierre, the main community in the French islands south of Newfoundland. "We don't accept those kinds of people in St-Pierre," fisherman Carl Beaupertuis told CBC News Friday. more...
  
  

• Fox News: For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism. The torching of luxury homes in the swank Seattle suburb of Woodinville earlier this month served as a reminder that the decades-long war with militant environmentalists on American soil has not ended. "It remains what we would probably consider the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, because they have successfully continued to conduct different types of attacks in and around the country," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko. For years, officials have battled against members of shadowy groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and its brother-in-arms, the Animal Liberation Front. Law enforcement has made strides prosecuting cells, but it's been unable to end the arsons that have plagued developments encroaching on rural lands in the West. FBI estimates place damages from these attacks at well over $100 million. So far, no one has been killed. It's a problem that's unlikely to go away. more...
  
  

• Seattle Times: Federal prosecutors have agreed not to retry convicted University of Washington arsonist Briana Waters on a charge that could have sent her to prison for an automatic 30 years. Waters was convicted this month on two counts of arson stemming from an ecoterror fire that destroyed the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. But the jury deadlocked on three other counts, including the big one, using a destructive device during a crime of violence. That carried a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison. In an agreement signed Thursday, the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle said it won't hold a new trial on the deadlocked counts, and moved to dismiss those charges. Waters, a 32-year-old violin teacher from Oakland, Calif., faces five to 20 years when she's sentenced May 30. Prosecutors said she acted as a lookout for other Earth Liberation Front activists who set the fire, and obtained a rental car used in the crime. The other two alleged participants in the UW fire were William Rodgers, who committed suicide soon after his arrest, and Justin Solondz, Waters' boyfriend at the time, who remains at large. Prosecutors said Solondz constructed the incendiary devices used in the fire in a clean room behind Waters' home in Olympia. more...
  
  

• Associated Press: A radical environmentalist was sentenced Thursday to one year and one day in federal prison for speaking publicly about how to make a homemade Molotov cocktail. Rodney Coronado apologized for his past use of violent tactics in the name of animal rights and the environment, and said he had cut his ties to groups, including the Earth Liberation Front. The 41-year-old activist pleaded guilty in December to distributing information on destructive devices during an August 2003 speech about militant environmental activism at a community center in San Diego. According to an account and photos of the speech posted on the Internet, Coronado demonstrated how to build a crude ignition device using a plastic jug filled with gasoline and oil. more...
• Channel 10 News (San Diego): An activist once tied to the radical Earth Liberation Front was sentenced Thursday to a year and a day in federal prison for showing people how to make a fire bomb. Rodney Coronado, 41, pleaded guilty on Dec. 14 to a rarely used federal law that makes it a crime to teach how to make a destructive device that could be used to commit arson. A jury deadlocked in his trial three months earlier. The defendant could have faced up to 20 years behind bars if convicted. more...
  
  

• The Mercury News: The investigation into the attack on the home of a UC Santa Cruz biomedical researcher last month has stalled, police reported Tuesday. Detectives are waiting for the FBI to finish the forensic analysis of a computer confiscated during the investigation, but have no official suspects, according to police spokesman Zach Friend. There hasn't been any movement on the case in at least a week and detectives have not linked the attack to other animal rights protests at the homes of UC Berkeley and UCLA scientists, police reported. Six animal rights activists -- five wearing masks and one man with a bullhorn -- protested in front of the researcher's Westside home on Feb. 24. The demonstration turned violent when the masked protesters banged on the front door and were confronted by the researcher's husband. more...
  
  

• The Daily Star: A letter has claimed animal-rights activists are responsible for the fire that destroyed Perkins Taxidermy on Jan. 25. The blaze at the Arbor Hill Road taxidermist shop in Delhi was reported at about 11:20 p.m., and the 911 call was believed to have come from a motorist on state Route 10, Delhi Fire Chief Dan Brandenburg Sr. said at the time. Two to three weeks after the fire, owner David Shaw said, he found a letter that had been dropped off in the mailbox at the shop. "Greetings Human," was the salutation on the typed letter that bore no postmark, Delaware County Undersheriff Doug Vredenburgh said Wednesday. "The letter took credit for the fire in the name of animal rights," Vredenburgh said. "It talked about humans overpopulating the earth and indicated that the fire was 'just a warning.'" more...
  
  

• UCSD Guardian: Three months after orchestrating a bomb threat that forced a seven-hour evacuation of the School of Medicine complex, a former UCSD employee awaits sentencing for the hoax after pleading guilty earlier this week. Richard Sills Jr., who worked in the Leichtag Biomedical Research Building for seven months prior to the Dec. 5 bomb scare, could face up to five years in prison when he is sentenced by a federal court judge. Sills, 54, pleaded guilty to one count of making threats involving animal enterprises, and will appear before U.S. District Judge Larry Burns on June 16. The indictment alleges that Sills threatened to detonate multiple remote-controlled explosives in six campus buildings if all animals housed in campus research facilities were not released. A letter sent to the UCSD Police Department claimed that the Animal Liberation Front, an animal-rights activist group that has accepted responsibility for other threats against University of California laboratories, coordinated the attack. more...
• San Diego Tribune: A former UCSD employee pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to making bogus threats to blow up buildings on campus if research animals weren't released. Richard Sills, 54, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced June 16 by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns. The Encinitas resident, a temporary employee in the UCSD Biomedical Science Building, admitted making two phone calls and sending a letter to the university claiming there was a bomb on the campus on Dec. 5. A bogus device was found the morning of Dec. 5 at the Leichtag Family Foundation Biomedical Research Building. more...
  
  

• Washington Post: It was late into the night when 25 people in ski masks descended on professor Dario Ringach's family home. Pounding on the door, frightening his small children, they screamed into megaphones, "Animal killer! We know where you live! We will never give up!" And they apparently meant it. That year, 2006, according to court documents, animal rights activists launched a summer-long campaign of harassment against Ringach, an assistant professor of psychology and neurobiology at the University of California at Los Angeles and other scientists who conduct research with laboratory animals. UCLA hired private security, but Ringach feared for his family. "Effectively immediately, I am no longer doing animal research," he finally wrote in an e-mail to his persecutors, pleading to be left alone. "Please don't bother my family anymore." Indeed, a temporary restraining order -- prohibiting harassment and posting of faculty members' personal information on the Internet -- was granted Feb. 21 by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. But three days later, six masked protesters reportedly disrupted a child's birthday party at the home of a University of California at Santa Cruz researcher and confronted her husband at the door, hitting him on the hand. Now, groups have shunned " Fort Knox " in favor of ill-prepared homes, said Jerry Vlasik, the former vivisector turned spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Vlasik has repeatedly advocated for using "whatever force against animal research scientists necessary." more...
• The Californian (UC Berkeley): The University of California is seeking a permanent injunction against five individuals and three anti-animal research groups in an attempt to prevent violence against researchers across the university. The injunction is being sought after Los Angeles County Superior Court granted the university a temporary restraining order last month on behalf of UCLA, against five individuals, the Animal Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Brigade and the UCLA Primate Freedom Project. The order aims to protect students and employees involved in animal research across the 10 UC campuses, said Wendy Sugg, an attorney representing the regents. However, animal rights activists said the Animal Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Brigade are comprised of anonymous members, rendering a restraining order useless."These people are already breaking laws," said Jerry Vlasak, a medical doctor and spokesperson for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. "I can't see that these restraining orders are going to be particularly effective." Christine Garcia, an attorney for the individuals and the UCLA Primate Freedom Project in the case, said she does not believe the injunction against the individuals is warranted. "There's absolutely no connection between the people listed on the restraining order and any of the wrongful acts alleged," she said. more...
  
  

• All Headline News: Authorities have named four members of an extremist environmental group they suspect were responsible for a 1999 fire at Michigan State University. According to ABC News, the ELF alerted the media after the fire was set on December 31, 1999, with the group saying that they were responsible for the incident that caused $1 million in damages. The fire destroyed the fourth floor of the university's Agricultural Hall. The State News reported that an activist-caused fire had also broken out at the office of animal science researcher Richard Aulerich and Karen Chou in 1992. The fire, believed to have been started by the Animal Liberation Front, caused an estimated $1.2 million. more...
• MSU Today: Eight years after MSU's Agriculture Hall burned in a New Year's Eve attack, four people have been arrested, the MSU police, U.S. Attorney and FBI announced March 11. Two Detroit men, a Detroit woman and a woman from Cincinnati, Ohio, have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit arson, aggravated arson and arson in connection with the Dec. 31, 1999, attack on Agriculture Hall. The charges also are in connection with arson of commercial logging equipment near Mesick, Mich., on Jan. 1, 2000. The attack on the northeast corner of Agriculture Hall reduced the office of the Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project to little more than cinders and melted computers. The fire did some $1 million worth of damage. No one was injured. Shortly after the fire, a loosely organized environmental movement called the Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility. On Feb. 28, 1992, arsonists attacked the offices of two faculty members in Anthony Hall and vandalized campus mink research facilities. Damage from that attack was assessed at $1.2 million. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility. more...
• State News: After more than eight years of investigation, police and MSU officials announced Tuesday the arrests of four suspects in connection with the 1999 arson of Agriculture Hall. The incident at Agriculture Hall caused more than $1 million in damage. Shortly after the arson, an environmental group known as Earth Liberation Front took responsibility for the fire. The group is considered a threat by law enforcement officials because of its past involvement in acts of ecoterrorism. In 1992, offices in Anthony Hall and research facilities on south campus were firebombed, resulting in another $1.2 million loss. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility. more...
  
  

Brianna Waters Found Guilty on 3 Charges; Snitches Testimony Prominent at Trial

• Oregon Live: A federal jury has found a woman guilty of two counts of arson for being the lookout in the 2001 burning of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture by members of the radical Earth Liberation Front. U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess declared the jury deadlocked on three other Thursday against Briana Waters, including conspiracy, possessing an unregistered destructive device and, the most significant count, using a destructive device during a crime of violence. The final charge would have carried a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison. The fire, which destroyed the plant research center, was one of at least 17 fires set from 1996 to 2001 by an Olympia, Wash., and Eugene, Ore., cell of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. A professor whose research was destroyed, Sarah Reichard, testified that the arson had devastated her, turning her from someone who backpacked alone in South America to someone who cowered in her home when a Greenpeace volunteer came to the door. more...
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Seven years after the radical Earth Liberation Front firebombed the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture, a federal jury on Thursday convicted the accused lookout, Briana Waters, of two counts of arson. A former Evergreen State College student, Waters, 32, had been charged with five criminal counts, including conspiracy and use and possession of a destructive device, which could have put her behind bars for at least 35 years. The jury deadlocked on those counts, and Waters now faces five to 20 years in prison. more...
• Olympian: A former Olympia resident was convicted Thursday of two arson charges for her role in the 2001 firebombing that destroyed a University of Washington research center, but jurors spared her from the harshest punishment sought by federal prosecutors. Prosecutors called the verdict a victory in their effort to bring to justice a cell of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front responsible for at least 17 arsons or acts of vandalism between 1996 and 2001. The primary hubs of the cell were in Olympia and Eugene, Ore. The government first learned of Waters in January 2006 when a lawyer for Jennifer Kolar, one of two women who confessed to the arson, said she recalled Waters being the lookout. The other woman, Lacey Phillabaum, confirmed. Waters' defense counsel said the women lied to shave decades off of their prison sentences, and a record of Waters' visit to a store the prior evening proved she couldn't have been in Seattle when they said she was. Waters has maintained she had no involvement in the arson and likely was asleep in Olympia during the early morning arson on May 21, 2001. She was attending The Evergreen State College and had just finished a documentary on a successful campaign to stop a clear-cut in Lewis County. The ALF-ELF cell targeted entities they thought to be harmful to animals and the environment. more...
• Seattle Times: A federal jury found that Briana Waters, a former Olympia resident, was among a group of ecosaboteurs who torched the center in the predawn hours of May 21, 2001, causing about $1.5 million in damage. The center was later rebuilt at a cost of about $7 million. On Monday, the jurors' first full day of deliberations, arsonists destroyed three multimillion-dollar homes in Snohomish County and damaged a fourth in what federal officials are investigating as crimes that may be linked to the Earth Liberation Front. Waters maintained her composure through the trial, which culminated in her taking the witness stand on her own behalf. Waters testified that she was never involved in planning or carrying out the UW arson and never supported arson as a militant tactic. The prosecutors had two key witnesses — Lacey Phillabaum and Jennifer Kolar — who had already pleaded guilty to being part of the five-person arson team that burned the UW building on May 21, 2001. Both testified that Waters acted as a lookout. "There are days I thought I would rather kill myself than testify against Briana," said Phillabaum in testimony that stretched out over two days. But she then affirmed. "Until the end of time ... forever my recollection is that Briana Waters did it." more...
  

• Christian Science Monitor: In recent years, it seemed as though law-enforcement agencies had finally been able to achieve major breakthroughs against "ecoterrorism" carried out by environmental and animal-rights radicals, much of it in the Pacific Northwest. But the arson fires involving several new luxury homes near Seattle Monday indicate that small, self-contained cells of saboteurs continue to plot and carry out attacks in the name of environmental activism, officials say. "Even though the number of spectacular arsons in the name of ELF [Earth Liberation Front] and ALF [Animal Liberation Front] decreased in the past couple of years, the level of criminal activity carried out on behalf of these movements has not slowed down a bit," says Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism in New York. "For every successful conviction in an older ELF or ALF attack, there are dozens of new actions being planned and carried out, and not just against property. The deliberate targeting of individuals has become even more widespread and violent." more...
• Seattle Times: On Feb. 3, an incendiary device was left at the house of Edythe London, a UCLA scientist involved in primate research. An ALF message warned her, "We won't back down, ever." Jerry Vlasek, who speaks on behalf of the ALF, said his group's actions have been on the upswing in recent years. The early Monday morning arsons that destroyed three multimillion-dollar houses in Snohomish County appear to fit the pattern of targeting housing developments. A banner bearing ELF initials left at the scene attacked "McMansions" in rural areas. Federal investigators believe that these house arsons, like an earlier wave started in the 1990s, are carried out by small, secretive and very elusive cells. more...
  
  

• Newsweek: University of California, Los Angeles, research ophthalmologist Arthur Rosenbaum stepped from his home one morning last June and discovered a firebomb had been planted under his white BMW. Cops evacuated the neighborhood, the bomb squad came, but the device's crude fuse had already fizzled. Rosenbaum's UCLA colleague, neuropharmacologist Edythe London, was less lucky. In October, a garden hose was shoved into a broken window of her Beverly Hills, Calif., home, flooding it, causing thousands of dollars in damage. And then on Feb. 5, a Molotov cocktail detonated on her doorstep, scorching her entryway but failing to burn down the house. The Animal Liberation Front activists who claimed credit for firebombings aren't likely to be deterred by an injunction, says Jerry Vlasak, who runs the Animal Liberation Front Press Office Web site, which reports ALF "actions" but operates independently of the ALF and its Web site and wasn't named in the restraining order. "It's laughable that someone willing to face a 30-year sentence for arson will be put off by a restraining order," complains Vlasak. "It's not going to have any effect." more...
• Nature Magazine: The University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) succeeded last week in getting a temporary restraining order against five vociferous animal-rights activists, as well as organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front, who have claimed responsibility for various property crimes and threats against researchers. The ruling stipulates that the activists must stay farther than 15 metres from researchers and remove the scientists' addresses from their websites. UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton called the ruling “a clear victory in the continuing process of UCLA protecting its researchers”. The university will seek permanent restraining orders in a hearing on 12 March. “They are trying to mix above-ground protestors that never do anything illegal in with the Animal Liberation Front and the underground organizations that have flooded homes and broken windows,” says Jerry Vlasak , press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. “The two groups are completely separate; they don't know who each other are.”
• The Californian (UC Berkeley): Campus officials say they are trying to get a restraining order against animal rights activists who stage weekly demonstrations outside the homes of UC Berkeley professors who test on animals. The activists, who are not formally organized, have been yelling into bullhorns and writing phrases like "animal killer" and "cat torturer" in sidewalk chalk outside the homes of at least six professors on a routine basis since the beginning of the year, campus officials said. "The typical method of operating is to hit at random so that police can't predict where they're going to be," Sanders said of the activists. "If the police aren't there, (identifying suspects and making arrests) is not easy to do." "Calling a person an animal abuser and a puppy killer is protected speech," said Christine Garcia, a UC Berkeley alumna and animal rights attorney. "Constitutionally protected speech is not harassment." "It would be nice if they would stop abusing (the animals) when we ask them nicely," said Jerry Vlasak, a doctor and spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Front press office. "But sometimes these tactics are required. Nothing that comes out of animal research couldn't be discovered in a more efficient way." more...
• Chronicles of Higher Education: Officials at the University of California at Berkeley are planning to seek a restraining order against animal-rights protesters who have been staging loud demonstrations outside the homes of several researchers for the past two months, according to reports in California newspapers.Robert Sanders, a spokesman for Berkeley, told The San Jose Mercury News that the protesters were “domestic terrorists, and the FBI has started treating them just as they would Al Qaeda.” He said the demonstrators had yelled into bullhorns late at night outside the homes of researchers, had smashed flowerpots, and had thrown rocks through windows. Berkeley officials said they feared that the demonstrations would escalate in violence. Last month activists in Southern California left an incendiary device outside the home of a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles, and a group of protesters struck the husband of a researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The police in Berkeley and Santa Cruz have been collaborating to see if there are any links between the protests at the two Bay Area campuses. Last Friday, Santa Cruz police officers released a sketch of one of the men involved in the attack on the home of the Santa Cruz researcher. The suspect, unlike the other assailants, apparently was not wearing a mask. more...
• Chronicles of Higher Education: When six masked people pounded on the front door of a scientist's home in Santa Cruz, Calif., and allegedly struck her husband late last month, the echo was heard by biomedical researchers and universities around the country. The intrusion represents an apparent escalation in the level of violence used by animal-rights protesters, who until now have not physically attacked academic scientists. "We're facing a national movement," says George Blumenthal, chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz, where the biologist works. Other universities, he says, are going to have to face "individuals who are prepared to use potentially violent tactics that have a terrorizing effect on researchers.""This is having a terribly chilling effect on the research community, which is exactly what the activists want," says Frankie L. Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, which has tracked attacks by animal-rights extremists. "It seems like everything has been stepped up in terms of aggression." The violence is also driving people out of research, she says. One professor who conducts experimental surgery told her that he couldn't fill six postdoctoral-research fellowships for which he had funds. more...
  
  

• Santa Cruz Sentinel: TACOMA — A jury will begin deliberations this morning in the trial of a
  former Olympia resident accused of participating in an arson that destroyed a University of Washington research center nearly seven years ago. he government contends Briana Waters, 32, served as a lookout as four co-conspirators broke into the UW's Center of Urban Horticulture and placed an incendiary device that burst into flame around 3 a.m. on May 21, 2001. Waters, who now lives in Oakland, Calif., has denied involvement in the arson and said she likely was asleep in Olympia when it occurred. She was attending The Evergreen State College at the time. Prosecutors said the testimony of Jennifer Kolar, Lacey Phillabaum and others corroborated physical evidence they could not know existed unless they were telling the truth. Waters' attorney, Robert Bloom, countered that the government's case was built on the word of two women — whom he described as "criminals" — who agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for lesser prison sentences. "She has lied in this very courtroom," Bloom said of Kolar, "and they're asking you to rely on her to convict Briana Waters." more...
  
  

• Santa Cruz Sentinel: A UC Santa Cruz faculty member whose biomedical research using animals sheds light on the causes of breast cancer and neurological diseases was the target of an attack Sunday afternoon, reportedly by animal rights activists. Santa Cruz police reported that six people wearing bandanas tried to break into a Westside home just before 1 p.m., and that one of the family members, not the faculty member, was attacked before the intruders fled. The male victim had made sure his wife and children were safe in the back of the house before he confronted the attackers. He suffered minor injuries after being hit with an unknown object. None of the other four people in the house were injured. Santa Cruz police raided a house in the 700 block of Riverside Avenue late Sunday night in connection with the home invasion. No arrests were made. Seized in the 9:50 p.m. raid were clothes, cell phones and boxes of paperwork, which Escalante said showed evidence of possible other attacks. Joe Marcus of Santa Cruz said he heard shattering glass and a woman inside the house scream when police barged through the door. Several UCSC students gathered around the house early Sunday afternoon while police were waiting for the search warrant. Some wore bandanas to cover their faces. While the search was taking place, protesters taunted officers, asking them to reveal their badge numbers and shining flashlights in their eyes. When officers emerged from the house carrying evidence, some of the students were following the police, taking pictures of the undercover squad car and its license plates with their cell phones. more...
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: A biomedical researcher who was the target of Sunday's attempted home invasion by masked animal rights activists said Tuesday that she and her young children were terrified, but she will not be deterred from her work to fight breast cancer. The woman, who said the university has hired security to protect her and her family, has no plans to halt her work with mice. The researcher disclosed Tuesday that, during the past several weeks, threatening animal rights messages have been written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of her home and the homes of several colleagues. But she said activists have never confronted her personally before Sunday to discuss her work. The researcher said she does not know specific details of what happened between the intruders and her husband Sunday because "I was cowering in the back of the house" with the children as he chased the intruders down the street and captured their license plate number. Andrea Lindsay, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based SHAC 7 animal rights group, said her members, six of whom are in prison for activist activities, had no involvement in Sunday's incident. She said well-known animal rights activist Peter Young gave a talk Saturday night at the Louden Nelson Community Center to raise funds for the legal appeals of SHAC 7 members, but she said she did not know of any connection between the event and the home invasion. Lindsay said without knowing specifically what activists did Sunday, she did not want to comment on their actions. But, she said in general, "I understand why people are outraged at the use of animals in experiments and why people use a variety of tactics." She said most animal rights activists abide by "a strict code of not injuring people" during their demonstrations. more...
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: The FBI has been called in to help with the investigation into a weekend home invasion at a UC Santa Cruz biomedical researcher's house, while authorities said Tuesday that the researcher and several others have been targeted by animal rights activists this month. No arrests have been made, no suspects have been named and police have not linked the masked intruders that went to the researcher's Westside home Sunday to the previous incidents, which included vandalism. Detectives have been investigating possible links between the Sunday attack -- six masked people banging on the front of a UCSC researcher's house and hitting the man who opened the door -- and previous incidents involving animal rights activists in Southern California. Police have not given a time line for making arrests. Escalante said detectives Tuesday were combing through cell phone records, computer files and other evidence seized from a Riverside Avenue house. Police said evidence recovered in the home pointed to other "possible attacks." Andrea Lindsay, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based SHAC 7 animal rights group, said her members -- six are in prison for activist activities -- had no involvement in Sunday's incident. more...
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: Nationally known animal rights proponents said Wednesday that what they call a weekend "home visit" by protesters to a biomedical researcher's Santa Cruz residence was likely the work of an independent, local group and not a large, established network. Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles-area surgeon connected with the underground Animal Liberation Front, said members of that group are typically more stealth in their confrontations with researchers who use mice and other animals. He said ALF operatives would not drive to a target's home and depart with a visible license plate, as occurred during Sunday's Santa Cruz incident. "This sounds like an above-ground group doing a demonstration at someone's house," Vlasak said. He said he did not believe confrontations ALF protesters have instigated with UCLA faculty were related to the Santa Cruz case, which left a UC Santa Cruz researcher's husband with a minor hand injury. Though Vlasak and two other supporters said they have no firsthand knowledge of the loud encounter at the Westside home and didn't know it was planned, they doubted whether it was a "home invasion," as police have dubbed it. Camille Hankins, an ALF press officer in New York, said her group operates by a strict creed not to harm humans or animals during advocacy activities, but said agents have destroyed millions in property and committed arson to make a point or liberate animals. She said "loud banging at the door" does not constitute a crime and that protesters wear masks as a precaution against being wrongly accused of assault. "It's easy to get over-enthusiastic when you have a message to deliver," she said. "When we talk about terrorism -- terrorism is what goes on in a vivisection lab. More than likely people have tried to reach out and talk to [UCSC biomedical researchers] in an above-board way" before Sunday's incident. more...
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: Berkeley police detectives investigating a two-month string of animal rights-related vandalism targeting the homes of UC Berkeley scientists will begin probing possible connections to a spate of similar crimes in Santa Cruz, including last weekend's attempted home invasion of a local biomedical researcher. The Berkeley incidents have not been widely reported by police or UC officials until Thursday, and there is no immediate evidence they are related to the Santa Cruz cases, though Berkeley detectives and Santa Cruz city police have yet to compare notes, Kusmiss said. However, officials said university police in Santa Cruz and Berkeley campuses have been working together to determine possible links, as have Berkeley campus and city police. Animal rights protesters also have targeted UCLA researchers in recent weeks, prompting the university to seek a restraining order against animal liberation groups with suspected involvement. No groups have taken responsibility for the Santa Cruz or Berkeley incidents. Several targeted Berkeley professors - whose names have been posted by protesters on activist and social networking Web sites - did not immediately return messages seeking comment Thursday. Some of the Web sites have published home addresses and phone numbers of the researchers, as well as graphic descriptions of the alleged animal testing protesters say the professors conduct. more...
• Mercury News: Berkeley police detectives investigating a two-month string of animal rights-related vandalism targeting the homes of University of California - Berkeley scientists will begin probing possible connections to a spate of similar crimes in Santa Cruz, including last weekend's attempted home invasion of a local biomedical researcher. Every Sunday afternoon in 2008, nearly the same set of professors or their relatives have called Berkeley police to report incidents at their homes, prompting police to station officers near the houses every Sunday.
• Santa Cruz Sentinel: Police say they're collaborating with other agencies throughout the state to investigate the weekend attack on the home of UC Santa Cruz researcher but have not linked the harassment to other incidents involving animal rights activists. There has been a rash of animal rights-related protests -- some of which have turned violent -- in Santa Cruz and Berkeley in the past two months. Protesters have hounded UC Berkeley researchers with crank phone calls and a round of sidewalk chalking and vandalism every Sunday since the beginning of the year, according to Berkeley police. In Santa Cruz, protesters have scrawled messages on or near the homes of scientists in Santa Cruz, Aptos, Live Oak and Soquel. Those incidents began in February and culminated Sunday when six masked protesters banged on the front of a researcher's home on the Westside of Santa Cruz and hit her husband when he opened the door. more...
  
  

• Los Angeles Times: Seeking to protect scientists who conduct experiments using animals, UCLA will go to court today to request a temporary restraining order against animal rights groups and activists accused of harassing university researchers. UCLA researchers have been the target of several attacks in recent months. Two weeks ago, someone left an incendiary device at the home of professor Edythe London, who uses vervet monkeys in nicotine-addiction research funded by tobacco giant Philip Morris. The device charred her front door before going out. Earlier, animal activists claimed credit for breaking a window in London's house and using a garden hose to flood the ground floor, causing more than $20,000 in damage. In statements on their websites, activists said the attacks are warranted because scientists who conduct such experiments are torturing the animals. Christine Garcia, an attorney who has represented animal activists in the past, said UCLA's plan to obtain a court order appeared to be part of a continuing attempt by the university to curb legal protests, such as residential picketing, by opponents of animal research. more...
• Inside Higher Education: As a battleground for the animal liberation movement, the University of California at Los Angeles has weathered threats, intimidation and property damage directed against several of its researchers over the past few years. Today — two weeks after a firebomb went off at the same professor's house that in October was flooded with a garden hose — the university moved beyond law enforcement, the bully pulpit and security reinforcements and filed a lawsuit against three groups and five individuals. While the underground groups could not be reached for comment, a group that supports them is the North American Animal Liberation Press Office , which posts anonymous messages that sometimes advocate violence. A spokesman, Jerry Vlasak, said it was an “above-ground” organization that is “supportive of animal liberation activities.” He defended the activities of people who have attacked UCLA research. “These are activists who are willing to risk their own lives and freedom in order to help animals,” he said. “I don't think it's much of a reach from a moral or ethical standpoint” to support someone who responded to an attack on his pet dog to someone who worked to prevent harm done to animals in research laboratories, he added. more...
• UCLA Daily Bruin : University officials filed a lawsuit against the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Brigade and five unnamed individuals because of various attacks on professors who have been conducting animal research over the last two years. Jerry Vlasak, a press officer for Animal Liberation, said he believes the suit has no legal bearing. "It is a nonsensical lawsuit," he said. more...
• Associated Press: The University of California went to court Thursday to try to keep animal rights activists away from UCLA employees who say they have been threatened because of their research. Three times since June 2006, Molotov cocktail-type devices have been left near the homes of faculty members who oversee or participate in research that involves animals, according to a statement from the University of California, Los Angeles. Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, said any pickets named in the suit have a constitutional right to protest. As for the underground protesters, he said they would not be intimidated by the lawsuit. "Here they are risking 30-year sentences for arson and they're going to be threatened by a restraining order? It doesn't make sense to me," he said. "I would be laughing out loud." more...
• ABC News Channel 7: UCLA administrators are taking on some animal rights activists. The university has gone to court to get a restraining order against some animal rights groups. Activists are accused of harassing UCLA researchers who conduct experiments using animals. more...
• Associated Press: A judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday against animal rights groups and activists accused of threatening UCLA employees and graduate students because they conduct research using animals. Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, had earlier said underground protesters would not be moved by the lawsuit. "Here they are risking 30-year sentences for arson and they're going to be threatened by a restraining order? It doesn't make sense to me," he said. "I would be laughing out loud." more...
• UCLA Daily Bruin: A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a temporary restraining order against three groups and five individuals accused of targeting UCLA faculty involved in animal research. The North American Animal Liberation Press Office, an organization that acts as a press outlet for several animal rights activists groups, called the lawsuit "an obvious act of desperation" in a press release. Animal rights activists have also targeted researchers at the Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses. more...
• Los Angeles Times: A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge agreed Thursday to sharply limit the contact between animal rights activists and researchers at UCLA who had been targeted for their work with animals. In a Santa Monica courtroom, Judge Gerald Rosenberg granted most of the terms sought by attorneys for the Regents of the University of California in a temporary restraining order against five individual activists and three animal rights groups. more...
• Fox News: The University of California went to court Thursday to try to keep animal rights activists away from UCLA employees who say they have been threatened because of their research. Three times since June 2006, Molotov cocktail-type devices have been left near the homes of faculty members who oversee or participate in research that involves animals, according to a statement from the University of California, Los Angeles. Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, said any pickets named in the suit have a constitutional right to protest. As for the underground protesters, he said they would not be intimidated by the lawsuit. "Here they are risking 30-year sentences for arson and they're going to be threatened by a restraining order? It doesn't make sense to me," he said. "I would be laughing out loud." more...
• UCSB Daily Nexus: The University of California, Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit against animal rights activists, including one former UCSB student, for allegedly harassing faculty and administrators associated with animal research. more...
• San Francisco Chronicle: Fearing an escalation of attacks by animal rights activists against medical researchers, the University of California obtained a restraining order against three extremist groups this week. The temporary restraining order, signed Monday by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, came just a day after six masked people tried to force their way into the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher who studies human disease and comes on the heels of several serious incidents at UCLA. more...
  
  

• Fox News: ALF, the Animal Liberation Front, has been labeled a terrorist threat by the Department of Homeland Security. The groups tactics have also gotten them a domestic threat label in Great Britain, but now they have taken things a bit further. You see it seems some in the group are now upset with FFAers. Three goats abducted from Carpinteria High School in Southern California by these so-called animal rights activists have been found wandering in a rural area of the county where predators roam. The Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for freeing the infant goats, which are part of the school's Future Farmers of America program. A day later, hikers found the goats described as “young and defenseless” roaming in an area where mountain lions and coyotes are known to inhabit. Animal Liberation Front spokesman Jerry Vlasak claims the school was exploiting the animals.
• San Francisco Chronicle: Three goats abducted from Carpinteria High School by animal rights activists have been found wandering in a rural area where predators roam. The Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for freeing the infant goats, which are part of the school's Future Farmers of America program. A day later, hikers found the goats and notified Santa Barbara County authorities. Sheriff's Sgt. Alex Tipolt says the "young and defenseless" goats were found in an area between Carpinteria and Montecito where mountain lions and coyotes are known to inhabit. Animal Liberation Front spokesman Jerry Vlasak says the school was exploiting the animals.
  
  

• San Francisco Chronicle: This month opponents of scientific research set off an incendiary device at the home of Edythe London to protest her medical research at UCLA. In October, the research opponents flooded London's home. In the preceding two years, activists left bombs, which failed to ignite, outside of the home and under the car of UCLA researchers. Since August, activists have harassed UC Berkeley professors at their homes late at night and even leafleted the soccer game of a researcher's child, according to UC Berkeley spokesman Robert Sanders. Who are these anti-research extremists and why are they waging a campaign of intimidation against law-abiding scientists? They are animal-rights activists who oppose medical research with laboratory animals. more...
  
  

• Fox News: An animal rights activist sought in the bombings of two California drug and cosmetic companies may be living in Costa Rica, the FBI said Tuesday. Daniel Andreas San Diego, 30, of Berkeley, Calif., could be living and working with Americans or people who speak English in the Central American country, the FBI said in a statement released to Costa Rican media by the U.S. Embassy. more...
• Tico Times (Costa Rica): The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering up to a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of an animal rights activist wanted for the 2003 bombings of two biotechnology companies in California. Daniel Andreas San Diego, the man in question, allegedly targeted the Chiron company in Emeryville on Aug. 28, 2003, with two pipe bombs. Then, on Sept. 26, he targeted the Shaklee Corporation in Pleasanton with two bombs, one filled with nails. None of the bombs caused any fatalities. According to “ America's Most Wanted,” a TV program in the U.S. that focuses on helping police catch wanted criminals, the FBI says the alleged terrorist planted the bombs because he believed the companies had ties with labs that use animals for testing medications and other products. more...