Save the Hill Grove Cats was a British animal rights campaign set up in 1997 with the aim of closing Hill Grove Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire. The farm, owned by Christopher Brown, was the last commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in the United Kingdom. Eight hundred cats were removed by the RSPCA on August 10, 1999, when Brown announced his decision to retire after a controversial two-year campaign. [1] [2]
Hill Grove was one of 3,326 designated establishments for breeding and animal experimentation in the UK; 1,124 cats were used in experiments in the UK in 1998. [1]
At least 350 people were arrested and 21 jailed for public order offences over the course of the campaign. Policing costs rose to £2.8m and a five-mile exclusion zone was put in place around the farm. [1] [3]
The closure of the farm was regarded as highly significant in the UK, as an example of what is viewed — both by animal rights activists and by the British government — as the increasing influence and determination of the animal rights movement.[ citation needed ] The same group of activists chose as its next target Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract animal-testing company in Cambridge, England, and New Jersey in the U.S., forming Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, a campaign that has since become international.
The campaign was controversial, and included acts and threats of violence against Christopher Brown. In 1993, he suffered burns to his face and stomach when a letter bomb exploded. In 1998, he was sent a hoax bomb by the "Provisional ALF," together with a warning that a real one would follow. The threats were condemned by the Save the Hill Grove Cats campaign. A spokesperson, Heather James, told reporters: "We can't condone this. We are against violence towards animals and people." [4]
In December 1998, Christopher Brown was added to a list of people involved in animal testing who would be assassinated by the Animal Rights Militia if Barry Horne, an animal rights activist on hunger strike, should die. [1]
There were also allegations of violence against the activists. Protesters alleged that farm workers had poisoned them with an organophosphate pesticide spray. Environmental health officers confirmed that they found "substantial amounts" of dimethoate, described by the Independent as a potentially lethal pesticide, on a roadside verge where protesters often stood. Sixteen activists complained of nausea, sore throats, headaches, and difficulty breathing. Christopher Brown said that he had not sprayed the verge and that his farm did not use dimethoate. [5]
Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) was a contract research organisation (CRO) founded in 1951 in Cambridgeshire, England. It had two laboratories in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. With over 1,600 staff, it was until 2015 the largest non-clinical CRO in Europe. In September 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Harlan Laboratories, GFA, NDA Analytics and LSR associates merged into Envigo, which later sold off the CRO part.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates. It has been the subject of several major leaks or undercover investigations by activists and reporters since 1989.
Barry Horne was an English animal rights activist. He became known around the world in December 1998, when he engaged in a 68-day hunger strike in an effort to persuade the government to hold a public inquiry into animal testing, something the Labour Party had said it would do before it came to power in 1997. The hunger strike took place while Horne was serving an 18-year sentence for planting incendiary devices in stores that sold fur coats and leather products, the longest sentence handed down to any animal rights activist by a British court.
Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) was a six-year campaign by British animal rights activists to close a farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire that bred guinea pigs for animal research. The owners, three brothers trading as David Hall and Partners, announced in August 2005 that they were closing the business as a result of the pressure from activists, which included harassment, damage to property, and threats of physical violence.
Jerry Vlasak is an American animal rights activist and former trauma surgeon. He is a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, a former director of the Animal Defense League of Los Angeles, and a former advisor to SPEAK, the Voice for the Animals.
The Animal Rights Militia (ARM) is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action utilizing a diversity of tactics that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human life.
Brian Cass is the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract research organisation company based in Huntingdon in the United Kingdom and New Jersey in the United States. Before moving to Huntingdon Life Sciences, Cass was the managing director of Covance Laboratories Ltd. He was appointed a CBE in 2002.
The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and an end to their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries.
Shamrock Farm was the United Kingdom's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Henfield in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.
SPEAK is a British animal rights group working to end animal testing in the UK.
Shannon Keith is an American animal rights lawyer, activist, and documentary director/producer. She is the director of the Animal Liberation Front documentary, Behind the Mask: The Story Of The People Who Risk Everything To Save Animals.
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006 is a United States federal law that prohibits any person from engaging in certain conduct "for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The statute covers any act that either "damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property" or "places a person in reasonable fear" of injury.
This timeline of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) actions describes the history, consequences and theory of direct action on behalf of animals by animal liberation activists using, or associated with the ALF.
The Consort beagles campaign was founded in 1996 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, with a view to closing Consort Kennels in Hereford, a commercial breeder of beagles for animal testing laboratories.
The Western Animal Rights Network (WARN) first appeared in 2005 as a coalition for animal rights groups in the West of England and South Wales and acted as a news service for animal rights demos and action reports.
The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that engages in and promotes non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in the 1970s from the Bands of Mercy. Participants state it is a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses, veterinary care and operating sanctuaries where the animals subsequently live. Critics have labelled them as eco-terrorists.
Heather Nicholson is a British animal rights activist.
The campaign against Highgate Rabbit Farm, also known as the Close Highgate Farm campaign, is a series of direct actions by anti-vivisection activists. Highgate Rabbit Farm in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire in England is licensed by the Home Office to breed rabbits and ferrets for animal-testing facilities, including Huntingdon Life Sciences. Actions have included a raid by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and an arson claimed by the Militant Forces Against HLS. The ALF raid in 2008 saw 129 rabbits removed and £100,000-worth of damage to property. The campaign has been linked to activists involved in Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).
Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is an international grassroots network of animal rights activists founded in 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Area. DxE uses disruptive protests and non-violent direct action tactics, such as open rescue of animals from factory farms. Their intent is to build a movement that can eventually shift culture and change social and political institutions. DxE activists work to "put an end to the commodity status of animals."
Camp Beagle is a protest camp set up in July 2021 by animal rights activists outside of MBR Acres, a breeding facility for beagles used in laboratory research, in Wyton, Cambridgeshire. The protestors want the site to be closed down, the beagles freed and for vivisection in the United Kingdom to be ended.
