The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) claimed responsibility yesterday for leaving an explosive device containing fuel outside the home of Paul Blackburn, the corporate controller of GlaxoSmithKline. It said that Mr Blackburn was singled out because GSK was a customer of the animal testing group Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). A GSK spokesman said that the device was left on the porch of the house in Buckinghamshire and caused minor damage. Mr Blackburn was out of the country but his wife and child were at home.

A website warning read: “We have spent 15 months researching you, and we know every weakness you have. We are stronger than you, we have more resolve than you and we never give up.

“If we have to destroy every bit of property you own, we will, in order to stop you inflicting your profit-driven cruelties on defenceless creatures. You cannot stop us, we are free to attack you at will, whenever and wherever we choose.”

The struggle over animal research is polarized and emotional. It's not uncommon for animal rights activists to characterize researchers as barbarians who cut up innocent animals out of joy or greed – or for the scientists to regard the activists as fringe extremists who only care about mice and monkeys and not their fellow humans.

The intensity of this debate leads many people to simply turn away – and has given UCSF an excuse to hide almost everything about animal research from the public. Citing "security concerns" created by radical animal rights activists who sometimes turn to harassment or violence, UCSF treats information about its experiments like highly classified secrets. University officials won't let outsiders tour the labs, won't acknowledge where all the animal research facilities are, and has administrators speak on behalf of individual researchers (including those mentioned in this story and its two sidebars). They insist in vague terms that researchers and their families are harassed – but they won't even describe the incidents that have led them to be so cautious.

So the general public knows very little about the 600 to 800 animal experiments, supported largely by taxpayers, being conducted at UCSF at any given time.

But there have been some real problems behind those closed laboratory doors. In fact, last year UCSF was formally charged with violating federal law in a scathing complaint about animal conditions. And it wasn't some animal welfare group lodging the allegations – it was George W. Bush's Agriculture Department.

Polls show that the American public supports animal research – but only when efforts are made to contain animal suffering. So it seems almost instinctual that experimenting on animals should require weighing the pain and suffering of animals against the potential to understand and ultimately cure disease.

But the United States doesn't require this sort of formal comparison. The approval process for a scientific experiment, anyone will tell you, is quite rigorous – particularly if it involves highly competitive NIH grants. But the central question posed during this process is: Is this a valid line of scientific inquiry, one that might yield knowledge? Later in the process, once the experiment has its basic form and the protocol is forwarded to the IACUC, the researcher must explain why he or she can't do the research without animals.

The IACUC's realm, however, is animal care, not science. The committee can suggest modifications to lessen the pain animals are subjected to, but there's no requirement anywhere along the way for an explicit cost-benefit analysis.

Olgin's research also involves the deaths of roughly 750 dogs over three years. Many of the dog have one or two pacemakers implanted. The pacemakers are then used to speed up the dogs' heart rates until their hearts basically wear out. Another group of 150 dogs undergo a surgical procedure in which their hearts' mitral valves are torn with a small hook so that some of the blood flows backward.

After 2 to 24 weeks in the study, each dog is subjected to an eight-hour "terminal study," during which researchers deeply anesthetize the animal and then open its heart cavity to poke around and take measurements. At the end of the study, the dog is euthanized.

According to the scientific protocol for his experiments, filed with UCSF, Lisberger's monkeys undergo several different surgeries, under anesthesia, to prepare them for the research. First, each monkey has a restraint device attached to its head with a combination of metal plates, bolts, and screws. That will later allow the monkey's head to be locked in place for experiments. One or two holes are drilled in the skull, and then cylindrical recording chambers are secured over those holes so that microelectrodes that will allow precise neural activity to be measured can be inserted into the brain with ease. (The electrodes themselves don't cause discomfort because the brain lacks pain receptors.)

Sometimes, small wire coils are sutured to the monkeys' eyeballs. Other times the monkeys have spectacles attached to their faces that either magnify or miniaturize everything they see.

The monkeys in Lisberger's lab are put on a fluid-restriction program, so that each day they are scheduled to "work" they will obey commands for "rewards" of water or Tang. Each monkey is taught to move from its cage to a "primate chair," and once in the chair, its head is locked into the restraining device. Then the animal is prompted to move its eyes in certain ways to receive a reward. Monkeys typically work for two to four hours a day on alternating weeks, often for three years or more.

Lisberger's protocol states that his work could eventually lead to "the cure for many diseases of learning and memory such as Alzheimer's Disease."

Suzanne Roy, from In Defense of Animals, says she started looking into Lisberger's experiments in the late 1990s, after IDA got anonymous complaints from people who said they worked for UCSF. "What struck me was the highly invasive nature of them and the duration of them ... " she said. "He's making the monkeys so thirsty they'll move their eyes in a certain way for a juice reward. How could anyone do this to an intelligent monkey?"

I'm not telling you, 'Never eat a hamburger.' Just eat the good ones with real beef, you know, like the ones from that mom-and-pop diner down the street," he said, making Homer Simpson-like, mouth-watering sounds. "And it's so good that when you take a bite out of that burger, you just know somewhere in the world a vegan is crying.

The idea is to run the chip as if it were, for example, a rat or a dog, and to be able to tell whether this particular animal is going to be appropriate for further testing.

Dr Benet says that the chip will save a lot of animal studies, but will not eliminate them. Animal testing will still be needed by the regulatory agencies for preclinical toxicology and efficacy testing. But the microfluidic system should make the animal tests more efficient by identifying which species is most relevant in a particular case.

Dr Benet explains: 'At the moment, we don't know which animal is going to be useful. So the industry often carries out animal tests that turn out not to be predictive at all.'

In the fall of 1971, when I was seven, my father took us six kids out to the back of the house one Saturday and we killed approximately two hundred chickens that had been housed in our garage. It was a neighborhood event. Two dozen kids ended up there that day, each given specific assignments. There were grabbers, pluckers, blood drainers. My father and brother were the only ax wielders. With the head removed and thrown into the nearby lake, the chicken's body ran aimlessly before collapsing. That winter, some of the chicken heads floated to the top of the lake and ice formed around them

These images linger and have solidified my choice of vegetarianism. I admit that extremist vegetarians can be an insufferable group. I will not take brochures for any cause, nor will I stand in the way of them being distributed. I enjoy talking with PETA or other concerned animal rights groups but I'm too lazy to join and pay dues. It's nothing personal. I feel queasy only from the self-righteous who claim they have the truth.

I will not convert you. I will not throw red paint on your mink coat. Give me leather shoes, and I'll quietly wear them until I can buy something less cruel. I won't stop you from eating genetically grown vegetables. Walk proudly with that peacock around your neck and somebody, somewhere, somehow will tell you it looks good. It's amazing how much a lifetime of humiliation can be washed away from one well-placed compliment. Allow me my Garden Burgers in a barbecue joint or an achingly politically correct, collectively-owned restaurant. If you're curious, there's always room at my table for one more person.

...many shelter workers adore animals but must bear the emotional brunt of animal overpopulation while putting up with a public that often derides their work and treats animals callously. The job can be so traumatic, shelter directors and psychologists say, that workers are often afflicted with nightmares, depression, suicidal thoughts and fears of going to hell.

battling animal overpopulation is a Sisyphean quest. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that shelters euthanize 3 million to 4 million animals each year.

Even at places that contribute a fraction to the toll, such as the Loudoun shelter, the work can be heartbreaking, workers say. The shelter euthanized 1,360 dogs and cats in the most recent fiscal year, about 47 percent of all the dogs and cats it took in.

I am not an animal rights advocate but rather an animal welfare advocate; there is a difference. As a hunter, pet owner and nature lover, I believe animals were put on Earth to provide humanity with companionship, assistance, food and clothing, inspiration and education. Obviously, nature gives certain species certain roles. We don't hunt the same animals we invite into our laps. But for each role animals play in our lives, we owe them something. Whether that is respect and awe, a safe and happy home, habitat protection or a quick and humane death, there is a moral code to do right by them.

I believe that how a person treats animals is a clear indicator of quality as a human being. Moreover, how a society treats animals is a test of humanity.

His all-consuming focus on the danger of trans fat notwithstanding, the British-born 51-year-old is no kook in Birkenstocks. He easily could be mistaken for a Century City attorney in a sport coat, dress slacks and open-collared shirt.

And he's no vegan either. 'I'm not part of the nuts-and-seeds crowd at all,' he laughed. 'That stuff tastes like hell. I want a good-tasting meal that I look forward to, not dread.'

More than 6,000 pets have been saved in Mississippi and Louisiana, said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, but tens of thousands more could still be in New Orleans alone. Texas, he said, has been better at allowing people to take their pets with them ahead of Hurricane Rita but a formal policy is still needed.

"We cannot rely on individual acts of compassion," Markarian said.

Holly Hazard, executive director of the Doris Day Animal League, said there are 4,000 outstanding requests to rescue pets more than three weeks after Katrina hit.

While the legislation may draw attention to the issue, it doesn't "have any real meat in it," said Sara Spaulding, a spokeswoman for the American Humane Association. She said uniform protocols on rescuing and sheltering animals, for example, should be formulated at the federal level with consultation from animal welfare groups.

Its lobby is designed resemble the waiting room of an early 20th century train station and includes a separate "quiet room," complete with fireplace, for cats.

"We know cats and dogs don't always want to be together," Bice said.

Though construction was only fully completed this week, MVS has been treating animals at the new site for about three weeks. Early patients included a Detroit Zoo penguin who received eye surgery and a pet dog whose broken leg was repaired with surgical screws.

Founded in Bloomfield Hills in 1990, MVS operated for about 12 years at a site on 11 Mile in Southfield.

The new facility is more than 40 percent larger, with 18 examining rooms, a cancer center, eye care center and state of the art operating rooms which overlook a man-made pond and fountain. The building was custom built for MVS's operations.

Up North Claiborne Avenue five dogs ran as a pack between the smashed houses under dead power lines, through that twisted junkscape of lumber and tin, toilets in the silt, a wall marked "Possible Body" and the headless Virgin Mary with arms outstretched. The dogs neither fought nor growled. Among their number were a German shepherd, a beagle and a yellow Labrador.

They roam this city gaunt and uncomprehending, at turns frightened and menacing, loping directionless between ruined buildings, drinking the muck, staring at cars, waiting to die. They are omnipresent. A week ago, their self-appointed rescuers spoke of the odds of rejoining them as pets to masters, but that talk has ended. Now these dogs make for an infestation, untold thousands unwell, unrestrained, unrecognizable and left to their devices.

"I'm afraid that they'll be out here for years," said Wendy Guidry, among those who spend their days trying to corral the creatures. "That there'll be a long-term population of dogs that will never be caught, that will live on the streets for years and eventually be hit by cars. That will be their lives."

Since 1997, more than 4,000 migratory birds have been killed or injured from colliding into skyscrapers, bird experts said.

"New York City is this nexus of ancient migratory flyways, and the parks have become these havens for these birds, but ... the buildings with their light draw birds to them, sort of like moths to a flame," NYC Audubon Director E.J. McAdams said at a news conference.

Livestock losses from Katrina were estimated at $30 million. An estimated 10,000 cattle were lost due to Katrina, the USDA said.

'Millions of chickens were killed. Producers also lost eggs, poults, and chicken grow-out facilities, which will lead to longer-term economic losses for some producers. Dairy producers discarded an estimated $3 million worth of milk,' the USDA said, because power was out and processing plants were closed.

Thanks to your calls and emails, the U.S. Senate passed the Ensign-Byrd amendment on Tuesday, September 20, by a vote of 68-29.

Many of the horses sent to slaughter are perfectly healthy, and turning them over to slaughterhouses is inhumane and unnecessary

'Wildlife Services killed more than five animals per minute in 2004,' said Wendy Keefover-Ring of Sinapu, a wolf advocacy group.

Green Scissors, a coalition that targets what it terms wasteful or environmentally harmful government spending, charges that most of the Wildlife Services budget is focused on livestock protection, benefiting mostly a few Western livestock producers, relative to ag producers throughout the country.

"It's just one subsidy after another," said Franz Matzner, senior policy analyst of Taxpayers for Common Sense, which is part of the coalition.

"The program doesn't work, because predation rates haven't gone down," he added.

Green Scissors further notes that although the number of predators killed by the agency increases annually (especially coyotes), coyote populations remain stable and are spreading geographically.

Green Scissors charges that Wildlife Services' activities make predator problems worse. Biologists have found that when subjected to intense control, not only do female coyotes respond by reproducing at an earlier age and producing larger litters, but pup survival increases, thereby rendering the control efforts counterproductive. They also note that some poisons are not entirely selective, but spill out into the environment and kill other birds and animals.

In particular, they are discouraging individuals or groups from going down south on rescue missions without coordination with a national animal group, or some authority overseeing pet rescue efforts. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for example, has asked would-be volunteers to stand down unless otherwise directed.

The meat processing sector has a new set of national animal welfare standards, and those who fail to comply could lose their licence.

The legally enforceable code has been established by both industry and animal welfare groups, and will apply to all abattoirs.

Arizonans will have some big choices to make during the 2006 election year, and one of the biggest could involve pregnant pigs.

Animal-rights activists have filed an initiative that would make it a crime for farmers to keep young calves or pregnant pigs in crates so cramped that the animals can't turn around.

Opponents already are rallying to defeat the measure, calling it "anti-meat."

Florida voters passed a similar measure in 2002. Arizona's new law, if it passed, wouldn't take effect until the end of 2012, letting farms change their farming practices over the next six years.

ZAGREB, Croatia - Ever feel like a caged animal? Visitors to Zagreb's zoo can find out what it is really like to be in a cage.

The zoo has set aside two partially furnished cages for humans labeled "Homo Sapiens." Visitors will be able to enter and leave at will.

But the project, launched Friday by the head of the zoo, Mladen Anic, goes beyond offering a behind-the-bars experience to warn about human devastation of nature.

"We wanted people to get a perception of how the animal perceives the cage," Anic told The Associated Press. "But we also wanted to inform people about all the ecological problems for which humans are directly responsible."

For the first time in more than a decade, Rockland Country Day has changed lunch vendors from a commercial organization to a local restaurant. After a year of committee meetings, taste tests and student and parent comment, the school signed a one-year contract with Main Essentials, a Haverstraw vegetarian restaurant that caters to vegans — vegetarians who also don't eat dairy or other animal products.

"We know there's an obesity crisis and a crisis of disease in this country, and a lot of it stems from the kind of foods and the fast foods that people ingest," said Martha Roth, a parent and member of the committee that selected Main Essentials as the school's food vendor. "If you start early, if you teach children to eat well at an early age, it won't be an issue when they get older."

Local public schools usually offer a meatless option for students and have tried to cut down on sugar and salt in other foods, but none has done what Rockland Country Day has — hired a vegetarian restaurant to provide school lunches.

Nonvegetarians such as ninth-graders Norma Kuhling, 14, of Valley Cottage; Hailey Fyfe, also 14, of Piermont; and 10th-grader Katie Crispi, 15, of New City said they found the school lunches infinitely better than last year.

"You just sort of feel good," Fyfe said, "after eating a healthy meal."

The "Animal Care Certified" stamp on the grocery store egg cartons declared that the chickens were raised in humane conditions, but the tapes tell a different tale.

The videos -- shot by Takoma Park animal advocates who say they have spent years sneaking into local poultry farms -- show hens closely packed in wire "battery cages," some missing most of their feathers, with open sores and burned beaks, and dead fowl caged with the living.

In February, the videos prompted the group, Compassion Over Killing, to file a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against area retailers Giant Food, Brookville Supermarket and Lehman's Egg Service and the organization that administers the Animal Care Certified certification, United Egg Producers.

Giant recently agreed to drop the logo from egg cartons sold under its brand name while it reviews Compassion Over Killing's claims that the birds are kept in inhumane conditions.

The group, which seeks to ban the use of the label, will go forward with claims against the other parties, including United Egg Producers, which has filed a motion to dismiss the case. But animal advocates hailed the settlement with Giant as a first step toward their goal of ending the use of cages in the U.S. egg industry.

Animal rights groups notched up another success recently when the Agriculture Ministry banned farmers from denying water to veal calves as part of the method by which they are raised for slaughter. Some two years ago, the animal rights groups won a High Court of Justice ruling that bans the force-feeding of geese.

Withholding water from veal calves constitutes a central part of the manner in which the animals are raised for slaughter, with the objective being to keep their meat tender and "white." Aside from withholding water, raising veal calves also involves imprisoning them in a veal crate and feeding them a milk substitute intentionally lacking in iron and other essential nutrients.

The animals suffer terribly because they are unable to move freely in the wooden restraining device and cannot turn around or even lie down and stretch. Designed to prevent movement, the crate does its job of atrophying the calves' muscles, thus producing tender veal.

Anonymous for Animal Rights initiated the fight against this method of raising veal calves - banned already among EU states - some four years ago. Since then, the Agriculture Ministry has tried to formulate new regulations for the feeding and raising of veal calves, but the regulations have been rejected time and again by the Knesset Education Committee, which has deemed them insufficient to prevent the animals from suffering.

Recently, however, the Agriculture Ministry, the Education Committee and Anonymous consented to the temporary publication of two regulations that all the parties agree to and that do not require financial investment on the part of the farmers. The first regulation imposes a sweeping ban on withholding water from the calves. The second regulation requires farmers to provide calves that are at least four weeks old with solid food.

Mr. Hoyt also tries to speak at schools, but he says that of 114 he has contacted, only 10 have invited him in.

"When I contact the schools they say, 'Is this to promote hunting?' " Mr. Hoyt said. "And actually I lie right through my teeth. I say, 'No, it is to explain hunting.' "

He added, "I hate to stereotype, but most teachers are liberal, tree-hugging, and they're not real sympathetic to the cause."

Displaying his savaged surfboard, bitten in half by the shark, Heron is adamant that Australia should end its protection of the great white and start culling.

'They're top of the food chain and nothing affects it,' Heron told reporters after his attack.

'It's time they started controlling the numbers. Controlled culling -- they kill our national emblem, the kangaroo, they kill elephants in Africa,' he said."

'There are far more important things to worry about like the tsunami and what happened in New Orleans than worrying about a fur coat and a dead animal,' [Julien Macdonald] told reporters after the show.

Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that works exclusively to rescue and shelter animals in disasters, is caring for 642 rescued animals at a temporary shelter in Slidell, Louisiana. Cats, dogs, rabbits, ducks, chickens, geese, a rat, a snake, a turtle, hamsters, a scorpion, a tarantula and one emu are among the animals that have been rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by Noah's Wish and Slidell Animal Control.

I think all people with pets have discovered we need them as much as they need us

More than a 1,000 chickens rescued from a Mississippi poultry farm ravaged by Hurricane Katrina have been sent to an animal shelter in Schuyler County as well as to shelters in Texas and California.
Farm Sanctuary, an animal haven in the town of Tyrone near Watkins Glen, has welcomed 725 of the birds.
Shelter spokeswoman Tricia Ritterbusch says the two-week-old broiler chicks arrived early this past week.

Visitors to Paignton Zoo fled to safety inside the attraction's buildings after one of the zoo's animals escaped.

The female peccary, a member of the pig family, escaped on Saturday afternoon and visitors were contained while a vet was called.

After 40 minutes the tusked creature, which is classified as one of the zoo's dangerous animals, was cornered in the elephant enclosure.

A vet shot it with a tranquilliser dart and it is now recovering.

Celebrity chef Rick Stein has criticised what he called 'cruel' British battery farming methods.

In his BBC Two TV series French Odyssey he said force-feeding of ducks in France to make foie gras was no worse than keeping battery hens.

Mr Stein, from Padstow in Cornwall, said he enjoyed the French delicacy, but urged consumers to consider where their food came from.

"Pointing to one area of cruelty to justify another is ridiculous."

Giant Food of Maryland, in response to a lawsuit filed by an animal advocacy group, has agreed to stop using a logo on cartons of its store-brand eggs that certifies them as coming from humanely treated chickens.

In February, the group, Compassion Over Killing, and four egg consumers filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against Giant Food, Brookville Supermarket and Lehman's Egg Service alleging that the "Animal Care Certified" logo stamped on egg cartons by United Egg Producers deceives shoppers by conveying a false message of humane animal care.

Erica Meier, a spokeswoman for Compassion Over Killing, said Giant will remove the logo from its egg cartons while it investigates claims that the chickens are kept in wire cages so small that they can't spread their wings and that chicks have parts of their beaks burned off to reduce the impact of stress-induced aggression.

A spokesman for Giant said the agreement applies only to Giant-brand eggs sold in the District. The suit against the remaining defendants will go forward, Meier said.

(Dr. Harry) Hovel said every year more than 4,000 teens under the age of 18 commit murder. 'Virtually all of them were abused and began abusing animals by their early teenaged years,' he said.

'It was the best flight I ever had ... the first flight where I kissed and hugged all the passengers. They were so sweet and desperate for affection and help,' said Kimberly Wnuk, one of six flight attendants and pilots who donated their time for the airlift.

Sunday's flight from Baton Rouge, La. -- the first -- brought 80 dogs and cats to San Diego and San Francisco. Another plane arrived Tuesday in San Francisco with 152 animals, and still another flight is expected to land later this week in Los Angeles.

The airlifts -- each costing about $45,000 -- were sponsored by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, part of a larger effort by animal welfare groups to find homes across the country for animals in crowded shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi.

More than 2,000 animals, including 1,300 dogs, 400 birds and several hundred cats, are at the main shelter in the New Orleans area. Rescue crews are picking up several hundred more daily. Officials say as many as 50,000 may still be stranded.

"The animals down here are totally traumatized," said Dr. John Twomey, chief medical officer at the disaster clinic. "Even their own dogs and cats are turning on people."

Rick Tramonto, 43, a well-known Chicago chef at the restaurant Tru, called the proposed ban a travesty and said he wondered where the line would be drawn because other animals, like chickens, were mistreated. 'Foie gras has been around since the age of cuisine,' Mr. Tramonto said. 'Some animals are raised for food. They're raised to die.'

Not long ago, humans had the upper hand in this battle of man and beast. But after California sea lions were hunted nearly to extinction, Congress passed the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which made it illegal to kill, injure or — in most circumstances — even harass sea lions and other pinnipeds.

Lawmakers never envisioned that the law would work so well, said Matt Streit, a spokesman for the House Resources Committee. In response, a bill has been drafted to allow cities to use nonlethal methods to repel sea lion incursions.

GULFPORT, Miss. - In an “unheard of” rescue operation, eight dolphins that were swept out of their oceanarium by Hurricane Katrina have been rediscovered hundreds of yards out at sea where trainers are tracking, feeding and caring for them.

“To find all eight of them on your doorstep is just unheard of,” said Moby Solangi, president of the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport. “When we first saw them, they were really starving. When they saw their trainers, they were absolutely flipping.”

The eight Atlantic bottlenose dolphins were swept out of their tank by the storm surge from Katrina, which then destroyed the oceanarium.

LSU lost all of its 8,000 lab animals, including mice, rats, dogs and monkeys. Many drowned. Others died without food and water and the rest were euthanized, said Dr. Larry Hollier, dean of the LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.

Koch said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-liter (11 gallon) tank.But the president of the German Society for the Protection of Animals, Wolfgang Apel, said using dead cats for fuel was illegal.'There's no danger for cats and dogs in Germany because this practice is outlawed in Germany,' Apel told Bild on Wednesday

Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." How embarrassing it must be for our government to see that in emergencies the United States lags behind Cuba, whose treatment of animals saved the animals' lives and those of the people who care for them. In the wake of Katrina, the shameful no-pet policies of American relief agencies killed some people, mostly poor. It devastated many more, who will rebuild their homes but will never get over the awful choice a great nation should not have forced them to make.

Some people won’t understand why you’re expending so many resources on animals.
These animals are part of our society. We choose to domesticate them and live with them. They mean everything to some people. They’re family members. When a disaster happens, people [come] first, no question. But if there’s a way, we should be getting the animals out as well. It’s not like they can fend for themselves. It’s cruel to let them starve when there are people who can take care of them.

"There were thousands dead -- they were scattered around like trash,'' she said. "The odor is indescribable. It's just of death and of rotting bodies.''

Chickens aren't easily caught during the day, but by nightfall, the group began collecting the scattered birds and placing them in a makeshift holding pen. In just two nights, the group collected about 1,000 birds -- including 19 that had been bulldozed into a burial pit with thousands of dead chickens and inches of maggots.

"Thank God we walked by that pit one last time,'' said Sturla, describing the difficult conditions the group faced.

Sturla, who also rescued two black kittens from a garbage Dumpster, said that half of the saved chickens were now headed for New York. The other half are on their way to Texas, where they will spend a few days getting stronger before they can be transported elsewhere. Sturla said a minimum of 100 would be brought to her Vacaville sanctuary, which is home to about 350 farm animals, and she will commit more if she can find local residents willing to adopt them.

"The irony is this disaster saved their lives,'' she said. "We'll do everything we can to give them a comfortable life.''

• 9. Tierra Cafe (looked like it was part of a food court)


• 8. Vegan Glory (I put this ahead of California Vegan and Truly, though both are frequent destinations of mine -- I prefer Vegan Glory's ambiance to both, and the menu is comparable, but slightly better than California Vegan)


• 7. Truly A Vegan Restaurant (I went to this new place for the first time only recently, and the food was very good -- though the soy bacon tasted suspiciously like Bac-O-Bits. The decor left much to be desired, though)


• 6. California Vegan (They mention the newer WLA location, but their first location is in on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, between Fairfax and La Brea)


• 5. Vegetable Delight (I've never been here, either)


• 4. Follow Your Heart (a bit far for me to get to much)


• 3. Native Foods (another frequent destination)


• 2. Real Food Daily (another frequent destination)


• 1. Madeleine Bistro (click for my review)

Maciel and several other Humane Society workers and volunteers were busy tracking down cats Monday afternoon. Another team had identified a house with 13 cats and managed to catch four of them earlier in the day.

The tiny, sweltering guesthouse was covered in garbage and smelled of feces and cat urine.

While some team members positioned nets in open doorways in the house, others went into the corners and crevices and tried to coax out the cats. Every so often, a feline would dart into the open, sometimes managing to evade his rescuers with a graceful leap.

Cats caught in nets were subdued with a pinch to the scruff, then lowered into crates. A few meowed in mourning. The crew caught all nine.

Murdock, 82, who follows a strict vegetarian diet that he thinks will help extend his life, said the research campus is an investment in the future of biotechnology that can improve nutrition.

The largest number of animals killed - 2.3 million - were starlings, which are attracted to feedlots and defecate in cattle feed. Critics say the poison used also kills owls, hawks, magpies, raccoons and cats. The department also uses aerial gunning, traps or 'denning,' which involves killing animals in their dens.

'Most of the public has no idea that a significant portion of the federal wildlife management budget is actually devoted to extermination,' said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. 'Animals that inconvenience humans become expendable `varmints' that are then dispatched with stunning efficiency.'

Among the animals killed were:

-75,674 coyotes.
-31,286 beavers.
-3,907 foxes.
-397 black bears.
-359 cougars.
-191 wolves.
-143 feral or free-ranging chickens
-72 wild turkeys

Although there is a long-term trend toward more animal protection, some of the advocates who worked on two dozen animal bills introduced in the Legislature this year say they are not making much progress.

*snip*

Animal protection groups have scored some of their biggest victories by going directly to the voters and bypassing the Legislature.

The ban on traps pushed by animal protection groups has not been welcomed by everyone. A spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game, Steve Martarano, said the ban "took away an effective tool used by researchers and to control nuisance wildlife.

Collins said the four animals escaped from the zoo and ran into Royal, a community of about 75 people in Antelope County. The chimps tried to get into a couple of businesses in town, Collins said, before returning to the zoo.

Schlueter said later that only one of the chimps — he’s not sure which one — actually left the zoo and walked about a block and a half into town. The animal opened the door of a convenience store, but an Antelope County sheriff’s deputy at the scene shut the door right away, and the chimp returned to the zoo “almost immediately.”

Back at the zoo, one of the chimpanzees — Ripley — went back into his cage.

“He went back to the place where he felt the most safe, I’m assuming,” Schlueter said.

But zoo workers and law enforcement officials couldn’t get the other three male chimps, who were at the opposite end of the zoo, to join him.

Schlueter said he tried to pacify the chimps with a zoo tranquilizer gun, hitting two of them, but even after five minutes, the tranquilizers had not taken effect on the animals.

“That’s when the decision was made,” said Schlueter, who ended up shooting the three loose chimps with a deputy’s service revolver.

“We’re going to see some massive destruction of the habitat in the coastal area when it deals with wildlife and with the fisheries,” Landreneau told Reuters.

*snip*

“With everything that is involved in dealing with the seafood industries, we’re going to have some very high numbers,” he said.

Louisiana provides as much as 40 percent of all seafood enjoyed in the United States, especially oysters and shrimp.

“We will do what we need to do to help those families that are involved in the seafood industry and also those businesses that are involved in recreational aspects,” Landreneau told an earlier news briefing.

...scientists also are aware that animal testing is inadequate. If a mouse exposed to high levels of a chemical develops a cancer, that may well be reason to worry, but it by no means proves that it could cause cancer in humans at lower levels. And animal testing is so expensive and so time consuming that most chemicals in use today have never been fully tested.

Using computer models to predict toxicity based on a chemical's structure was seen by Rosenkranz and other "predictive toxicologists" as a way of speeding toxicity testing and perhaps improving upon the results available from animal testing.

"The computer-based model, if successful, would be a lot quicker and cheaper to ascertain whether the chemicals introduced into our society are safe," Goldstein said. But he also emphasized that eliminating or reducing the use of animals in toxicity testing wouldn't affect the need to use animals for studying disease and developing treatments.

Sandler, formerly an industrial hygienist with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, contended that many manufacturers are happy with the testing bottleneck created by reliance on animals because it makes it difficult for regulators to ban or restrict uses of chemicals.

Rescue workers found thousands of dead chickens that had been dumped into a mass open grave, along with some live ones struggling to get out, Ritterbusch said.

Animal-care organizations from around the country have poured into Louisiana to assist in the rescue and care of pets and horses.

"We're trying to get a way to get more of them," said Kathryn Destreza, the director of New Orleans' Animal Services Department. "These people have lost everything, so if we can at least give them their dog or their horse, it won't be so bad."

Pets have become a hindrance for rescuers, as many survivors of the flood are refusing to leave deluged homes because they want to care for their animals. Many rescuers have stopped residents from coming aboard boats with their pets, and most evacuation shelters do not have facilities for animals.

Destreza said that animal rescue efforts could help persuade people to leave their homes.

This is a combined alert, including information on the desperate need for help in the Hurricane Katrina Disaster region and an update on some of the weekend's media stories (9/10-9/11) and suggestions for letters to the editor.

First -- I have spoken with Mark Garrison, whose wife, Jane Garrison, is in New Orleans, rescuing animals. She is the activist who was featured in the Los Angeles Times story on the issue on Thursday September 8 (Katrina's Aftermath; Time Is Running Out for Stranded Pets.) Jane says there is a desperate need for more people in the region to help. People are needed to go in and get the starving animals out, do food and water drops for those who cannot yet be removed, and to care for animals that have been removed to holding facilities. At first only trained emergency rescue people were being sought, but as holding sites fill up with animals, there are not enough people to do basic jobs such as feeding, watering and walking the animals. Sometimes animals, with nobody to get them out of cages, are sleeping in their own feces. The need for help is urgent.

I have acquired from HSUS various forms one must fill out and fax back in order to work with the HSUS team, including a form that releases the organization from liability, since some of the work is dangerous. The forms ask when you were last vaccinated against tetanus and hepatitis A -- it may be necessary to have those vaccinations for some of the work. And the forms provide directions and a list of supplies one should bring. I am happy to forward those forms to anybody who wishes to go help.

Also, I have received an ASPCA alert calling for boats, which are desperately needed by rescuers. 12-15 foot flat bottom boats with outboard motors are ideal, but the alert suggests that boats of any kind are needed immediately. If you have any way of getting a boat to the rescue teams, please do. The alert says, "The staging area is in Gonzales LA. Lamar-Dixon Horse Expo Center 9039 Saint Landry Rd. From Baton Rouge > I-10 Eastbound as though driving to New Orleans > Head for the city of Gonzales > Exit 177 (Tanger Mall and Lamar Dixon Center) Report to the ASPCA volunteer center ASAP. And the alert concludes, "PLEASE GIVE THIS WIDEST DISSEMINATION IN ANY WAY YOU CAN AS WE ARE OUT OF TIME."

Best Friends, the UTAH sanctuary, has two boats on the water and a sanctuary in the region. Michael Mountain tells me that tomorrow their website will have detailed information as to the various ways people can help. www.BestFriends.org

Here is an update on some media coverage:

Larry King interviewed Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, and Michael Feinstein, a spokesperson for the ASPCA, on CNN's Larry King Live, Saturday, September 10. Please express your appreciation to King. Larry King takes comments at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?12

The Sunday, September 11, New York Times, includes a column by John Leland (section 4, page 3) headed, "Dogs Are People, Too."

He writes, "As reactions to the Katrina rescue efforts have been divided along lines of class, race and political party, they have also highlighted another schism: between dog haves and dog have-nots. Animal owners around the country have responded with outpourings of sympathy, hurt and outrage: How could rescue workers have barred pets from helicopters and shelters?"
You can read the whole column on line at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/weekinreview/11leland.html

Supportive letters should go to letters@nytimes.com

The Sunday, September 11, Los Angeles Times, has a big story on the issue, pg A33, headed, "Animal Refuge Strives to Corral Pets -- and Despair." You'll find it on line at: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-animals11sep11,1,6464227.story

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@latimes.com

On Saturday, September 10, the Chicago Tribune included a front page story that should be compulsory reading for armchair activists. It is headed, "Public howling turns tide for four-legged evacuees."

It told us:
"Heartbreaking stories about people being forced to leave pets behind--and estimates that 50,000 dogs and cats were stranded in Hurricane Katrina's wake--have filled Internet message boards. On Thursday, an urgent message told of 150 dogs on the rooftop of American Can Corp. in New Orleans, another of a man rescued through his roof who had to leave his dog and two cats with no food or water.

"Pet lovers throughout the country have joined in a massive effort to organize veterinarians, boats and food to help save displaced animals. Convoys have been coordinated through message boards at nola.com, petfinder.com and craigslist.org. And on Friday, authorities in Louisiana who have struggled for nearly two weeks to save human lives in this devastated swampland started making more time for the animals.

"The military began providing animal cages and equipment to homeowners who would evacuate only if they could bring their pets with them. 'We got the capacity,' said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, 'and it seemed like the right thing to do.'"

Illuminating the difference one person can make, and the power those of us who are not in the disaster region have on our computers and on the phone, the article tells us: "The military's edict on pets answers a petition drive started by Margaret Barry, 64, of Webster, Mass., demanding that an evacuation order include pets. By Friday, she had collected 40,000 signatures."

You can read the article on line at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509100056sep10,1,6901925.story

On that page you will see shocking photos of emaciated animals, highlighting the desperate need for immediate help in the region -- the animals are starting to die.

Finally, an Associated Press story, appearing in many papers including on the front page of the Saturday, September 10 Chicago Tribune, ("U.S. recalls FEMA chief") quotes Michael Brown, who has been removed from his post as head of Gulf Coast relief efforts:

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims."
With letters to the editor we can point out the disgraceful irony, given FEMA's animal policies, in Brown's acknowledgment that the comfort of walking his dog is high on his priority list.

Letters to the editor are part of the "public howling" that makes a difference.

The Chicago Tribune takes letters at http://tinyurl.com/4lsug

And please send letters to the editor to your local papers, and call your local media and politely encourage them to cover this angle of the disaster.

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

Madeleine Bistro will be featured this Tuesday, September 13, 2005 at 6:00
or 6:30 pm on 9 on the Town, on KCAL 9 TV.

From 9 on the Town web site...

    Top 9 Vegan Restaurants

    They're sexy... they're sultry... they're vegan? Sky Valencia and her
Vegan Vixens take us on a tour of the top 9 vegetarian restaurants in town.

    Discover the flavor without the guilt with these meat free dishes. It's
healthy... It's tasty... And it's cruelty free!

Additionally, the Los Angeles Times Food Section is scheduled to include a
story on the restaurant in this Wednesday's edition. Check it out!

9 on the Town Web Site
http://9onthetown.com/

Red Cross shelters that do not have animal-friendly areas, or do not coordinate with humane groups to make sure that there are animal shelters nearby, are out of touch with the needs of a society in which 60 percent of families have pets and many view them as intrinsic members of the family.

'...they're not using what I consider a constructive way to get their message across.'

It doesn't take an animal rights activist to say 'This is wrong.'

Oprah's Katrina special on Tuesday, September 6, had a touching segment about animals.

Nate Berkus is a designer who is a regular on the Oprah show. He is no stranger to this type of tragedy, having been in the midst of the Tsunami and having lost his partner to it. He is down in New Orleans with the Oprah team.

Berkus says to the camera: "One of the saddest things about what's going on here, that people have saved their animals by putting them on rafts and keeping them out of the water. And now they're here and they're not allowed to take their dogs with them on the buses."

We see shots of beautiful dogs running around a mostly abandoned bus area, including a Chihuahua who could almost have fit in somebody's pocket.

We see a young man sitting and clutching an older rusty colored dog, who looks like a chow mix. He is crying. Another man, with his arm around him says, "We've been waiting here for days for everybody to go with everybody else, so we can get on with the dog, and then they just told us at the last minute we can't take the dog. Well, this guy and his dog rescued me off my roof. He's only 24, and he's had the dog for 14 years. Well, we're not leaving without the dog. We don't know what we're going to do."

Berkus says, "All right, guys. You know what? I'm not doing this for the camera. We don't give a (censored) about that."

(Note: Swearing can be a good way to make sure a piece doesn't make the show, so I think Berkus was sincere, but I am glad the producers decided to show the segment anyway.)

Berkus says, "We have a solution for you. Here's the story. We are going to send the dog," whose name, he learns, is Rafiki. "We're going to take him and two other dogs that we met here, and we're going to send him to a house in Baton Rouge. It's a private house where we're sleeping. And when you get back..."

At this point the young man collapses into Nate Berkus's arms, sobbing. Nate also begins to sob. The accompanying man is saying, "I told you it was going to be OK. I told you.."

Then we go to Oprah, who is in the announcer role. She is crying and says, "I've been crying for two days here, but I have to tell you, I'm a dog person, and that's pretty moving. Nate kept his word to Patrick and he and his beloved dog Rafiki were reunited the next day."

We see a shot of Patrick and Rafiki happily united and snuggled together on a bench-swing in a clean dry yard.

Nothing brings home a message like a personal story, and this one clearly showed the impact that the no-pet policies have had on people. Please thank Oprah for the coverage:
http://www.oprah.com/email/tows/email_tows_main.jhtml

I send thanks to Lori Golden from the Pet Press for making sure we knew about the Oprah coverage.

And here is good news. Thursday night, September 8, Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, will be on Larry King Live (9pm and midnight Eastern, and 6 and 9pm Pacific) talking about the tragedy that results from evacuation strategies that do not include people's beloved animal companions. Watch if you can. Larry King Live asks for comments on the show. After the piece has aired, please post a thank you.
The URL is http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?12

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

“Our goal in starting New Harvest was to advance the development of meat substitutes, which can address much of the harm done to human health, the environment, and animal welfare by meat production and consumption,” says researcher Jason Matheny. “There are already some very compelling meat substitutes on the market, and I expect in the next decade, they’ll get even better. One of our board members, Fu-hung Hsieh, is at the forefront of developing new soy-based substitutes, and the textures he’s able to produce in his lab are amazing.”

If successful, the impact of in vitro meat on the environment alone could be enormous, reducing the greenhouse gases and methane generated by industrial animal agriculture. In July, British physicist Alan Calverd argued that animals raised for human consumption emit 21 percent of all the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity, and thus going vegetarian could help control global warming. Dutch officials are taking cultured meat so seriously that they have given a grant to New Harvest scientist Henk Haagsman, a professor at Utrecht University’s Division of Public Health and Food Safety in the Netherlands, to produce it. But according to Dr. Haagsman, New Harvest is a long way from yielding anything consumers can try. “Products will probably not be on the market before 2012,” he says.

In a 2002 survey of 24 protected areas in Africa and Southeast Asia, great ape populations were found to be declining in 96 percent of the sites.

'It can be asserted that today ... every one of the great ape species is at high risk of extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years,' the United Nations said in its Global Strategy for the Survival of the Great Apes.

"Quite a number of horses never make it to the track because they break down in training."

...Guilford is even facing dissension in the ranks. This year, for the first time, a Massey University veterinary-science student refused to perform surgery on an animal.

Last year, in the journal Animal Cognition, the behavioral biologist Thomas Bugnyar described a twist in an experiment he was conducting with laboratory ravens. The birds' job was to find bits of cheese hidden in film canisters, then pry open the lids to get the food out. One raven, Hugin, was best at this, but a dominant bird, Munin, would rush over and steal his reward.

So Hugin changed his strategy: when the other bird came over, he went to empty canisters, pried them open and pretended to eat. While the dominant bird poked around in the wrong place, Hugin zipped back to where the food really was. He was deceiving Munin.

To do that, Hugin had to grasp that ''what I know'' and ''what he knows'' are different. He had to understand, on some level, that other ravens have their own individual perceptions, feelings and plans, just as he does. It was big news when scientists found evidence that apes could grasp this. That some birds can as well is even more remarkable.

At the hospital, a doctor euthanized some animals at the request of their owners, who feared they would be abandoned and starve to death. He set up a small gas chamber out of a plastic-wrapped dog kennel.

"The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said 'I can't do it,'" said Bennett's husband, Lorne.

Valerie Bennett left her dogs with the anesthesiologist, who promised to care for about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.

"He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could," Valerie Bennett recalled, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.

On Saturday afternoon, she said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still caring for the animals.

LATEST NEWS: Food for Life has a team cooking and serving hot vegetarian meals to needy families, from their farm in Carriere, Mississippi.

Food for Life Global is now arranging for truckloads of supplies and equipment to expand these operations. Donations of grains, oil, dried fruits, potatoes, nuts and vegetables are most welcome. We have set up a special fund for the exclusive purpose of supporting Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. People wishing to donate food or equipment, please contact FFL Disaster Relief Office.

(Professor Robert) Winston said: 'Ninety per cent of people in this country eat animals as food and almost all of us wear them on our feet. I think using them as a source for organs to provide life for people is perfectly acceptable.'

...news of Wintson's Home Office licence has alarmed some animal rights groups, who fear the research is exploiting animals for spare body parts.

John Robbins, from Animal Concern, said: 'This is one animal rights issue where the animal welfare aspect comes secondary to the danger to humans.

'Work like this only bridges the human-animal divide and increases the chance of diseases crossing between species.

'For every successful genetically modified animal, there are hundreds born disfigured or die at birth, and that is what makes this research ethically questionable.'

A spokeswoman for the SSPCA added: 'The topic of using animals for transplant organs is extremely emotive.

'We can understand concerns about specifically breeding animals for spare parts.'

Transplantation experts also warned using pigs to supply human organs might not be as simple as removing antigens from the organs' surface.

John Forsythe, a consultant surgeon at the Renal Transplant Unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, said: 'My experience has shown me that the immune system has ways of getting around the things we do to it.

'It has a built in redundancy that means it can flow around a problem rather like water round a stone used to dam a stream.

'Removing the antigens only deals with one problem, but it is a welcome area of research.

'One ethical problem may also be due to viruses in pigs that sit hidden in the genetics of pig cells.

'We don't know what would happen when these are transplanted with an organ into a human population. There needs to be more work done on it.

'In the meantime it is essential that more people volunteer to donate their organs in the event of their death.'

I will be donating $5.00 to Noah's Wish for every copy of Meat Market purchased by Sunday Sept. 4th, from people using the Amazon.com link to the book on Vegan.com

The newest genome-mapping has shown that human beings and chimpanzees share more than 99 percent sequence identity in genes and proteins, while having accumulated more differences in the rest of their DNA. Indeed, the great apes – chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans – are now grouped with humans in the family Hominidae. Their close kinship to us makes them interesting to scientists, and research institutions, sanctuaries, zoos, private owners and the entertainment industry together house more than 2,000 great apes, most of them West African chimpanzees.

The UCSD scientists want to make sure that the biomedical community recognizes the great apes’ unique status as near-kin. “We have special ethical responsibilities towards captive great apes,” they say in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Nature, in an article accompanying the formal publication of the chimpanzee genome. “They share traits -- including but not limited to, their genetic similarity to humans, the ability to use and modify tools and a sense of ‘self’ -- that justify this special status.”

Pascal Gagneux, James J. Moore and Ajit Varki of UCSD argue in Nature that “the study of great apes should follow ethical principles generally similar to those for current studies on human subjects who cannot give informed consent,” and they acknowledge the many grey areas that still perplex researchers.

And, they assert, their concern is “not about animal ‘rights’ but about ethical and scientific challenges specific to great apes in captivity.”

“We will undoubtedly be accused of trying to stand on the proverbial slippery slope,” said Varki. “However, depending on one’s perspective, this particular slope can incline in either direction. Thus, this is exactly where we wish to be on this difficult ethical issue.”

(Dr. Gary) Patronek has little patience for common portrayals of animal hoarders as well-intentioned eccentrics.

“This is not about good intentions,” Patronek explains. “It’s about power and control, where the need to retain an animal supersedes the interest of that animal. There’s an enormous subconscious element; they don’t recognize the harm they’re doing even though it’s right in front of them, so it’s easy for a judge or a jury to accept at face value the good intentions. When you get underneath the surface, they’re not trying to rescue creatures at all. If an animal is being starved, it’s being starved.”

Patronek says the evidence suggests that the syndrome has roots in childhood, “a lack of stability in their lives so that animals were the only stable fixture they had, that they learned to rely on for support. Then, in adulthood, the chickens come home to roost, so to speak.”

Blumberg and his crybaby colleagues got off with broken computers, graffiti and subscriptions to Time and TV Guide. Instead of likening animal-rights activists to actual terrorists, they should be thanking them for their restraint.

Terrorists, no matter what their cause, seek political change through violence and intimidation. Is it essential that we label animal-rights extremists as terrorists? Perhaps not, unless such a label helps us -- and especially politicians -- to better appreciate the seriousness of the threat and to marshal the necessary law-enforcement resources.

If you read some of the anti-vivisection websites, you could easily believe that there had been no benefits from animal research. Even the discovery of penicillin, tested on mice, which has indisputably saved millions of lives, is dismissed. Why? Because, it is claimed, penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs and rabbits and it was luck that made Oxford chemists Chain and Florey pick mice for their experiments. Should it negate the fact that without mice, a drug of enormous benefit to both humans and animals might never have been developed? Absolutely not. Nevertheless it remains controversial - last week a guinea pig farm was forced to close by animal rights protesters.