OPINION/COMMENTARY

Animal Crackers

The recent spate of animal rights incidents in Britain was perfectly timed to coincide with the government's upgrade of its anti-animal rights terrorism laws. Recent news reports have shown the strong and growing influence of animal rights extremists in Britain. Apart from the usual terror tactics used against employees and anyone remotely connected to Huntingdon Life Sciences, activists have more recently targeted shareholders from Montpellier, the company due to build a new research laboratory in Oxford. Threats of "prompt action" from extremists brought the project to a screeching halt and resulted in a 19 percent drop in share prices.

Indeed, this kind of situation is not unusual in Britain, where the Animal Liberation Front and its various spin-offs have been making life hell for ordinary people and their families under the banner of preventing animal cruelty. Their actions have even forced many people to go into hiding. It has been estimated that threats from anti-vivisection militants have been costing the country £1 billion per year in lost investments and special protection costs....