Wrenn, Corey Lee (2 January 2017). "Fat vegan politics: A survey of fat vegan activists' online experiences with social movement sizeism" (PDF). Fat Studies. 6 (1): 90–102. doi: 10.1080/21604851.2017.1242359. ISSN 2160-4851. S2CID 56091535. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 April 2019 . Retrieved 16 August 2019. Godlovitch R, Godlovitch S, and Harris J. (1972). Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans Direct action - the Animal Liberation Front focuses its attention on rescuing animals as well as causing financial loss to the animals’ exploiters, usually through the damage and destruction of their property. By doing so, ALF activists believe they are also working towards ending the ‘property status of non-human animals’. Animal Welfare Act". United States Department of Agriculture. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019 . Retrieved 22 November 2016. Germany guarantees animal rights". CNN. 21 June 2002. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013 . Retrieved 26 June 2008.

Animal liberationists usually boycott industries that use animals. Foremost among these is factory farming, [43] which produces the majority of meat, dairy products, and eggs in industrialized nations. The transportation of farm animals for slaughter, which often involves their live export, has in recent years been a major issue for animal rights groups, particularly in the UK and Scandinavia.

Modern treatment of animals

Some forms of animal treatment, Singer tells us, have improved somewhat. Certain countries began to better regulate animal research as the animal rights movement gained steam in the 1980s. In response to activism and changes in public sentiment, the European Union banned testing of cosmetics on animals, and the US National Institutes of Health ended its support for harmful research on chimpanzees. Johns Hopkins University, December 2008: Animal Liberation Brigade (ALB) claimed responsibility for sending "special letter bombs" to two animal researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The group accused of Johns Hopkins of being one of the "top violators of the Animal Welfare Act" and promised that while the two researchers were selected at random, "All responsible for the torture and oppression of innocent beings will soon receive the same treatment." ALB is a moniker used by an apparent animal rights extremist cell that has targeted UCLA in the past and has claimed responsibility for setting off pipe bombs at the offices of two companies with ties to animal testing in 2003. As Singer argues, such large-scale, profit-driven systems cannot treat animals humanely. Meanwhile, scientific research continues to show that animals, including farmed species, possess many mental capacities similar to those of humans. These capacities, as Charles Darwin recognised, include affection, grief, sympathy, memory, attention and curiosity. It is difficult to identify exactly when ALF first acted domestically; a very early incident in 1979 involved vandals breaking into the New York University Medical School and releasing five animals. From this modest start hundreds of so-called liberations followed throughout the country on a larger scale. In a 1993 report to congress from the Departments of Justice and Agriculture on the "effects of terrorism on enterprises which use animals," investigators called ALF the most significant "radical fringe" animal rights group and reported more than 313 incidents of break-ins, vandalism, arson and thefts committed in the name of animal rights between 1979 and 1993.

In bringing this information together in one place, some points become evident. The sheer prolificness of underground activists in this 30-year old movement is immense, with over 1,500 recorded actions in 40+ years. For all this activity, fewer than 40 activists have been arrested. Of those, only a small handful have served any substantial amount of prison time. The cost/benefit calculation is clear: for the animal liberation movement, the A.L.F. represents a net gain. In July 2004, Jerry Vlasak, a forty-six-year-old heart surgeon from Los Angeles, was banned from entering Britain to attend a conference held by SHAC-UK and SPEAK, an anti-vivisection group, for remarks he made to an audience at an animal rights conference in Los Angles in 2003. Vlasak said that the assassination of scientists working in biomedical research would save millions of animals' lives. "I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective." Whether you agree or disagree with their actions, or have never heard of the ALF, here’s what you need to know about the Animal Liberation Front. Since the 1970s, the Animal Liberation Front has been at the forefront of exposing animal exploitation and cruelty around the world. To understand the motivation of the Animal Liberation Front, it’s important to understand where the ALF came from and the people who set it on the path of direct action in the name of animal rights.Arrests a Rodney Coronado, a longtime spokesperson for the most active extremist environmental and animal rights movements in the U.S. who was involved in the incident, served over three years in prison for aiding and abetting arson. A pork industry representative still felt able to admonish the activist for “putting stress on our animals”.

Stooksbury, Kara E.; Scheb II, John M.; Stephens Jr., Otis H. (2019) [2017]. "Animal Rights". In Stooksbury, Kara E.; Scheb II, John M.; Stephens, Otis H. Jr. (eds.). Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties: Revised and Expanded Edition. Vol.1 (2nded.). Santa Barbara, California and Denver, Colorado: ABC-Clio. p.38. ISBN 978-1-4408-4110-1. LCCN 2017027542. In August 1974, Lee and Goodman went on trial for a raid on an Oxfordshire laboratory and given a prison sentence. On Lee’s release in 1976, he was more focused than ever and renamed the Bands of Mercy as the Animal Liberation Front. This model means there is no centralized organization or coordination; instead the Animal Liberation Front consists of lots of small, autonomous groups of people around the world who choose to undertake direct action in line with the ALF’s original core guidelines:

The future for animals?

What Is Animal Liberation? Philosopher Peter Singer's Groundbreaking Work Turns 40 | A Message From PETA's President | All About PETA | About". PETA. 14 April 2015 . Retrieved 26 July 2015. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is the nation's most active extreme animal rights movement. Composed of anonymous underground cells that oppose any form of animal experimentation and perceived mistreatment, it aims to rescue animals from "places of abuse" and to "inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals [sic]". ALF cells have claimed responsibility for hundreds of "direct actions," a euphemism for crimes that include freeing animals from their owners and property destruction. Origins Singer allows that animal rights are not the same as human rights, writing in Animal Liberation that "there are obviously important differences between humans and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have." [3] Philosopher Shelly Kagan recently argued that what distinguishes severely cognitively impaired humans from non-humans is that the former could have been “persons” were it not for conditions such as brain injury in infancy. Animals, by contrast, were never going to develop into “persons”. Some features of this news story are testament to Animal Liberation’s influence on the animal rights movement, vegetarianism, and society generally. Like Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines (1964), Singer’s book, first published in 1975, opened eyes to society’s almost endless exploitation of animals.