By WAYNE PARRY
Press Writer

December 22, 2006

NEWARK, N.J. -- The FBI is looking for animal rights activists who vandalized holding pens at a Somerset County quail farm, leading to the deaths of several dozen birds they released in the name of stopping animal cruelty.

Unnamed members of the Animal Liberation Front issued an Internet communiqu De taking responsibility for the damage to the Griggstown Quail Farm Monday night. They said they were acting on behalf of six imprisoned animal rights activists who were convicted of terrorism-related activities in U.S. District Court in Trenton earlier this year.

No arrests have been made.

The vandalism follows warnings by a spokeswoman for the six activists that the convictions under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act would only serve to drive protest actions underground. The law makes it illegal to interfere with businesses that utilize animals, or to threaten or harass employees or clients of such companies.

"Last night we gave an early Christmas present to around 250 of our friends at the Griggstown Quail Farm," the Web bulletin from ALF activists read. "After clipping through the fencing, we cut out large sections of the canopy covering three pens, then flushed several hundred quail, pheasants and partridges out into the starry sky and freedom. The farm is located by a waterway and open fields, and we wish our friends the best of luck in establishing new lives."

But that's not what happened, said Steven Siegel, a spokesman for the FBI's Newark office.

"The persons responsible for this crime wrongly believed they were liberating wild animals when in fact their actions directly resulted in the death of all of the domesticated fowl they 'freed,' " he said. "These particular species are unable to survive in the wild without human assistance.

"When these misguided individuals ripped open the holding pens, they only succeeded in freeing these birds directly into the path of oncoming traffic on a nearby busy highway, and sentenced the remainder to slowly freeze to death without food, water, or shelter," Siegel said. "It's like liberating fish from an aquarium by throwing them on the floor."

The bodies of several dozen birds were discovered near the farm, and none have been retrieved alive so far.

Siegel estimated that the actual number of birds released from the farm was closer to 2,500, not the 250 the group claimed, at a cost to the farm of about $80,000.

"It was his entire breeding stock for next year," he said. "They wiped him out."

The owner of the farm, George Rude, had no immediate comment on the incident.

Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles doctor and spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, which posted the activists' statement, said he does not know who sent it, nor does he want to. But he commended the vandalism, and said if even a small number of animals survived, it was worth it.

"They were all going to die anyway if they were left at the farm, and there's a good chance a lot of them will survive," he said. "If it was you being held in a cage, wouldn't you want a shot at getting out and being free, even if it was only a slim one?"

Last March, six members of the Philadelphia-based Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, as well as the organization itself, were convicted of using a Web site to incite threats, harassment and vandalism against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a New Jersey company that tests drugs and household products on animals.

The Web posting issued the day after Monday's vandalism said the action at the farm was "dedicated to the SHAC 7," the name supporters of the defendants used for them.

It was signed, "Sincerely, the ALF: Putting the Crime back in Christmas since 1984."

"It's the typical, cowardly behavior from the fringes, just like the individuals we prosecuted and sent to federal prison," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. "They operate often in the dark of night, vandalize, intimidate and threaten, then brag about it anonymously on the Internet. There is legitimate protest and then there's criminal activity. This is criminal activity, period, and it can't be justified, except in their own warped minds."