• Better, Kinder BurgersAnimal-rights advocates are getting more sophisticated—and more effective—but the specter of violence still lurks in the background of their continuing political crusade.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claimed victory last June after more than 950 "Murder King" protest rallies spread over five months prompted Burger King, the world's second largest fast-food chain, to announce new guidelines for its meat and egg suppliers, including extra water, wing room, and fresh air for egg-laying hens, and mandatory stunning of pigs and cattle prior to slaughter. Surprise inspections by Burger King auditors will help to ensure that suppliers treat animals humanely right up to the end. McDonald's established similar guidelines a year earlier, following a PETA campaign that included distribution of "Unhappy Meals" with wounded, bloody farm-animal toys.
Meanwhile, real violence has been at the forefront of recent animal-rights campaigns in Great Britain. During the past two years, activists have conducted a crusade against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a laboratory that tests drugs and other products on animals. Employees' cars were firebombed; then the ante was upped in February when masked attackers surprised the company's managing director, Brian Cass, outside his Cambridgeshire home and beat him with baseball bats. Financial institutions severed ties to the lab as a result of personal threats against bank managers, protest rallies, vandalism of ATM machines, and billboards that decried "Bankers to Animal Killers." In response, the Bank of England—the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve—took the highly unusual step of opening an account for Huntingdon Life Sciences. But Huntingdon subsequently announced plans to move its corporate headquarters across the Atlantic to Maryland, hoping that the state's privacy laws would better protect the company's shareholders.
Since last January, the Little Rock-based investment firm Stephens Group Inc., Huntingdon's largest shareholder, has been the target of activists, and Huntingdon's New Jersey lab has been the scene of protests, vandalism, and, in April, a nighttime raid that "liberated" 14 beagles.
