Animal rights time-line

The animal rights movement began in earnest in 1963 with the formation of the Hunt Saboteurs Association, which put its members between the hunters and their quarry in protest at hunting with dogs.
In the early 1970s some hunt saboteurs formed a new group, the Band of Mercy, whose aim was to prevent hunts from taking place and who campaigned against vivisection and pharmaceutical laboratories. After a series of criminal acts including destroying hunters' guns and slashing car tyres a number of members were jailed, including two of the founders.
In 1975 the Australian philosopher Peter Singer published Animal Liberation, which looked at the animal rights issue from a utilitarian point of view. Singer concluded that veganism was the only truly ethical diet and criticised most vivisection, except in cases where the benefits for medicine outweigh the pain endured by animals. The following year the Band of Mercy renamed itself the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and makes clear it will not rule out illegal acts such as breaking into laboratories, but it says it does not condone violence against people or animals.
The 1980s saw the emergence of two new groups. The Hunt Retribution Squad formed in 1984 and declared itself willing to inflict harm on blood sport participants and in 1985 the Animal Rights Militia was launched and targeted animal testers by sending them explosives.
In 1994 the anti-terrorist branch at Scotland Yard warned of the emergence of a group called the Justice Department which targets people it accuses of cruelty to animals. The organisation is believed to be part of the ALF. A campaign to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's biggest animal testing lab, began in 1999.
In 2003 a ban on animal testing in the EU cosmetic industry was agreed after a 13-year campaign led by the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments. In 2004 the construction of a primate research centre at Cambridge is successfully halted as the government announces plans to stop animal rights protesters from targeting the homes of scientists who perform research on animals.
In 2005 John and Christopher Hall, of Darley Oaks farm in Staffordshire, announce they are to end the breeding of guinea pigs there after a six-year campaign against them that included the theft of the body of Gladys Hammond, Christopher Hall's mother-in-law, from a nearby churchyard.

by Jonathan Kennedy