Turkey Vultures Pilfered by Animal Rights Protesters

Less than three months after a $2.5-million fire heavily damaged a partly completed University of California veterinary research facility, members of a militant animal rights group Saturday broke into the university Raptor Center to release five turkey vultures.

The Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for the early morning break-in, UC Davis Director of Public Communications Maril Stratton said.

FBI investigators are also looking into links between the animal rights group and the April 16 fire.

Stratton said that the center’s director, Terry Schulz, discovered the five animals were missing, along with a note, a broken window and a lock missing from the front gate about 7:30 a.m.

The note read: “Seven turkey 1080 vultures hath been released. All records were checked. No more sacrifices!”

There was a slash through the number, and the note was signed with the initials “ALF,” Stratton said.

However, Stratton said Schulz discovered only five birds missing from the facility that rehabilitates and performs research on birds of prey.

She said the center was conducting research to study the secondary effects of a rodent poison called compound 1080, generally used to control ground squirrels. The studies are trying to determine what happens to birds of prey that consume the bodies of poisoned animals.

Stratton confirmed that some of the birds were given poison to study the effects and “were sacrificed” at the end of the research.

Of the five missing birds, three were used in the poison studies, Stratton said. Two birds had been “imprinted” and were familiar with humans. Those two birds were also used as surrogate parents for other birds.

Stratton said FBI investigators were investigating the fire, but are “still not close to an arrest.”