ALF in Italy / Fur store closes in Portland

ALF Rescue 1,000 Mice and 18 Primates in Italy

Friday, December 01 2006

Some buildings may seem like they are impossible to raid, but only a few really are. Harlan Italy is one of these buildings, a hand full of alarms and security cameras in via Fermi, in Correzzana (MI). Inside this place they breed animals for vivisection. Harlan is one of the major breeders for Italian research labs, part of a multinational dealing in suffering, with divisions in many countries around the globe. Harlan Italy's annual income of 7 million euros is a clear statement: vivisection is a lucrative business.

Knowing that mice, dogs, monkeys, pigs, rats, rabbits and guinea-pigs were in the cages, in complete loneliness, without any sympathy or hugs, waiting to be deported towards a future of torture, is what moved us into action.
The night of Monday 20th of November, a cold and moonless night, as silent as shadows we reached our target, a gruesome monument to human callousness. Through a hole in the ventilation system room we gained access to the false ceiling.

Lifting portions of the false ceiling and using a stair we found ourselves in the rooms where mice and monkeys are bred, going past the alarm system on the doors. Here we set ourselves at work to bring out as many animals we could, take documents and well you can guess the rest.

Harlan rodents are bred under SPF conditions, which means aseptic ones: dozen plastic boxes under a filtered air system. What they do to these small living beings is pure sadism and is at odds with the idea of humanity saviours they built for themselves. In this division Harlan offers their customers also a surgical preparation of the animals: organ removal or mutilations.

Moreover, we also documented the presence in their refrigerators of bodies that the fury of these "scientists" have made impossible to recognise: mice with smashed skulls or crucified with pins, rats with opened abdomens and completely disfigured rabbits.

In a crowded bare cage, full of faeces and with no window, about thirty macaques were looking for comfort, clinging one to the other, traumatized and unhappy. But tonight these animals have met the opposite side of human beings and felt the warm embrace that took them away, far away. Hundreds of mice, many ready to be delivered, and 18 macaques are now in our hands, free.

Fronte di Liberazione Animale



Fur store says it's had enough

Downtown - Hounded by protesters and citing safety issues, Schumacher is pulling out of Portland after 111 years

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

SPENCER HEINZ and SETH PRINCE
The Oregonian

Schumacher Furs & Outerwear, after 111 years of business and one solid year of fervent animal-rights protests, is hanging it up in Portland.

Owner Gregg Schumacher, who depicts the city's core as dangerous and not conducive to retailers, said Tuesday that he's moving his shop to the suburbs, though he wouldn't say where.

"We're leaving downtown Portland because we feel that it's losing its appeal for people to shop in" said Schumacher, 51, rattling off a list of what he called his customers' complaints. "The panhandling, the musicians on the street, the urination in the parking garages. Yes, the protests. But the whole place is not conducive to running a retail operation."

Officials from City Hall to the Portland Business Alliance, while making it clear they're sad to see downtown lose any merchant, particularly such a longtime institution, called Schumacher's claims, in effect, bunk.

They pointed to recent commitments by Macy's and Nordstrom to revitalize their downtown stores. More broadly, Schumacher's comments stand in stark contrast to what many view as a thriving downtown, from the recent maturing of the Pearl District to the start of a projected $2 billion South Waterfront district.

City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who said he'd offered to help Schumacher and his wife, Linda, after the protests started last November, recalled how quickly he came to regret the move.

"I honestly had never been involved in anything in which I felt like the folks I was trying to help did not want to be helped," Leonard said.

"The Schumachers carry at minimum -- at minimum -- equal responsibility for what happened outside their store," Leonard said. "I think the case could be made they did what they could to fan the flames at every opportunity."

As vice president of downtown services for the business alliance, Mike Kuykendall has been intimately involved in working with the Schumachers in the past year. But he balked at Gregg Schumacher's description of downtown.

"It's unfortunate Mr. Schumacher has been the target of this group, and it's a shame that it happened," he said. He cited a poll last year in which 94 percent of members of the downtown business improvement district called the area safe or very safe.

In some ways, what's played out the past year at Southwest Ninth Avenue and Morrison Street has been a faceoff of sorts of Portland's past and present. On one side there are the high-end shoppers who frequent a boutique where most items range from $900 to $7,000, and a sable coat can set you back $150,000. On the other are the activists who take up causes large and small to, in their minds, make the world a better place.

Portland police said the protests, which have resulted in 13 arrests since last December, usually involved eight to 12 people on Saturday afternoons. Last Friday, however, about 200 activists with a parade permit started at the storefront, worked their way up Morrison, back down Yamhill and then back in front of the store. After disbanding, some stuck around to protest for hours. Police reported no incidents from the march.

Mike Reese, commander of Central Precinct, said the demonstrations have strained police resources. "We're always on minimum staffing, so I'm almost always hiring them on overtime," he said, offering a calculation that would put total police cost around $25,000.

As Northwest outreach coordinator for In Defense of Animals, Matt Rossell became the public face of the weekly protests in many ways.

He said some activists might view Schumacher's decision to leave the city limits by spring as a victory. His group, however, isn't satisfied.

"The message that has been delivered over the past year has been hugely successful . . .," Rossell said. "Possibly downtown Portland isn't a place for such an unfriendly-to-animal business to exist."

"I'm sure he'll try to present himself as a victim, as he always does," Rossell said of Schumacher. "The reality, though, is the animals are the victims, not Gregg Schumacher."

Spencer Heinz: 503-221-8072; spencerheinz@news.oregonian.com Seth Prince: 503-221-8172; sethprince@news.oregonian.com

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