Firebomb attacks anger, worry UC scientists who use animals in research

"It is outrageous when people's families are targeted," said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. "This is incredibly serious because it could have led to loss of life. It's chilling."

But Block, a biologist who uses mice in his research on circadian rhythms, said he expects the violent attacks to deter few scientists from working with animals.

"There is deep concern in our community," he said. "People are concerned about their safety, but that is not affecting their work. They are going to continue doing the research."

The incendiary devices that went off in Santa Cruz struck three minutes apart just before 6 a.m. Aug. 2. One destroyed a car outside the home of a researcher who has not been publicly identified. The other exploded on the front porch of researcher David Feldheim's home. As smoke filled the house, he, his wife and their two children fled down an emergency rope ladder. Feldheim injured his feet when he hit the ground.

A sprinkler over the front door helped suppress the blaze and, university officials said, kept it from spreading to other houses in the suburban neighborhood of attached dwellings.

"This is the first attack on animal researchers we are aware of where there were children in the home," said Bruce Margon, UC Santa Cruz's vice chancellor for research. "Everyone agrees that is totally unconscionable."

Investigators said they have collected a large amount of forensic evidence from the two bomb sites and are treating the cases as attempted homicides. The city and university police departments, the FBI, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state fire marshal's office are participating in the investigation.

For the last few years, University of California scientists who use laboratory animals in their research have been harassed and threatened by activists who contend that the researchers are torturing animals.

Protesters, sometimes wearing masks or wielding bullhorns, have confronted researchers in public or shouted obscenities outside their homes in the middle of the night. They have set a van ablaze at UC Irvine and flooded a UCLA scientist's home with her garden hose. And they have planted bombs outside UCLA researchers' homes that caused minor damage or didn't explode.