Animal Rights

As soon as he heard his car alarm blare and saw the orange glow through his bedroom window, UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch knew that his fears had come true. His 2006 Volvo, parked next to his Westside house, had been set ablaze and destroyed in an early morning attack March 7. Jentsch had become the latest victim in a series of violent incidents targeting University of California scientists who use animals in biomedical research.

Under a large shade umbrella in a Santa Monica courtyard, Lucie and Estella nibbled on cherry tomatoes and greeted moviegoers at a film festival screening Sunday morning. As film festival guests go, they were unusual -- they're chickens. Even for chickens, they are exotic -- Belgian bearded d'Uccles. Lucie is a deep orange hue speckled with black and white. Estella is black and white. And as befits a turn in the spotlight at a film festival, their feathered feet gave the appearance that they were shod in elaborate pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes.

Love and marriage, for Kelly Respess, are better suited to a horseless carriage -- specifically, the antique Ford that delivered her to her wedding on a busy Central Park corner. It was a small but eye-catching salvo in the long-running war between animal rights activists such as Respess and her groom, Paul Kercheval, and the horse-drawn carriages that are as much a fixture in Central Park as rats are in subway tunnels. If the Kerchevals have their way, a fleet of electric cars made to resemble vintage automobiles will replace the hansom cabs -- retaining, the couple says, Central Park's old-world flavor while relieving the beasts of their burden and being kind to the environment.

Four animal activists have been arrested for their alleged roles in attacking and harassing animal researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz over the last 18 months, the FBI announced Friday. The arrests are a breakthrough in the investigation of attacks against a number of University of California animal researchers that have long frustrated police and school officials.

The video images were disturbing -- a tiny white kitten singed with the flame from a lighter; a gray cat struggling beneath a woman's spiked heel; pit bulls tearing into a trapped animal. The Supreme Court has often said that freedom of speech includes ugly and foul language. But this fall the justices will be looking at video clips like these to decide whether selling films of dogfights or animal torture is protected from prosecution under the 1st Amendment. The dispute, expected to be heard in early October, has driven a wedge between traditional free-speech advocates and defenders of the humane treatment of animals.

Tom Rider, who used to be a "barn man" for Ringling Bros., said that when he worked there in the late 1990s, he regularly saw handlers of the circus' endangered Asian elephants abusing the giant creatures. He said they used long, sharp-hooked poles, "hitting them in the legs, hooking them behind the ears" and leaving gashes the size of his finger. Ringling denies the allegations, saying it has never been cited for animal cruelty.

Seeking to protect scientists who conduct experiments using animals, UCLA will go to court today to request a temporary restraining order against animal rights groups and activists accused of harassing university researchers. The university said it would ask a Superior Court judge in Santa Monica to limit the activities of five individuals and three organizations that maintain websites, including one that identifies researchers and lists their home addresses.

IN two previous thrillers, FBI Special Agent Ana Grey stalked criminals through the same neighborhoods around Santa Monica where she'd been raised by her grandfather. Among the highlights of those books -- "North of Montana" and "Good Morning, Killer" -- were the spot-on observations about daily Los Angeles life, the keen glimpses of parallel cultures that coexist on the same streets without much connection.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge agreed Thursday to sharply limit the contact between animal rights activists and researchers at UCLA who had been targeted for their work with animals. In a Santa Monica courtroom, Judge Gerald Rosenberg granted most of the terms sought by attorneys for the Regents of the University of California in a temporary restraining order against five individual activists and three animal rights groups.

South Africa announced Monday that it would allow the killing of elephants as a population control, a move strongly condemned by animal welfare groups. Beginning in May, the government will lift a 13-year ban on elephant culls, usually carried out by shooting entire herds, including youngsters, from helicopters. The move could hurt the country's tourist industry, with animal welfare lobbies calling for a tourist boycott to protest culling.