Animal Rights Activists

Sometimes what you don't want is what you get at McDonald's. Ronald McDonald, dressed to the teeth and in full makeup, got it right in the face yesterday when a couple of animal-rights activists - one dressed in a cow costume - threw a cream pie at him to protest the corporation's dependence on beef. McDonald's uses 100 percent ground beef for its renowned Big Mac's and Quarter Pounders. During the brief scuffle around dinner time under the golden arches at 101 South 52d Street in West Philadelphia, Mr. McDonald, who was on a publicity stop, was approached by two hecklers.

Animal-rights activists were divided Tuesday night over Michael Vick's promotion to Eagles starting quarterback. Tom Hickey Sr., who was critical of the team's original decision to sign Michael Vick, expressed renewed outrage over the Eagles' decision. "This is just another disappointing move of many that the Eagles have done since they signed him," said Hickey, a member of the Pennsylvania Dog Law Advisory board and founder of DogPAC, an animal welfare organization. "The same hands that just three years ago were torturing and killing animals in the most brutal possible ways are now going to be given a starting job because he can throw a football.

TRENTON - Animal-rights activists seeking to protest the state's black bear hunt will head to court Monday to try to persuade a judge to allow them to demonstrate at a bear check station. The advocates conceded Friday there wasn't enough time for them to challenge a court decision allowing the state's six-day bear hunt to begin Monday. They then got informal approval from a state Department of Environmental Protection official to demonstrate at the Franklin bear check station in Sussex County, according to Doris Lin, an attorney for the protesters.

They gathered on the hillside like Indians in an old Western, and at 8 a.m. yesterday, as the first crisp shotgun blast reverberated from the valley below, they moved in to confront the enemy. Carrying cardboard cutouts of birds in flight and placards denouncing the "slaughter" of living creatures, about 400 animal-rights activists began what was to be the loudest and most emotional protest to date of the 56-year- old Labor Day pigeon shoot in this Schuylkill County community. The event, which raises about $10,000 a year to support the local park, has become the focal point of the burgeoning animal-rights movement in Pennsylvania, as well as a rallying point for sympathizers nationally.

Animal-rights activists proved themselves to be meaner than a junkyard dog yesterday as they continued their quest to take control of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. First they elected two of their own to the SPCA board, and then they frustrated old-line board members enough to have them adjourn the annual meeting, held at SPCA headquarters, 350 E. Erie Ave. Though holding only three of 15 seats on the board, the activists so thoroughly monopolized the four-hour meeting with new voting members that they quickly sought the firing of the 12 other board members for their alleged failure to support humane causes.

At 2 p.m. yesterday, as dozens of animal-rights activists picketed the Route 70 entrance to Garden State Park, Bob Karlstromer stood inside holding a microphone for the first pig race of the day at the New Jersey State Fair. "These pigs are 4 months old," he told a crowd forming around a 150-foot oval track. "They've been racing since they were 7 weeks old. They really know what they're doing. "The pig is fifth in animal intelligence. That's smarter than a horse, smarter than a dog. " He yelled, "Load up!

Three protesters wearing white lab coats and gas masks and carrying buckets of urine stormed toward the Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories on Lancaster Avenue yesterday to anoint the building, but ended up dousing several Radnor police officers, police reported. A group of 30 protesters - members of the same group that got steamed over the way a chef cooked a lobster on the Today show in May - showed up to condemn Wyeth's use of the urine of pregnant mares in the manufacturing of Premarin, an estrogen replacement therapy for menopausal women.

After 30 years of being legally protected, the bobcat is on the verge of being hunted again in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow, the state Game Commission likely will approve a lottery through which 290 hunters each will be permitted to shoot or trap one bobcat. The commission, which gave preliminary approval for the hunt in January, was to hear comments from the public today in Harrisburg. Jerry Feaser, a commission spokesman, said for years hunters have been asking to hunt bobcats, the state's only feline predators.

Despite pleas from animal-rights activists yesterday, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is expected to approve the first bobcat hunting and trapping season in 30 years. Under a plan to be voted on today, 290 hunters each would be allowed to take one bobcat. Hunters would be selected by lottery. Noting that most objections were based on philosophical opposition to hunting bobcats - not scientific arguments about the bobcat population - commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said it was unlikely that commission members would change their minds.

ATLANTIC CITY - The "diving horse" has been put out to pasture before its planned comeback. The owner of Atlantic City's Steel Pier said Tuesday he's dropping a plan to bring back the legendary stunt after animal-rights activists lodged fierce criticism. The act, which ran on the pier from the 1920s to the 1970s, featured a horse and a rider plunging into a 12-foot-deep tank from a platform 40 feet high. Anthony Catanoso, whose family owns the historic pier, said he's no longer interested in reviving the attraction, which had helped make the pier famous last century.

EDWARD COFFIN said yesterday was "bittersweet," even though he ended it $15,000 richer. The city agreed to pay Coffin, an animal-rights activist, that sum as a settlement. He sued the city last year with the help of the state's branch of the American Civil Liberties Union after he was illegally arrested during a supermarket protest in 2009. "The money is appreciated, but my ultimate goal was to get better First Amendment training for Philadelphia police officers," he said. "I think I've made some progress, but it's still a major problem.

TRENTON - Animal-rights activists seeking to protest the state's black bear hunt will head to court Monday to try to persuade a judge to allow them to demonstrate at a bear check station. The advocates conceded Friday there wasn't enough time for them to challenge a court decision allowing the state's six-day bear hunt to begin Monday. They then got informal approval from a state Department of Environmental Protection official to demonstrate at the Franklin bear check station in Sussex County, according to Doris Lin, an attorney for the protesters.

ALL BUT ONE of the exotic animals let loose from a 73-acre home zoo in Ohio this week have been either killed or captured, officials said yesterday, with the one unaccounted for - a monkey - believed to have been eaten by one of the big cats. But the bizarre case of Terry Thompson, 62, who threw open his menagerie's cages on Tuesday before taking his own life, is far from over. Among the latest disclosures was that Thompson and his wife owed at least $68,000 in unpaid income and property taxes, according to court records.

Since moving to a two-acre wooded lot in a rural section of Winslow in the mid-1970s, Ivan Murray and his family have kept dogs. But what had been a couple of dogs now is 26. The animals, mostly pit bulls, live outside year-round among junked cars and trailers spread across the property. "They're like my kids," said Murray's mother, Loretta, 76, a school bus driver. "They don't bother anyone. If I tell my puppies someone's coming, they'll stay quiet. " The oversize collection of canines has attracted the attention of animal-control officers and animal-rights activists, who have attempted to have the dogs removed from the property.

Since moving to a two-acre wooded lot in a rural section of Winslow in the mid-1970s, Ivan Murray and his family have always kept dogs. But what had been a couple of dogs now is 26. The animals, mostly pit bulls, live outside year-round amid junked cars and trailers spread across the property. "They're like my kids," said Ivan Murray's mother, Loretta, 76, who works as a school bus driver. "They don't bother anyone. If I tell my puppies someone's coming, they'll stay quiet.

The deer herd in Valley Forge National Historical Park has multiplied eightfold in 25 years, and officials say a thousand acres of forest are being eaten alive by deer. That is why, to the horror of animal-rights activists, federal sharpshooters with rifles and night-vision goggles aim to cut the herd from more than 1,200 to fewer than 200 during the next four years. The carcasses are to be given to food banks. Citing public-safety concerns, the park has been secretive about revealing the timing of the shoots, saying only that they would happen between November and March and that the park would be closed off when they occurred.

The deer herd in Valley Forge National Historical Park has multiplied eightfold in 25 years, and officials say a thousand acres of forest are being eaten alive by deer. That is why, to the horror of animal-rights activists, federal sharpshooters with rifles and night-vision goggles aim to cut the herd from more than 1,200 to fewer than 200 during the next four years. The carcasses are to be given to food banks. Citing public-safety concerns, the park has been secretive about revealing the timing of the shoots, saying only that they would happen between November and March and that the park would be closed off when they occurred.

Animal-rights activists were divided Tuesday night over Michael Vick's promotion to Eagles starting quarterback. Tom Hickey Sr., who was critical of the team's original decision to sign Michael Vick, expressed renewed outrage over the Eagles' decision. "This is just another disappointing move of many that the Eagles have done since they signed him," said Hickey, a member of the Pennsylvania Dog Law Advisory board and founder of DogPAC, an animal welfare organization. "The same hands that just three years ago were torturing and killing animals in the most brutal possible ways are now going to be given a starting job because he can throw a football.