Militant Vegans Wage Campaign Of Hate Against Family Butchers

British butchers and farmers are “living in fear” following a spate of attacks by radical vegan activists.

In early May, a family of butchers in southeast England became the latest target of anti-meat militants, when “Go Vegan” graffiti and the logo of the shadowy Animal Liberation Front were sprayed across their shop.

Staff at Marlow Butchers in Ashford, Kent, have also endured a spate of online abuse.

Wayne Marlow, who helps run the shop with his brother Martin and father Trevor, told Kent Online: "It has got ridiculous - activists from as far away as Australia are getting involved.

"The internet is the worst thing as not only are they threatening to physically destroy our business, but they are also trying to ruin our reputation online, too, by leaving negative reviews and comments.

"They want to close us down and people are threatening to smash the windows or petrol bomb the store.

"We live in fear and we’re up worrying at night - they are terrorising us."

The Marlow family, who have been in business for 54 years, replied by posting a Facebook update that cautioned against an anti-vegan backlash.

It read: “We do not wish for this incident to cause any hatefulness to vegans. Please understand that this was probably the work of activists and is not a true reflection of vegans!”

But since then, the trolling by the opponents of meat and the slaughter of animals has not abated.

One Facebook user wrote: “Despicable place that sells the bodies of horrifically tortured murder victims. There are alternatives we can easily buy in any supermarket or corner shop that do not include terrified, innocent animals having their throats slit so that selfish humans can gorge their flesh gorge a five minute ‘meal.’”

Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance told the Telegraph, "There's been an escalation of attacks on butchers, markets, and even abattoirs and it's an extension of animal rights campaigns we have seen around other areas, using the same tactics including online abuse.”

The term "vegan" was coined in 1944 by Donald Watson who co-founder of the Vegan Society in England. As a child he watched the slaughtering of a pig on his Uncle George’s farm that horrified Watson, changing his view of farm life from rural idyll to Death Row for animals. At first he used it to mean "non-dairy vegetarian" but from 1951 the Society defined it as "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals".

In the last decade, interest in veganism has grown rapidly, highlighted by celebrity vegans such as Beyonce, Brad Pitt and Pink.

In 2016, Google searches for "vegan" increased by 90 percent — up from a 32 percent increase the previous year. The first vegan butcher in the U.S., the Herbivorous Butcher, opened in Minneapolis in 2016.

According to the “Vegetarianism in America” study published by Vegetarian Times, 3.2 percent of U.S adults, or 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian-based diet. However, only a million of those are vegans, who consume no animal products at all.