Posted By: Mira Trapper
Loony tunes dweebs turn themselves into ARA target - 08/10/10 12:39 AM
The Telegraph (UK)
Hoax video made by hunt saboteur backfires in spectacular fashion,
resulting in death threats from animal rights campaigners.
By Toby Young
August 8th, 2010
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyo...ts-campaigners/
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Former hunt saboteur
Chris Atkins was so angry about the media coverage of the fox attack
on the nine-month-old twins in Hackney he decided to make a hoax video
depicting a group of urban fox hunters beating a fox to death in an
alleyway with baseball bats. “We wanted to create something that would
be so ridiculous that in any other area it would be immediately
dismissed as a spoof, but that news outlets desperate to continue the
media narrative against foxes would leap on without any thought as to
its authenticity,” says Atkins.
But if the targets of Atkins’ satire were supposed to be over-zealous
reporters, the stunt backfired spectacularly. Within hours of the
video being posted on YouTube and Facebook, Atkins and his
collaborator, Johnny Howorth, started receiving death threats.
According to a report in yesterday’s Guardian: “Animal rights
campaigners had expressed fury over the ‘bloodthirsty’ huntsmen,
eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by
the Metropolitan police’s wildlife crime unit.”
Had Atkins and Howorth set out to send-up the animal rights movement
rather than fox hunters they could not have been more successful. The
League Against Cruel Sports immediately launched a campaign against
urban fox hunting and the RSPCA announced it was “investigating” the
incident. One self-appointed “protector” of wild animals even offered
a £1,000 reward for anyone who could identify the “monsters” in the
video, an offer that was promptly matched by the Fox Project, an
animal sanctuary in Kent.
The two hapless pranksters came clean in yesterday’s Guardian, anxious
to reassure the more extreme elements in the animal rights movement
that no foxes were harmed in the making of their film. “We are very
sorry for troubling the RSPCA, the police and well-meaning animal
lovers, but hope they understand that this was done to illustrate the
idiotic nature of reporting on foxes, and remind the public how sick
and cruel fox hunting really is,” they said.
Well-meaning animal lovers? Don’t you just love that phrase? As if the
people at the sharp end of the anti-hunting movement are kindly old
ladies who feed pigeons and stray cats rather than mentally-deranged
thugs whose love of animals is so much greater than their love of
mankind that as soon as they think a group of vigilantes have killed a
fox they immediately launch a manhunt to bring the perpetrators to
justice. Little wonder that Atkins and Howorth have now signed a full
confession and thrown themselves at the feet of these Witchfinder
Generals. What poetic irony it would have been if this ex-hunt
saboteur and his sidekick had been rewarded for their “spoof” by being
beaten up by the very people they were attempting to make common cause
with.
Hoax video made by hunt saboteur backfires in spectacular fashion,
resulting in death threats from animal rights campaigners.
By Toby Young
August 8th, 2010
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyo...ts-campaigners/
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Former hunt saboteur
Chris Atkins was so angry about the media coverage of the fox attack
on the nine-month-old twins in Hackney he decided to make a hoax video
depicting a group of urban fox hunters beating a fox to death in an
alleyway with baseball bats. “We wanted to create something that would
be so ridiculous that in any other area it would be immediately
dismissed as a spoof, but that news outlets desperate to continue the
media narrative against foxes would leap on without any thought as to
its authenticity,” says Atkins.
But if the targets of Atkins’ satire were supposed to be over-zealous
reporters, the stunt backfired spectacularly. Within hours of the
video being posted on YouTube and Facebook, Atkins and his
collaborator, Johnny Howorth, started receiving death threats.
According to a report in yesterday’s Guardian: “Animal rights
campaigners had expressed fury over the ‘bloodthirsty’ huntsmen,
eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by
the Metropolitan police’s wildlife crime unit.”
Had Atkins and Howorth set out to send-up the animal rights movement
rather than fox hunters they could not have been more successful. The
League Against Cruel Sports immediately launched a campaign against
urban fox hunting and the RSPCA announced it was “investigating” the
incident. One self-appointed “protector” of wild animals even offered
a £1,000 reward for anyone who could identify the “monsters” in the
video, an offer that was promptly matched by the Fox Project, an
animal sanctuary in Kent.
The two hapless pranksters came clean in yesterday’s Guardian, anxious
to reassure the more extreme elements in the animal rights movement
that no foxes were harmed in the making of their film. “We are very
sorry for troubling the RSPCA, the police and well-meaning animal
lovers, but hope they understand that this was done to illustrate the
idiotic nature of reporting on foxes, and remind the public how sick
and cruel fox hunting really is,” they said.
Well-meaning animal lovers? Don’t you just love that phrase? As if the
people at the sharp end of the anti-hunting movement are kindly old
ladies who feed pigeons and stray cats rather than mentally-deranged
thugs whose love of animals is so much greater than their love of
mankind that as soon as they think a group of vigilantes have killed a
fox they immediately launch a manhunt to bring the perpetrators to
justice. Little wonder that Atkins and Howorth have now signed a full
confession and thrown themselves at the feet of these Witchfinder
Generals. What poetic irony it would have been if this ex-hunt
saboteur and his sidekick had been rewarded for their “spoof” by being
beaten up by the very people they were attempting to make common cause
with.