Southern Animal Rights Coalition

Following a 2003 animal liberation raid on Wickham Laboratories, in which Keith Mann, Melvyn Glintenkamp and unknown colleagues removed 695 mice.[2]

SARC were sent messages in July 2004 by a group calling itself the Lobster Liberation Front (LLF) to claim responsibility for a campaign of vandalism aimed at a lobster fisherman in Dorset. The group later spread to Wales,[3] Scotland,[4] Italy, Spain, and Turkey.[5] The groups methods include liberating lobsters and sabotaging lobster pots or fishing boats.[6] The website was again used by the LLF in April 2005 to claim responsibility for further attacks on a fishermen's nets in Dorset.[7] SARC founder Tom Harris appeared on Channel 5 News to defend the actions.[8]

In 2006 a campaign called "Prosecute Porter" was launched and coordinated against Furry Friends pet shop in Barnham, West Sussex. SARC claimed that the animals "do not live in suitable conditions".[9]

After the animals had been removed from the breeding facility SARC continued to hold protests at the pet store and urged a boycott in the local area.[10]

In October 2007, SARC campaigned against the use of goats in diving decompression tests for the Ministry of Defence by the defence research organisation QinetiQ at their Alverstoke Laboratory in Gosport.[11] According to the group, the animals were tested in hyperbaric chambers, in order to simulate under water pressure, to attempt to research the symptoms and possible cures of decompression sickness and to study deep-sea rescue.

In July 2006 rights activists broke into the base and stole nine goats.[12]

Following pressure, the tests were suspended in March 2007 and a committee of experts began looking into alternative research models[13], such as computer-modelling and safe human trials, in an attempt to simulate the effects of decompression sickness, or the bends, caused by ascending too quickly.[14]

It was then announced in February 2008 that the Ministry of Defence had scrapped the experiments with goats, claiming that although they were essential, they had now collected all the information necessary.[15]

Protest outside Truffles in Southsea against the sale of foie gras. Following protests at their Fareham and Southsea branch foie gras was removed from the menu.

In January 2007 a foie gras campaign, "Delicacy of Despair" was launched, targeting restaurants which serve duck liver that the group claim is enlarged as a result of force feeding. Whilst the production of foie gras is banned in the UK, it is still imported. The first restaurant owner targeted by protests, Bistro Montparnasse in Southsea, said that he felt victimised and singled out because other places at the time were also selling the delicacy.[16]

Mike Hancock MP raised a question with the then minister for DEFRA Ben Bradshaw MP about a ban on the importation of the dish.[17].

The campaign to close the Portsmouth Greyhound Track began later in June 2007 after the track was initially painted in January with animal rights slogans, an action claimed by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The track closed in 2010 and was demolished in 2012.[18]