'My Children Are Heartbroken, I've Had Nothing But Tears'

Stay classy, animal rights wackos.

Every morning before school, Barney the rabbit could expect a little treat and a bit of loving attention.

But when his owner, 13-year-old Kiera Bailey, came downstairs to make her daily check on him, the schoolgirl received a dreadful surprise.

Instead of her beloved pet - bought nine years ago after a bad experience at school - there was an empty hutch and a threatening note, apparently from animal rights extremists.

It read: 'This is animal cruelty. Rabbits should not be left in hutches, they should be out in the wild and socialising.'

Now Barney is feared to have been let out into local countryside - where rabbit experts say he would be unlikely to survive more than a few days, at the mercy of foxes and other hazards.

As police launched an investigation into his disappearance, Kiera's furious father demanded that whoever took him brought him back.

'My children are heartbroken, I've had nothing but tears,' said Oliver Bailey, 38. 'They are absolutely horrified.

'They love the rabbit and play with him every day. He is taken to the vets regularly and gets the best possible treatment.

'We are just heartbroken to be accused of animal cruelty to a pet rabbit we love dearly.'

These people are simply evil.

Stay Classy, Animal Rights Wackos

These people wonder why the sane among us consider them freakazoids. It's not so much caring about animlas, but taking it to extremes. A poor mother has twins mauled by a fox, which is bad enough, and now she's got to deal with nutcases threatening her?

The parents of the children mauled by a fox are receiving police protection amid concern over threats from animal rights activists.

Officers have been assigned to guard the family home and police liaison officers are in contact with Pauline and Nicolas Koupparis.

Their nine-month-old twins Lola and Isabella suffered ‘life-changing injuries’ when they were savaged in their cots in Hackney, East London, a week ago.

Scotland Yard said it was not aware of a specific threat against the family but admitted that there was ‘concern’ over inflammatory postings on social networking sites.

Yesterday a woman phoned the Radio 4 programme Any Answers to say she had heard from friends and relatives in Hackney that Mr and Mrs Koupparis were being ‘harangued and besieged’ by animal rights activists.

The caller also said there were messages on internet sites, allegedly accusing the family of seeking publicity after their ordeal.

One anti-foxhunting group set up a Facebook page called ‘Pauline Koupparis is a lying b****’.

The page has since been taken down.

Another group, calling itself ‘Urban Fox Defenders’, has attracted more than 500 members.

One, who gave her name as Alison Smith, wrote: ‘I really can’t see how a fox could be SO brazen as to go into a house, up the stairs, past adults, and go for two children.. .

'There is something here that simply does not add up!’

What is wrong with these people?

Stupid: PETA Clowns Want to Replace Punxsutawney Phil With a Robot

For all the dumb stunts these crackpot radicals have offered up over the years, this one may be the most insipid.

The animal rights group PETA is demanding that America's beloved harbinger of spring, Punxsutawney Phil, be replaced with ... a robot.

The group says it's unfair of the Groundhog Day festival organizers to subject the furry critter to the bright lights and huge crowds that descend on the tiny Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney every Feb. 2.

"Make the compassionate decision to use an animatronic Phil and retire the live groundhogs who are used for Groundhog Day activities to a sanctuary," wrote Gemma Vaughan of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"Tradition is no excuse for cruelty."

William Deeley, president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, said Phil is the most pampered groundhog in the world.

"This is just crazy," Deeley told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"Phil is probably treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania. He's got air conditioning in the summer, his pen is heated in winter ... He has everything but a TV in there. What more do you want?"

Besides, Pennsylvania already has an animatronic "Gus the Groundhog," who is the "spokesanimal" for the state lottery.

In other animal rights wacko news, the kooks have also trained their sights on men's skating diva Johnny Weir, upset that the flamboyant Olympian is wearing fur.

On January 17 Johnny Weir did his free skate in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships wearing a bodysuit with a hint of fox fur on the shoulder. Animal-rights groups, predictably, are not having it. One such organization, called Friends of Animals, posted an open letter to Weir on their site asking him not to wear fur. They also contacted his costume designer, Stephanie Handler, yesterday. The AP explains:

Weir loves fashion, and his costumes tend to be on the avant-garde — some would say extreme — side. When the three-time U.S. champion redesigned his free skate costume before nationals, he had Handler add a tuft of white fox fur to the left shoulder.

Weir said he thought the costume was "lovely," but Friends of Animals disagreed.

Here's a look at Weir's "lovely" outfit.

For Those About to Rock, Uh, Find Something Else To Do

Forget about having any fun at this planned AC/DC concert. The animal rights wackos are calling the shots.

AUSSIE rockers AC/DC could have to cancel a sold-out concert because their big sound poses a danger to rare birds.

Animal rights campaigners are threatening legal action if the veteran band goes ahead with a gig planned for Wels airport in Austria in May.

Hans Uhl of BirdLife said birds nesting in the area at the time would be threatened by anthems such as Highway To Hell and You Shook Me All Night Long.

The commenters are taking it well.

It's not just the birds at risk here. Think of the Carbon Emissions and Noise Pollution. I suggest we get Rudd and Wong on the case immediately. (They should have recovered from their junket to Copenhagen by now). If not for our sake, for the sake of our children, and our children's children, and their children's chldrens's next door neighbours.

A Chimp is Just a Chimp

I am not an animal!

Animal rights stupidity taken to the ultimate extreme.

VIENNA, Austria - Austria's Supreme Court has dashed hopes by animal rights activists to have a chimpanzee declared a person, a statement suggested Tuesday.

The court recently rejected a petition to appoint a trustee for the chimp, named Matthew Hiasl Pan, the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories said, and subsequently vowed to contact the European Court of Human Rights over the matter.

The court's decision follows in the footsteps of a similar ruling last fall. In September, a provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case, ruling the Association Against Animal Factories has no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.

The legal back and forth began in February, when the animal shelter where Pan and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years filed for bankruptcy protection.

Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless. Both were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Previously.