Vegan vigilantes who pester our farmers are doing more harm than good, writes Susie O’Brien

Storming steak restaurants, balaclava-clad late night break-ins at chicken farms and shoving cameras in dairy farmers’ faces — these brazen vegan ‘vigilantes’ go too far and need to back off our farmers, writes Susie O’Brien.

Susie O’Brien doesn’t blame Aussie farmer Jason Parravacini for getting antsy when two vegans started filming his calves from the airconditioned comfort of their car. . Picture: Zoe Phillips.

I love vegan food — as long as it’s on my plate next to a steak.

What I hate are vegan activists trying to convert the rest of us by breaking the law. All they’re doing is harassing farmers and endangering animals.

Anyone working on an Australian farm is already doing it tough, so the last thing farmers need is a mob of sanctimonious vegans giving them grief.

VEGANS, BACK OFF OUR FARMERS: MINISTER

WHY THIS WAG-SPRUIKED TREND IS DIRTY, AND DEADLY

THIS IS WHY WOMEN HATE THE C-BOMB

I don’t blame Aussie farmer Jason Parravacini getting antsy when two vegans started filming his calves from the airconditioned comfort of their car.

They were members of Direct Action Everywhere, a notorious animal liberation group known for civil disobedience and trespassing on farms. They’re the sorts of vegans you see storming steak restaurants, slapping offensive labels on supermarket meat and holding vigils for cows outside slaughterhouses.

Animal activists are now cashed-up thanks to public donations and they’re even publishing maps of poultry and pig farms to encourage lawlessness. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Mr Parravacini, from Harvey in WA, fired his shotgun to get rid of the do-gooder pests, before yanking the keys from the ignition of their car.

This is not an isolated example. Vegan activists are getting more and more brazen with their attacks on farmers in this country. One meat-free warrior even abused a heartbroken dairy farmer from SA who was sharing the news of the closure of her family’s farm after years of struggling to stay afloat.

“It’s a horrifically cruel and abusive industry, even if the dairy farmers don’t see it that way, it is for the animals,” activist Joey Carbstrong said in a social media clip.

Well, the rest of us drink milk so we’re on the side of the farmers, not the tofu-eaters.

Such activists are now cashed-up thanks to public donations and they’re even publishing maps of poultry and pig farms to encourage lawlessness.

One vegan warrior told her social media followers to go to chicken farms late at night wearing balaclavas to “save” the animals.

This sort of action, which puts the safety of animals at risk, is not going to attract anyone new to the cause or win broad public support.

Rather, it’s going to put people off because they come across as a mob of crackpots.

There are many worthy animal causes to support, such as the live export of stock to the Middle East in poor conditions or the raising of dogs on puppy farms. I care about animals, but spare me the wrath of the vegan vigilantes.

MORE SUSIE O’BRIEN

MORE HERALD SUN OPINION

@susieob