A group of militant vegan activists has confirmed to The Sleaze that three of its members have died during a recent campaign in Africa. It is believed that the three were eaten by lions after approaching a pride of the animals as they fed on a wildebeest they had just killed, shouting “Meat is murder, you furry bastards!”. “It had all been going so well up to that point,” Leopold Martwick, leader of the Vegans Against Carnivores group. “Our people had successfully frightened several herds of zebra and antelopes away from lions which had been hunting them – the pride we were targeting hadn’t been able to kill in over a week. Then this happened – it is such a tragedy!” Martwick’s group is dedicated to converting predatory animals such as big cats, wolves and birds of prey to vegetarianism. “Their exploitation of peace loving herbivorous animals is absolutely disgusting – do you know how many of them these carnivorous bastards kill in the average year?” demands Martwick. “All under the excuse of ‘having to eat’. Everyone knows that eating meat is a lifestyle choice, not a biological necessity! Believe me, if you can stop them from killing for long enough, they’ll start eating vegetables rather than starve!”

The group previously hit the headlines for a series of stunts at zoos and safari parks in the UK. Perhaps most infamously, a number of the militant vegans were arrested after pelting a tiger’s cage with fresh fruit and vegetables at Walthamstow Zoo. “We were just trying to ensure that he got his five-a-day, so that he’d have no need to eat meat,” explains Martwick. “We weren’t doing any harm to any of the animals, despite the claims of the zoo keepers who forcibly threw us off of the premises.” The zoo’s assistant director begs to differ, claiming that the tiger was left severely traumatised by the incident. “The poor bugger was terrified, he was cowering in a corner of his cage. I mean how would you like to have bloody cauliflowers and cabbages thrown at you?” says a still indignant Charles Coppler. “It could have done him a severe injury. His fur started to fall out after that business, it took him months to recover.” At the same zoo, another activist jumped into the otter enclosure, knocked a fish from the mouth of one of the marine mammals, before wrestling it to the ground and trying to force feed it a nut cutlet. After being severely bitten by the enraged otter, the vegan was expelled from the zoo and arrested. “We were just trying to prove that eating meat is a choice,” Martwick declares. “We came bloody close there – that evil otter bastard nearly swallowed!”

In a particularly bizarre incident, a group of activists tried to prevent a dog from suckling three orphaned leopard cubs at Bracknell Safari Park. “Those leopards were clearly exploiting that dog by drinking her milk,” Martwick opines. “It was bloody outrageous, Not to mention unnatural. I mean, if random babies started suckling at the breasts of any passing lactating woman without her express consent, I think people would object, it would clearly be seen as exploitative. Why should it be any different for animals?” But it isn’t just zoo animals which have been targeted by the militant vegans, their controversial ‘carnivore conversion’ therapy, to which they have subjected domestic pets, has also brought them notoriety. “It’s just the logical extension of our core belief that eating meat is a lifestyle choice and it is a behaviour which can be adjusted in any animal,” says Martwick of the procedure which many vegans have employed to ‘convert’ their pet dogs and cats to vegetarianism. “You don’t know how embarrassing it is, as a committed vegan, to have some furry bastard in the corner of the kitchen wolfing down the meat of murdered animals. It completely undermines your principles in front of guests, leaving them thinking that you are a bloody hypocrite.”

The ‘conversion therapy’ involves strapping down the offending pet and alternately showing it pictures of meat and vegetables– every time it salivates at the sight of meat, it receives an electric shock. Over time, the vegans claim, the pet learns to associate meat with pain, vegetables with relief from pain. Despite the process being condemned by the RSPCA, Martwick denies that it is cruel. “Look, any pain we might cause the pets in question is nothing to the pain they inflict on their prey,” he insists. “Besides, they deserve it – they only hunt and kill things because they are little bastards, not because they need to eat them.” The organisation claims a high success rate for the procedure, citing nearly a hundred cases of cats and dogs ‘converted’ to vegetarian diets. The RSPCA, however, has pointed out that the majority of these animals have subsequently died of malnutrition.

But isn’t just the RSPCA who have been critical of the militant Vegans Against Carnivores group, with top food writer and self proclaimed ‘King of the Carnivores’ Jayston Rainman recently launching a scathing attack upon their core beliefs. “It’s all very well these crazy bastards going on about the exploitation of animals and how cruelly they are treated, but they’ve got nothing to be proud of,” he wrote in his column in the Sunday Bystander. “Have you seen the conditions they keep vegetables in? Buried up to their stems in dirt and exposed to the elements – it’s bloody outrageous!” Rainman has also castigated the vegans for the way they prepare their food. “They regularly cut up, dice, mash and even boil vegetable while they are still alive,” he alleges. “Don’t they know that plants feel pain? Every time you pick a rose, the bush screams, so just imagine the agony they are causing all those legumes and the like?” Undeterred by their critics, the Vegans Against Carnivores have announced their latest campaign, which will involve activists dressed as cows infiltrating cattle trucks delivering livestock to slaughter houses. “It’s quite brilliant, a win-win situation,” crows Martwick. “With luck, they’ll have to suspend all activity at the slaughter houses rather than risk killing human activists! But if a few of our people get the captive bolt gun to the forehead, then think of the negative publicity for the meat trade, not to mention creating a few vegan martyrs!”