July 20, 2025
From sabotaging hunts and abattoirs to exposing cruelty through covert investigations, Karl Garside was among Britain’s most prolific Animal Liberation Front militants, dedicating over 40 years to the fight for total liberation.
One of the brightest flames in Britain’s animal rights movement has gone out. Karl Garside, Animal Liberation Front (ALF) militant, hunt saboteur, and investigator has passed away aged 59 from heart disease. For more than four decades on the front lines of the fight for animal liberation, Karl fearlessly took direct action to end animal abuse. Across those years of action, he was involved in more actions claimed by the ALF than any other individual, which would make him Britain’s most prolific ALF activist.
Karl was born in Birkenhead in March 1966. In the mid-1970s, his family settled in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. In 1983, aged 17, he threw himself into the fight for animal liberation, going vegan and skipping classes at Trafford College to disrupt the Grand National horse race by invading the course. That same year saw him carry out his first ALF action at Mister Monty Furs, smashing windows and cycling home in a balaclava. He became a member of the Northern Animal Liberation League (NALL), quickly rising to prominence.
The following year, Karl conducted undercover reconnaissance at the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) laboratories in Alderley Edge, dressing in a suit and pretending to attend a job interview ahead of a major raid. That April, he was part of a mass raid by NALL, when around 300 activists stormed and occupied the ICI labs.
