Background
Coronado is of Yaqui heritage and lives in Tucson, Arizona. He has a long history of activism. In 1985, at the age of 19, he joined the crew of the conservation ship, Sea Shepherd, and on November 9, 1986, he and another activist, David Howitt, sank two ships, the Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7, accounting for half of Iceland's whaling fleet. Before scuttling the ships, Coronado and Howitt caused $2 million worth of damage to the Icelandic whaling station. Coronado wrote about this action in the animal rights magazine No Compromise.
In 1995, Coronado was convicted and sentenced to 57 months in prison in connection with the February 28, 1992 arson attack on research facilities at Michigan State University (MSU), which caused $125,000 worth of damage. He was also involved in an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) action, releasing mink from a nearby MSU mink research farm, wrecking equipment and opening animals' cages. As a condition of his sentence, Coronado was ordered to pay MSU $2 million in restitution. In 1992 the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (revised in 2006 to Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act), enacted largely in response to the MSU attacks, was "the first step toward equating non-violent acts of sabotage with eco-terrorism".
Read more about this topic: Rod Coronado
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