Over the years, vegans have developed a reputation for being the most annoying dieters on Earth. They’re often smug, self-righteous, and pretentious. They have a tendency to wear their eating habits like a badge of honor, and they look down on anyone who isn’t on board with their lifestyle. But it turns out that those traits are just the tip of the iceberg, because vegans are capable of being way more obnoxious than you think. Especially once they become “activists.”

That’s what a family in Florida learned when members of the animal rights group known as Direct Action Everywhere, crashed their fishing trip.

Hope told ABC Action News that he and his family were fishing for dinner and had caught a tilapia when a young boy approached them and said, “You know fish feel pain, and you’re hurting that fish.”

Moments later, a group of protesters, some wearing blue shirts that read “Animal liberation now,” appeared from around a corner, grabbed the fish and threw it back into the lake. The family was waiting for Hope’s brother to return to the lake with a bucket for the fish.

“We were suddenly ambushed and harrased by these nut jobs,” Hope wrote on Facebook along with the video below that shows a portion of the confrontation. “They literally pushed my mothers leg and stole the fish and threw it into the water.”

The protesters chanted, “It’s not food, it’s violence” and “Fish feel pain, just like us,” as a man in a blue shirt, identified by the Tampa Bay Times as Mike Leaming, argued with several people.

You can see what transpired before that from the perspective of one of the activists, who claimed that fish have the “same ability and same emotions as a human child,” and when told that fishing is legal he replied that slavery used to be legal as well, as if fishing and slavery are comparable to each other. And as is typical with leftist activists, he paraded children in front of the camera to push his agenda. And all of this, for a fish that turned out to be a member of an invasive species.

But that’s not all. This same activist group was seen at a Chick-fil-A several days earlier, 10 miles away from where they harassed these fishermen. There they shouted “animal killers!” at customers, donned animal masks while covered in fake blood, and pretended to stab each other with fake knives. The customers, many of whom had children with them, were having none of it as they shouted “get out!” in unison at the activists.

Animal rights activists have a long history of conducting obnoxious and antagonistic protests, and from the outside looking in, they look utterly ridiculous and insane. There’s a simple explanation for their behavior. These people really seem to think that animals are just like little people, with all the same thoughts, emotions, and physical feelings. And by extension, they think animals should have the same rights as us.

Once someone believes that, screaming at people who are catching fish or eating burgers will seem totally reasonable to them. It won’t however, convince most people to stop eating meat, because that’s freaking mental and meat is delicious.