Photo Credit: Newsquest
Today (18/10/24) 18 supporters of Animal Rising had a plea hearing at Peterborough Crown Court after rescuing beagle puppies from MBR Acres, a Cambridgeshire animal testing and breeding facility.
The plea hearing today comes after all 18 pleaded not guilty to burglary charges during a week of court hearings held in August 2024 at Cambridge Magistrates Court [1].
All 18 rescuers turned themselves in after the December 2022 rescue of 20 beagle puppies, with two of the puppies, named Love and Libby by Animal Rising, being captured by the police and returned to the facility [2].
The rescuers hope to ‘put animal testing on trial’ when the trial begins on December 1st, 2025.
18 Animal Rising supporters appeared at Peterborough Crown Court today, after requesting their case be taken to Crown Court with the aim of publicly spotlighting the suffering within the animal testing industry in front of a jury.
Orla Coghlan, Animal Rising spokesperson, said:
“Dogs are some of our closest friends and most loving animals, not things to be experimented on and discarded. We intend to highlight the horrors of an industry that has always tried to avoid publicity and scrutiny by going in front of a jury and putting the entire animal testing industry on trial.
It’s clear that animal testing is indefensible and scientifically outdated. Ending animal testing would only benefit both human and animal health.”
The rescuers specify the abuse that the dogs endure as justification for their rescue, with instances of puppies being bled to death to harvest their blood and organs [3] and being force-fed poisons and drugs that leave them “hypersalivating, trembling, vomiting and moaning on the floor” [4] before ultimately dying or being put down.
Alternatives to animal testing such as lab-grown stem cells and advanced computer modeling have proven to be more effective and ethical, [5] given that around 90% of the experimental drugs tested on animals go on to fail in human trials, [6] and “animal studies fail to predict real human outcomes in 50 to 99.7 percent of cases” [7].
Animal Rising is a social movement to create a new relationship with all beings and give us a chance for a safe ecological future. The group primarily calls for the transition to a secure and sustainable plant-based food system, alongside a mass rewilding programme.
ENDS
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press@animalrising.org Notes To The Editor:
[1] https://www.animalrising.org/post/week-of-court-hearings-conclude-for-18-beagle-puppy-rescuers[2] https://www.animalrising.org/post/18-beagle-puppies-freed-from-life-of-suffering-as-rescuers-vow-to-put-animal-testing-on-trial
[3] Bleeding License: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZJeVUWMnE3msPSz1bE-fo_pWOkdJW8jc/view?usp=sharing