Shocking new footage from a factory puppy farm in the US has exposed the brutal conditions and experiments an animal testing company is carrying out. However, the same US-based company operates similar facilities in the UK. In other words, corporations are engaged in atrocious animal abuse much like the experimentation caught in the video. It’s why animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are calling on the UK government to act.
PETA: horrifying puppy farm footage
An animal rights campaign group has uncovered the horrific treatment US corporation Marshall BioResources is meting out on beagles at its New York-based MBR Acres facility:
You’ve never seen a video like this 💔
Dogs who make it out of MBR Acres are experimented on and then killed. Some of these barbaric procedures may be funded by your taxes. Watch till the end to see what the beagle breeder tried to hide. pic.twitter.com/wZ1IEh5oEG
— PETA UK (@PETAUK) August 8, 2024
As PETA UK wrote on the undercover footage captured by anti-MBR activist group Camp Beagle:
Whistleblower photographs recently shared with PETA US from inside Marshall’s New York facility show ferrets locked inside dingy wire cages caked in faeces, while beagles and their puppies sit in barren cages with metal mesh floors above soiled concrete.
The whistleblower also alleged that cages were only cleaned every two weeks, feeders were mouldy, and puppies were commonly found dead in their enclosures with large quantities of blood. The whistleblower said that staff also handled dogs roughly, injuring their jaws, and confined incompatible dogs to a single cage, causing stress-induced fights.
Moreover, PETA has highlighted that while senselessly killing animals, MBR rakes in staggering profits in the millions every year. In 2023, the UK MBR Acres subsidiary alone had assets totalling over £1.3m.
MBR Acres harming animals in the UK too
After releasing the footage from the US animal testing facility PETA UK is calling on the UK government to end the cruel practice. This is because companies also carry out similarly horrendous animal torture and imprisonment here.
In 2021, campaign group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty exposed a beagle breeding factory farm in Cambridgeshire. PETA highlighted that the farm – also owned by MBR Acres – purportedly churns out:
a total of between 1,600 and 2,000 offspring for medical testing each year.
There, footage revealed staff packing pups into overcrowded crates, feeding them toxic chemicals, and subjecting the canines to other callous experiments, before slaughtering them.
In 2022, animal testing sites carried out 4,122 procedures on dogs in the UK. These are the latest government statistics available. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Overall, companies abused animals in scientific procedures 2.76 million times in that year alone.
PETA petition: UK government must step up
Given the staggering levels of animal cruelty involved – as the latest State-side footage showed – PETA is demanding the UK government take action. Specifically, the animal rights organisation has an ongoing petition.
At the time of writing, more than 120,000 people had signed it. In particular, the petition text reads:
Please commit to the EU’s final goal of fully replacing the use of animals in scientific procedures to ensure that the UK is not left behind – in either animal-welfare standards or scientific innovation – in the wake of Brexit. Although EU Directive 2010/63/EU (the Directive) has been transposed into the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the UK has not formally adopted the EU’s ultimate goal of replacing the use of animals in scientific procedures, as reflected in Recital 10 of the Directive.
Notably, the EU has committed to phasing out animal testing, but the UK government has yet to do the same. It therefore calls for the UK urgently to catch up in developing a roadmap for this:
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the government take this official step immediately, establishing a clear policy within a legislative framework, mandating an end to experimentation on animals, and providing a clear strategy and timeline for achieving this goal. Redirecting funding away from unreliable and unethical tests on animals and instead investing in superior, non-animal methods will benefit humans, animals, and the future of science in the UK.
Feature image via X – PETA UK/Camp Beagle/ the Canary
