Live #08 Voices against Vivisection outside Parliament
Off the Leash
English - February 09, 2022 19:00 - 23 minutes - 16.3 MBNature Science environment campaigning. wildlife animal welfare animal protection animal rights politics Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Live recordings made at a protest outside the Houses of Parliament on the 7th of February 2022.
The protest took place (to a background of thunderous and emotionally-charged chants from the tireless Sol and Helen of Camp Beagle) before a debate in the Commons, triggered by a petition asking for laboratory animals to be included in the Animal Welfare Act which gathered over 100k signatures before it closed in January.
Vivisection, animal testing, confining animals to laboratories and experimenting on them is nothing new of course. Protests have been going on for decades. Perhaps the most visible protest at the moment though is the campaign targeting Marshall Bio Resources which supply beagle puppies for experimentation from the awful MBR Acres puppy mill near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. The #FreetheMBR Beagles campaign and Camp Beagle which is set up outside the gates of MBR Acres have put the spotlight on breeding a sweet-natured, curious, and trusting breed of dog for use in a laboratory.
Charlie visited the Camp and recorded activists there in November last year, and that explains why for this recording he gravitated towards - in particular - Polly, one of the founders of Camp Beagle and Sammi, one of the Camp Beagle stalwarts he spoke with on that previous visit. Our apologies if we've inadvertently put the focus on just one element of the protests against vivisection - Off the Leash would be very happy to make up shortfalls with more shortcasts or interviews if anyone involved would like to get in touch.