Over 4,000 dogs are killed every year in laboratories in the U.K, often after long and painful toxicology experiments. 2,000 of those dogs are bred at Marshall Bio Resources, a compound containing industrial units in Cambridgeshire. At 16 weeks old this company ships beagles that have never seen the light of day off to laboratories. The majority end up with nearby Covance, the now renamed and once notorious Huntingdon Life Sciences.
A long running campaign against the facility has moved over to direct action and set up camp outside the site. Freedom spoke to one of the campaigners.
“For eighteen months this was a very small campaign, but then undercover footage of beagles being loaded into vans gained was featured in the Mirror. A couple of women stayed overnight in their cars and Camp Beagle was born. It’s grown and grown. Since we’ve been here they’ve been unable to get any dogs out”
Image: Free The MBR Beagles
Free the MBR Beagles have now successfully blockaded the transport of any beagles from the site for thirty days, and numbers by the roadside are growing. Sunday (August 1st) saw three hundred gather outside the gates and block workers in for two hours. There were two arrests and police used pepper spray. “It was amazing, there was a real angry energy. We’re determined to shut this place down”
Huntingdon and the surrounding area are ground zero for U.K Bioresearch and the state’s war on the animal rights movement. Despite enormous repression including undercover infiltration, blanket injunctions and lengthy prison sentences for activists on conspiracy charges this new twist shows that struggle for animal liberation goes on!
For details on how to support, check out Camp Beagle and Free the MBR Beagles.
Fundraiser
07784 957933
Camp site PE28 2DT Sawtry way , Wyton
~Bill Stickers
Featured image: Free The MBR Beagles.
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