No students showed up to a protest against animal testing organised by the organisation Camp Beagle yesterday (22/1).

The protest targeted Marshall BioResources (MBR) – an international animal breeder for biomedical research. Their breeding site in Huntingdon (around 20 miles from the city centre) breeds and provides beagle puppies for testing.

Demonstrators gathered at 10:30 in Christ’s Pieces before marching to Market Square where the demonstration continued. Gentle chants of “free the MBR beagles” could be heard throughout the centre of town.

The activists were shocked by the distinct lack of young people present, with most activists being Cambridge residents. One protester, Jo, said she had “absolutely no idea why more young people aren’t reaching out to Camp Beagle”, but hoped that their growing online presence would encourage more students to reach out.

Mikey, who coordinated the protest, agreed, saying “we need boots on the ground so we want to encourage more people to come down to Camp Beagle and join the effort. We‘re peaceful protesters - we do things peacefully and legally and so it would be great to have that support.”

Camp Beagle aims to use peaceful methods of protest to shut down MBR and ultimately ban animal testing in the UK.

They described the treatment of laboratory animals as “brutal”, explaining that “toxicity testing on dogs involves being force fed large volumes of pharmaceutical chemicals by tube into their stomachs, every day for up to 90 days, with no pain relief or anaesthetic. If still alive at the end of this, they are killed for organ analysis.”

Camp Beagle also expressed concern about the impact of animal testing on humans. One protester claimed that “the amount of accidents that happen as a result of animal testing is disastrous.”

Mikey said that “We are determined to close down MBR for good so that those beautiful beagles that are incarcerated can be freed.”

Camp Beagle is also calling people to reach out to their MPs to sign calls for a public inquiry into animal experiments. Mikey explained that “there hasn’t been a public inquiry into animal experiments since 1906 which is absolutely absurd. We’ve got 103 MPs who have signed the EDM 175 (an animal rights motion) and are encouraging more people to write to their MPs to get them to sign it.”

Parliament will debate whether the Animal Welfare Act ought to be changed to include laboratory animals on February 7th.