Video: PETA Allies Confront University of Bristol Leader at Yale Event Over Near-Drowning Tests

For Immediate Release:
September 27, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

A PETA supporter waving a sign proclaiming, “University of Bristol: Ban Animal Torture,” grabbed the microphone from University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President Evelyn Welch during a panel discussion at a Yale Center for British Art symposium at Yale University earlier today to protest the U.K. school’s refusal to ban a near-drowning test on animals. Photos and video footage of the disruption are available here.

This action is the latest in PETA’s campaign against the cruel forced swim test, in which experimenters induce panic in vulnerable small animals by putting them in inescapable cylinders of water. They swim for fear of drowning, attempt to climb the sides of the container, and dive underwater to look for an escape. Once the test is complete, experimenters often kill the animals.

The test is conducted under the erroneous assumption that subjecting animals to the fear of drowning can reveal something about mental health conditions in humans.

“Forcing tiny, terror-stricken animals to swim for fear of drowning is cruel and does nothing to help humans with mental health conditions,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on the University of Bristol to join the majority of the U.K.’s top universities that already shun this cruel experiment.”

The University of Bristol is one of the last institutions in the U.K. to continue using the forced swim test. Leading institutions, including the universities of Brighton, Exeter, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Southampton as well as King’s College London and Newcastle University, have indicated that they neither use the forced swim test nor intend to do so in the future.

The Home Office recently announced its intent to eliminate the experiment in the U.K. This will be the first time a specific test on rodents has been banned in the country. Nearly all big pharmaceutical companies—including Sanofi earlier this week—have banned the test after hearing from PETA scientists.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.