Camp Beagle is a protest camp. We are advocates for change. All of us – those on the frontline and those who follow us on social media, the outreach events participants, the back up teams behind the frontline and everyone who comes to visit for a day or stay longer.
This pack will help you stay and protest legally and safely. Please join us even for a day – you are all welcome.
Tell us you are coming and we will look out for you.
It is so important to have a physical presence outside the Gates of Hell.
Why?
We always need to bear witness to the cruel and terrible conditions of the dogs and puppies inside the MBR sheds.
You need to add your voice to that witness and help the people who are on the frontline bear the heavy burden of recording to what is has happening.
Camp has been there since June 2021. We need additional support from you to share the watch and protest. We can sustain ourselves together with more people coming safely to protest and stay on the frontline.
Tents
Please, if possible, supply your own tents and equipment. If you are in need of anything you can contact Camp to see if they have any availability of equipment. Space is limited so tents should not be too large! Please be mindful that camping may be on the side if the road. There is a new area behind the bbq area on the edge of the field that is currently available but please be mindful that all areas are on a first come basis.
Facilities
Camp has a lounge area with heater and electric points for charging mobile phones. There are three settees and this is a communal area for all to use.
There are also outside areas to sit. Directly outside the lounge area and over the other side of the road behind the protest barrier.
There is a kitchen tent with cooker and hob. A table and chairs also. There is also plenty of food storage. Please be mindful and respectful that Camp is Vegan and therefore the kitchen is vegan only. It is also a communal area where everyone cooks and eats together.
There is WiFi at camp, please ask about this on arrival.
There is a washroom and two portable toilets.
Camp also has an outside seating area with bbq to use (vegan). Please refrain from bringing your own bbqs as Camp is surrounded by fields.
Food and water donations are always welcomed but this is not essential.
Everybody is respectful that it is a communal space so please keep any areas clean and tidy and everyone mucks in with any jobs that are required.
The Beagles
It is important to say that camp is here to free the Beagles and close MBR acres. You will hear the dogs and this can be particularly upsetting overnight when the general area is quiet. There have also been “shipments” of puppies sent out overnight. Camp are working shifts so someone is awake at all times including overnight. This is organised amongst campers. They are particularly in need of someone to do early mornings.
What to expect when you come to Camp Beagle
The Camp Beagle Campaign attracts many people who are advocates for change. These are some of their voices. They help to explain what to expect when you come to camp.
The noise, the smell and the inhumanity of the dogs’ conditions
People who come to camp to join the protest are often shocked at the sheer size of the site when they arrive and how like a concentration camp it is with its razor wired fences and many, many sheds. That impression does not leave you quickly or ever in many cases. Experienced advocates at Camp who have been on site for weeks and months are very supportive and will help you find your way around.
Two things become apparent immediately. One is the overwhelming smell which is of longstanding dog waste, urine and decay. It pervades the whole area and reaches beyond the site and up to Camp itself. The second is the noise, the constant noise of the dogs and the volume of it at times is deafening. You are unable at first to believe that we allow this to be happening. That literally hundreds and hundreds of dogs, puppies, momma dogs and un-weaned are incarcerated inside these sheds. Your senses struggle to make sense of this. It will feel unreal and you will experience many emotions about the plight of these dogs.
It is important that you are able to cope with this experience while there and people will be helpful and supportive and will listen and talk to you. Bearing witness to what is actually the living conditions for dogs warehoused for laboratory experiments is not easy and you must make a personal decision about whether this is appropriate for you to and your ability to manage such stressful circumstances.
When the death vans come
These times are the most stressful and distressing for everyone at camp. There is a build up to it. There is the actual arrival, wait and departure of the vans with the dogs piled into crates first, which is very very difficult to witness and hear.
You are unlikely to ever forget this experience especially if you have a dog or pet of your own you love and cherish. It is not rational to explain what happens to these sentient beings as ‘for human benefit”.
Only witness and not intervene
The presence of the police and the numbers of them before the vans arrive herald a dreaded event is about to happen. Heart thumping and heart breaking for the advocates is the knowledge that they will witness in the third decade of the 21st Century here in the UK, the removal of puppies to die in fear and in pain. The dogs in the crates and then into the vans call out to their momma’s who answer them. The clamour of the other dogs as they are shut inside vans and are driven out to a short and terrible life is a life changing experience for the advocates for change at Camp Beagle.
The advocates protest loudly for every pup and dog removed and taken away. They feel helpless to save the dogs from this terrible, painful life and the endurance they will undergo alone and in fear. “
One of the most distressing of living on the roadside at camp is that when we hear animals in distress we can go n help them or call others to assist. The most traumatic is hearing their distress and being completely helpless at the time to help them. This is what is difficult. Your huge emotional and empathic response to their cries – this emotion is then transmuted into an anger/tears. This is why we often see people going more extreme acts to try n raise help for the beagles. Sitting in front of the gate, etc. It is what do we do with our extreme emotions of helplessness. It needs to be channelled and learning to manage this is enormous. We cannot give up speaking out about what we see and hear”
The futility of animal testing while watching the dogs leave to die
The sheer lack of co-ordination in preventing duplication of experiments and the lack of compulsory use of non-animal methods of testing, compound the sheer waste of the dogs’ lives and public money. The lack of effort to ensure proper training and skills for our young researchers so animal testing ceases and we embrace human relevant science is why Camp Beagle advocates bravely stay and witness and speak out.
The Exclusion Zone
There is an injunction and exclusion zone at camp which all campers have to adhere too. This will be explained to you on arrival. The injunction zone is shown on a notice board and areas to cross the road etc are clearly marked.
Thank you for coming to support camp and the MBR beagles