Dogs, Pigs, Rabbits, and Monkeys Filmed in Major UK Animal Testing Exposé
A major new investigation has captured dogs, pigs, rabbits, monkeys, and rats being abused in regulatory toxicity experiments in laboratories in the UK.
The footage, the first of its kind for over a decade, was released by Animal Aid in collaboration with Animals International. They, alongside PETA, are calling for the UK government to urgently accelerate the implementation of its promised roadmap to end experiments on animals.
The Harrowing Reality of Experiments on Animals in the UK
Images show long-tailed macaques being force-fed anti-obesity medication, tethered beagles forced to inhale toxins, mini-pigs squealing as liquid is applied to open wounds, rats shoved in plastic tubes, and rabbits squeezed into cylindrical tubes for IV infusion tests.
One particularly harrowing bit of footage shows “oral gavage,” a common procedure involving shoving a rubber tube down the throats of restrained animals: in long-tailed macaques to test liver disease and weight-loss drugs, and beagles for anti-inflammation drugs.
Getting the Footage
A worker filmed conditions at two experimentation sites in the UK due to feeling “haunted” by their experience working in those conditions. Some of these types of experiments are designed to measure how much suffering animals can withstand – and they are disposed of when their bodies give out.
The animals seen in this footage are just a few of the millions forced to endure painful and terrifying procedures in the UK, in everything from regulatory toxicity tests to basic, applied and translational experiments.
British law allows pretty much anything to be done to animals away from view in laboratories – as long as the right paperwork is filled out. Everything that you see in the Animal Aid footage is completely legal, but would violate animal welfare laws if happening in any other context.
Just imagine the outrage if someone subjected their companion animal to what these beagles experience. Yet the law aids and protects experimenters doing this in laboratories, and the government even recently outlawed disruptive protests at sites that experiment on animals.
The Roadmap to End Animal Experiments
In 2025, the UK government announced a groundbreaking plan to end animal experiments in the UK. The roadmap holds huge potential to demonstrate that science has evolved beyond cruel, ineffective practices, and towards humane testing methods like organs-on-chips, computer models, organoids, and AI, which are already outperforming cruel animal experiments.
The roadmap was an excellent first step – but it isn’t enough. The government must prioritise actions, not words, and follow through with plans to deliver them.
It takes around 14 years to develop a new medicine, with more than 95% of drugs failing along the way and costs exceeding £1 billion. This staggering inefficiency exposes a broken system for drug development – one in which reliance on animal experiments is a recognised contributing factor. By doubling down on these experiments, the science community isn’t just failing these animals, it’s failing us as well.
Take action for animals in laboratories with these rapid actions:
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