Dame Joanna Lumley and Animal Rising Launch Animation Calling For Closure of MBR Acres
- Animal Rising Press
- Dec 20, 2025
- 3 min read
Today, in collaboration with Animal Rising, Dame Joanna Lumley has launched an animation showing conditions inside MBR Acres and the rescue of 18 beagle puppies in 2022.
MBR Acres breeds beagles for use in animal testing, primarily toxicology.
Earlier this week, five individuals were convicted of burglary in relation to the 2022 rescue [1]. 13 more are due to face charges in the same case across three separate trials in early 2026. Another three are due to stand trial for a seperate rescue from MBR Acres in June 2022.
A petition launched by Animal Rising, calling for the closure of MBR Acres and the safe rehoming of the beagle puppies inside, has gained over 41,000 signatures [2].
The animation has been released on the third anniversary of the rescue of 18 beagle puppies in 2022 [3].
In a pre-Christmas plea for goodwill, Dame Joanna Lumley and Animal Rising have joined forces to call on the Home Office and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP to urgently close down the beagle breeding facility known as MBR Acres and rehome all the dogs still there.
Rose Patterson, 36, Animal Rising Co-Director, from Harrogate and living in Hackney, said:
“It is an honour to have a national treasure like Dame Joanna Lumley backing us, and thousands of others, in calling for the closure of MBR Acres and safe rehoming of the beautiful beagle puppies inside. It is utterly tragic that we use an animal that we also call ‘man’s best friend’ in horrific, painful, and needless experiments.
It’s not the Victorian Era anymore; we don’t need to rely on using dogs in experimentation for reliable results. We have so many more options available to us that provide greater reliability, using better science. Shabana Mahmood needs to step up and make good on Labour's manifesto promise to end animal testing as swiftly as possible.” [4].
The animation details some of the procedures beagles undergo at MBR Acres, including “terminal blood sampling” that the facility is licensed to carry out. This license allows MBR Acres to drain healthy dogs of blood and harvest their organs for other use [5]. It moves on to depict the rescues, on two separate occasions, of dogs from the facility (with five puppies rescued in June 2022 and 18 more in December 2022).
Journal articles over recent years, including multiple in the British Medical Journal, have raised serious questions about the claims made by proponents of animal testing. Critics of animal testing point to drugs that passed testing in animals and later led to, sometimes, thousands of human deaths [6].
Nathan McGovern, 26, a defendant convicted in this week’s trial, said:
“Not only is using innocent beagle puppies for animal testing cruel and painful, but it’s also just bad science. Non-animal methods are surging ahead in both reliability and cost. It’s plain that the future is here now, and we need to move with the times with the immediate shutdown of MBR Acres.
MBR has an absolutely atrocious track record when it comes to animal welfare, with both Italian and US facilities shutting down in recent years. In Italy, three senior employees even got prison sentences.” [7]
Animal Rising is calling on concerned members of the public to sign their petition to shut down MBR Acres and rehome all the puppies there.
ENDS
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About Animal Rising
The group has used a variety of civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action tactics, notably blockading McDonald's distribution centres in May 2021, blockading dairy industry sites in September 2022, rescuing 23 beagle puppies from the animal testing industry in 2022, delaying the Grand National race in 2023, rescuing lambs belonging to King Charles II in May 2023, and carrying out the UK’s largest undercover farm investigation in 2024.
High-quality pictures and videos: https://show.pics.io/animal-rising-breaking-news
Footage from inside MBR Acres: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dJhwIlmJ5uR9vwuKXGJ3VT3sxYmX0JT-?usp=drive_link
All images and videos in this file, on our social media, and website can be used with credit to Animal Rising under ‘fair use’ for the purposes of reporting.
For more information or further comments, please contact:
Emma (Press Back Office) +44 1225 29 6691
Notes To The Editor
