PETA’s Protesters Urge University of Bristol to Ban Near-Drowning Test

The University of Bristol is insisting on pursuing cruel and worthless forced swimming tests using rats. PETA will stop these experiments. Here are our latest actions:

Update (4 November 2024): Student Opinion Poll Suggests Universities Must End Animal Experimentation

A Savanta poll commissioned by PETA of more than 1,000 young people, including those currently attending or considering attending university, found that an overwhelming majority believe universities should stop funding animal experimentation. Of the university-age students with a stance on the forced swim test, 78% said their opinion of their chosen university would be negatively affected if they found out the institution used the forced swim test. Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they’d be more likely to choose a university that doesn’t conduct the forced swim test if presented with two equally preferable options.

The results couldn’t be clearer: the vast majority of young people oppose using university funds to torture animals in experiments like the forced swim test and find cruelty in laboratories a major turn-off when choosing where to study. Learn more about the results here.

Update (31 October 2024): FOI Request Reveals No Forced Swimming for Over a Year

We were pleased to learn, via a recent freedom of information request, that the University of Bristol has not conducted the forced swim test or other forced swimming experiments in over a year. While rodents are experiencing a hiatus from being used in these horrendous experiments, the University of Bristol’s licence to use the test remains active. We will continue our campaign until the university confirms that it has no intention of conducting the test again. Please take a moment to send an e-mail to the vice chancellor of the university urging her to commit to ending the test at the institution:

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Update (26 October 2024): Animal Defenders Crash University of Bristol Open Day Over Cruel Tests

The University of Bristol’s open day this year was truly embarrassing for the institution. Animal allies seized every opportunity to expose the cruelty of the notorious forced swim test to prospective students and their families.

We educated guests about the severe distress rats are subjected to during the near-drowning experiments, which ultimately end with the animals being killed and dissected.

Animal defenders also disrupted open day talks, urging the university to ban the forced swim test immediately.

Bristol Uni’s open day or open shame?

Prospective students and families need to know the truth: animals are being put through near-drowning “tests” on campus. The forced swim test is outdated, pointless, and cruel 🐁 #BristolBeNiceToMice pic.twitter.com/xtP6UjlAOX

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) October 26, 2024

https://t.co/387JqKwHX4 pic.twitter.com/ZSxFCm6MBm

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) October 26, 2024

https://t.co/q5sQbMXo0p pic.twitter.com/n0cq38mqXl

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) October 26, 2024

#BristolBeNiceToMice 🐁 https://t.co/hCuwOBEUmf pic.twitter.com/R5zhL6n0Rr

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) October 26, 2024

It’s time the University of Bristol listened and dropped this cruel, archaic test in favour of superior human-relevant methods.

Update (2 October 2024): PETA Allies Disrupt University of Bristol VC at Q&A Event

We crashed a Q&A event in Bristol! An unstoppable PETA supporter unveiled a sign reading, “Bristol Uni: Drop the Forced Swim Test,” before University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President Evelyn Welch during an event in which she was participating.

We’ll keep campaigning until the university bans the cruel, unscientific forced swim test on animals. Watch how the events unfolded:

WATCH: PETA just disrupted a Q&A with @BristolUni’s Vice Chancellor Evelyn Welch to expose the horrors of the forced swim test. 🐀💦
This cruel experiment has no place in modern science.

Will Bristol finally listen?
#AnimalTestingIsTorture #ScienceNotViolence… pic.twitter.com/YcsDxCC520

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) October 2, 2024

Update (27 September 2024): Animal Defenders Confront University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor During Speech at Yale

Animal allies disrupted a symposium organised by the Yale Center for British Art in the US, at which University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President Evelyn Welch was joining a discussion.

Holding signs, they confronted Welch and informed the audience that terrified rats and mice are being forced into inescapable beakers of water, where they frantically swim out of fear of drowning, before they’re eventually decapitated in the pointless forced swim test conducted at her institution. We won’t stop speaking out for rodents until this cruel test is dropped!

Update (22 August 2024): Anjelica Huston Joins PETA Campaign to End ‘Wicked’ Near-Drowning Experiment on Animals

Award-winning actor and longtime PETA ally Anjelica Huston has sent a letter to University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President Evelyn Welch urging her to end the institution’s use of the cruel forced swim test. Huston was recently in Bristol filming a new Agatha Christie mystery television series.

“Years ago, I played the Grand High Witch in The Witches, and this wicked experiment sounds like something she would have concocted! The misguided claim that the forced swim test may provide information about stress-related conditions in humans is nothing more than hocus pocus. What it’s really doing is frightening defenseless animals and getting in the way of the development of much-needed effective treatments for mental health conditions.”

– Anjelica Huston

Update (21 June 2024): PETA Supporters Gate-Crash University of Bristol President’s Reception in Hong Kong
Another event has been disrupted! PETA supporters interrupted a reception hosted by Professor Evelyn Welch, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol, in Hong Kong. Unstoppable activists with banners told guests about the cruelty that’s being perpetrated behind the closed doors of the institution’s laboratories and urged the vice-chancellor to immediately drop the vile forced swim test.

We’re here at the Hong Kong Club, but we’re more into saving rats than sipping champagne 🍾 🐀 #BristolBeNiceToMice pic.twitter.com/wDmUUSH3f3

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) June 21, 2024

Update (14 June 2024): PETA Takes Over University of Bristol Open Day
“New to Campus? Animal Torture Isn’t. Bristol Uni: Drop the Forced Swim Test!” – that was the nearly 10-metre-long message PETA displayed to potential new students as dedicated supporters handed out leaflets outside Senate House.

Adam Weeden's photography

Adam Weeden's photography

Adam Weeden's photography

Update (7 June 2024): PETA Supporters Kick Up a Stink at the University of Bristol
Earlier today, a group of PETA supporters holding signs reading, “UoB: Cruelty Stinks! Drop the Forced Swim Test,” stormed a University of Bristol networking event. One activist proclaimed, “The University of Bristol tortures rats and mice with a cruel near-drowning experiment called the forced swim test. Bristol: cruelty stinks! Drop the forced swim test now!”

Update (24 May 2024): Change Is in the Air: PETA Balloon Has a Life-Saving Message
Student activists collaborated with PETA to release a balloon banner at the University of Bristol. Everyone in Senate House saw the banner, which urged the university to let the forced swim test go!

Update (14 May 2024): PETA US Supporters Slam University of Bristol for Continuing to Use the Cruel Forced Swim Test at University Event in New York
Today, a throng of PETA US supporters confronted the University of Bristol’s vice-chancellor and president during an alumni event at The Century Association in New York.

Update (24 April 2024): On World Day for Animals in Laboratories, ‘Dr Killsalot’ – the ‘Head of Animal Torture’ – Urges University of Bristol to ‘End the Mad Science’
To mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories, a PETA activist wearing a sooty laboratory coat, goggles, and gloves, posing as “Dr Killsalot” – the “Head of Animal Torture” – conducted a botched “experiment” outside a University of Bristol building. They stood before a table draped with a banner reading, “Bristol Uni: End the Mad Science. Drop the Forced Swim Test,” and containing three large water-filled cylinders with “rats” in them and smoky test tubes.

Elsewhere, in Bremen, Germany, PETA entity supporters crashed the Times Higher Education Europe Universities Summit, interrupting a speech by the University of Bristol’s vice-chancellor. Here’s how the events unfolded:

Update (5 April 2024): PETA Protests Outside Association for Art History Conference
PETA supporters protested outside the 2024 Association for Art History annual conference to speak up for animals in laboratories by pushing the University of Bristol – which was represented at the event – to drop the notorious forced swim test.

Update (10 March 2024): PETA Offers £24k to University of Bristol to End Forced Swim Test
Because the University of Bristol retains the dubious distinction of being one of the last institutions in the UK to conduct the abysmally cruel forced swim test, PETA sent a letter to the institution’s vice-chancellor asking her to permanently end the use of the abhorrent test. If she agrees and implements a ban in 2024, PETA will donate £24,000 to the university.

Update (19 October 2023): PETA Disrupts State of the City Address Over University of Bristol’s Near-Drowning Test on Animals
PETA supporters stormed the stage at the Wills Memorial Building, disrupting the State of the City address at the 2023 Festival of the Future City, which included contributions from the mayor and the University of Bristol’s vice-chancellor, to expose the school’s shameful refusal to ban the cruel forced swim test.

Update (17 October 2023): PETA’s ‘Rat’ Protests Outside the University of Bristol’s London Alumni Branch Annual Lecture in the House of Lords
PETA supporters were outside of the University of Bristol’s London Alumni Branch Annual Lecture in the House of Lords urging the institution to drop the cruel forced swim test.

Update (9 September 2023):
As the University of Bristol welcomed 20,000 prospective students, PETA shared information that would surely be omitted from the day – mice and rats are tormented in the forced swim test.

PETA’s protesters shone a light on the university’s experiments on animals, and horrified parents expressed that they would share their concerns with university officials.

Update (13 July 2023):
PETA supporters joined by activists from Animal Rising invaded the stage at the Wills Memorial Building, disrupting a panel discussion about the future of universities that included the University of Bristol’s deputy vice chancellor and other officials, to expose the university’s shameful refusal to ban the cruel forced swim test.

PETA US supporters armed with signs reading “Ban the animal torture” confronted University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President Evelyn Welch during a New York City alumni event.

Protesters exposed the institution’s shameful refusal to ban the forced swim test at the Raines Law Room lounge.

The activists filled the room chanting, “Ban the forced swim test now!” before being escorted out by security.

BAFTA-winning actor Richard E Grant – who just kicked off his A Pocketful of Happiness book tour at the Bristol Hippodrome theatre – sent a letter to University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor Professor Evelyn Welch, appealing to her to end the university’s “horrific” forced swim experiments on terrified rats.

“My career has taken me everywhere from Penrith to a galaxy far, far away. And while I’ve experienced some absurd things on my travels, even I couldn’t believe it when I heard that the forced swim test is still used at your university,” writes Grant. “I can only imagine how terrified rats must feel as experimenters put them into inescapable beakers of water, in which they paddle frantically in search of an escape – pawing at the sides of the beaker and diving to the bottom – but to no avail. Once experimenters have finished subjecting the animals to this cruelty, they kill them.”

Students at the University of Bristol took the lead and recently staged a sit-in at the university’s administrative hub, Beacon House. Security was immediately dispatched – but rather than forcibly removing the strong-willed activists, they wished them luck! Over the course of several hours, the students refused requests to leave and accepted even more support from those passing by.

A group of PETA supporters crashed the University of Bristol’s annual Neuroscience Festival at the Victoria Rooms, where they stormed the stage in order to expose the institution’s shameful refusal to ban the forced swim test.

Campus or crime scene? Ahead of the University of Bristol’s December senate meeting, PETA supporters lay on the ground in the chalk outlines of rats outside the vice-chancellor’s office building in the city centre. Cordoned off with yellow tape, the “crime scene” drew attention to the university’s continued use of the cruel and useless forced swim test, which ultimately ends in the killing of sensitive, intelligent rats. Next to the bodies, evidence markers read, “Tormenting rats tells us nothing about human mental health” and “The forced swim test delays drug discovery”.

“Uni of Bristol tortures rats in beerserk experiments. Take action to end it!” That’s the message a massive “rat” from PETA delivered outside the CAMRA Bristol Beer Festival. The unmissable mascot, flanked by PETA supporters, handed out custom-made beer mats to attendees, demanding that the University of Bristol ban controversial tests in which small animals are forced to swim for their lives before being killed.

PETA’s “zombies” want to put the final nail in the forced swim test’s coffin. Ahead of Halloween, a mob of PETA supporters dressed as brain-dead zombie scientists swarmed Senate House to urge University of Bristol experimenters to use their brains, ban the cruel and useless forced swim test and other near-drowning experiments on small animals, and embrace modern, non-animal research.

Rats Are Forced to Tread Water, Then Killed

In the widely criticised tests, experimenters induce panic in vulnerable small animals such as rats, who may or may not be dosed with a substance, by putting them into inescapable cylinders of water in which they must swim, terrified they will drown.

They attempt to climb the steep sides of the container and even dive underwater to look for an escape. This is done under the erroneous assumption it can reveal something about mental health conditions in humans.

Once the test is complete, experimenters kill the animals – either by gassing, blunt force trauma to the head, an overdose of anaesthetic, or breaking their necks – to study their brains.

Several universities, including King’s College London, and many major pharmaceutical companies have stopped subjecting animals to these cruel near-drowning tests. It’s time the University of Bristol followed suit and invested in humane, human-relevant, non-animal methods.

Rats Need YOU! Join the Campaign

University of Bristol experimenters must drop these dead-end experiments. When we ask, they listen. Join our campaign and help us keep the pressure on!