An Afternoon at Camp Beagle
Words and photographs: Eerie Rose
The first thing I see of Camp Beagle is a road sign: big and yellow with the words “PROTEST SITE AHEAD.” Considering google maps only shows the camp if you put the satellite view looking to the right - from the left, it shows the road before the settlement, empty and barren - it was a relief to see this disclosure, knowing I must be in the right place. I got a lift to a layby just past the camp, and then made my way along the roadside on the grassy verge, trampling through mud and uneven ground, wondering how people reach it on foot normally and noting my pressing need to learn to drive.
Camp Beagle is a 24/7 protest camp outside of MBR Acres, a breeding factory for beagle puppies which are then sold for vivisection, or animal testing. Situated on an A-road, just outside of Huntingdon, you’d be forgiven for driving past without a second glance. Surrounded by fields, with nothing to stop for except the occasional lay-by, the site sits just back from the road and previously had no sign, making it easy to miss. It’s definitely a location with zero footfall, an unsafe roadside to walk on…it seems fitting that the company chose this cloak of mystery, this hidden location just out of reach of the general public, most likely in the hopes they would be unaware of what it was, or what they are doing, and it worked - did you know they have such facilities in the UK? Probably not.
Animal rights activists have been protesting against the site and its connections with the cruelty of animal testing for decades, with a group operating as part of Animal Liberation Front, or ALF, breaking into the factory when it was formerly Interfauna back in March 1990. John Curtin, one of the protesters who helped access the site and free 82 beagle puppies and 26 rabbits, served 18 months in prison for his work. Still dedicated to the cause, he is one of the founding members of Camp Beagle. It’s through him and his tireless campaigning seen on a viral TikTok video that I found myself travelling to Huntingdon on a Friday morning in March, almost exactly 34 years since his original action at the site. I wanted to know more about the camp, and see it in action - as well as genuinely just educate myself on the backstreet dealings taking place at MBR. I’ve been invested in animal rights since my Nan sat me down in front of the TV one morning before nursery school and accidentally switched on the channel ‘Animal Planet’…I asked her not to change it to the kid’s cartoon channel, and before long I was raising money for animal shelters, and forcing family members to sign petitions against the treatment of battery and barn hens, or against badger culls and fox hunting. I was shocked that I did not know about MBR sooner, and felt compelled to report on Camp Beagle’s work, and learn more from its residents.
As I neared the camp, I spot someone sitting out on a chair opposite the MBR gates, but not before their two dogs notice me and start barking. I introduce myself to her amongst a flurry of tails and friendly hellos from the pair, a three legged rescue called Willow, and an older pup called Freddie, who is a little less bouncy but still up for saying hello. Introducing herself to me as Emma, she offers me a tea and leads me into the tents, showing me the kitchen and then taking me through to the lounge, which is a gazebo type tent with sofas, guitars, beagle plushies, gifts and memorabilia lining the walls.
“There’s been a bit of action in there this morning - ambulance came for one of the workers,” she explains whilst offering me a cake from the big plastic snack storage under the table, which I gladly take to have alongside my tea. The dogs sit next to us on the sofas, it’s grey outside and the homeliness of the lounge feels reminiscent of a well-equipped tent of a seasoned festival-goer - if it weren’t for the faint sound of dogs barking in distress on the wind, that is. Despite it’s comforts, it is very clear you’re on the side of the road, and very much exposed to the elements. Whilst we wait for John to return from getting his van fixed in town, I ask Emma more about the aims of Camp Beagle. Having been there pretty much since the get-go, she lives on site almost full time, which is essential to the survival of the camp - if it was ever left uninhabited, the police would almost certainly clear it out.
I’m interested to learn that MBR is owned by an American company, Marshall Bioresources, that used to have a site in Italy called Green Hill. Pointing to a big photograph on the wall behind her of many hands helping pass a beagle puppy over a fence, Emma tells me that this factory was closed down after an invasion of the site from animal rights activists and locals, who did not agree with the atrocities being carried out in their backyards. Puppies were liberated, and although there were many arrests and dogs recaptured, it prompted an investigation into the work happening at the factory which exposed law breaking that led to it’s closure and the incaceration of several of it’s prominent workers. MBR then moved into it’s current home in Huntingdon, the old building previously used by beagle breeders Interfauna. Already on their case due to the site’s previous involvement in animal breeding for laboritories, activists in the UK soon began targeting it in an attempt to hold the workers accountable for their actions, educate the wider public about what is taking place, and protest for the end of MBR’s practice, as well as the end to animal testing overall.
Mid conversation, the alarm sets off, and instinctively Emma jumps up to see what is going on outside. Two security guards have started to make their way out of the graffitied gate of MBR, heading over to a noticeboard on the other side of the road. Emma lets me know I can come with her, and I automatically do, intrigue taking over plus a want to experience everything here at its most real. We rush over, running over the road, navigating the grassy verge decorated with huge beagle banners, memorials for the dogs lost already, and placards educating drivers by. Emma immediately began to film, as the guards open up the bulletin board, pinning up two sheets of paper (both the exact same) with details of an injunction and its rules. Emma made a comment about how no one will be able to read it with text that small, while the security guards wait until the electric gate is almost completely shut to call back some choice words I couldn’t quite make out, but from the tone could tell were much less friendly than Emma’s.
Having a look at the papers more thoroughly before we head back inside, Emma explains to me that MBR recently took out an injunction against the camp and its protesters, meaning they can no longer stand on the driveway like they used to. It seems this is less of a win for MBR than one might think - while the protesters had to move their chairs a metre or so, and shout from a few yards back, the company had to fork out tens of thousands for this out of their own pocket. For a company already making annual losses, it isn’t as much of a success as they’d like to make it seem. Along with the money they must be spending building sheltered walkways and covers to operate unseen by Camp Beagle’s beady-eyed drone, it appears MBR are becoming increasingly desperate in their defiance against the protesters, and whilst this may suggest they are losing, it makes me concerned about what step they may take next.
I ask Emma if I can take a portrait, which she agrees to, before offering to show me the rest of the camp so I can take some more photographs for the piece. As we step outside, I meet some more residents and regulars, and we spot a van coming along, pulling up on the verge, and a man jumps out with the face I recognise from the video that led me here in the first place. Heading up towards the three of us, John immediately greets me with a hug, thanks me for coming and welcomes me into the kitchen tent for another tea. He offers us all food, myself declining at first out of politeness, but eventually giving in to his hospitality. I’m told John won’t stop asking until I let him make sure I’m fed. “People wonder if we’re welcoming here, but the kettle is always on and the food is for everyone,” John explains, as he fries vegan sausages and bacon in a pan, roughly chopping them up and adding kidney beans, sweetcorn, tinned potato and tinned tomato, which he serves up for us all with bread. The food is all donated. The four of us sit down around the table, and I feel overwhelmed by the kindness of humans - the kindness of the people that support the camp through food donations, and the kindness of the residents, sharing this with me, a total stranger, who they’re trusting with an open heart and allowing into their world.
We eat the hearty meal, entirely free from animal products as I expected and was grateful for, being a vegetarian myself for almost a decade. John is a vibrant character, full of stories - a lifelong activist, he has been dedicating his time to Camp Beagle for the entire two years and nine months it’s been running, and has faced a variety of obstacles from arrest to harassment from online trolls, and constant check-ins from the camp’s police liason officer, who calls while we speak, chastising John for that morning’s drone reporting on the ambulance visit to MBR. Apparently it wasn’t in good taste, and he does apologise - with a wry smile of course, as we all agree around the table that documenting the health and safety, or more importantly lack thereof, for the staff as well as the puppies in MBR is important, as well as being firmly in favour of the drone and it’s successes in this mission.
After we eat, John asks if I’d like to see the reality of MBR Acres. I’m nervous, but he is a captivating guide. Just before we slip down the side of the factory, along MBR’s fence, he makes me stop, and listen to the wind, the sound of cars rushing by, the presence of vague undisrupted quiet. We then proceed forward, and as we near the air vents in the long, shed like structures that house the puppies, the air is no longer silent - barking carries on the breeze like bullets, dogs in distress yelping incessently, piercing, prompting action in me like hearing a baby cry. “If it’s this loud for us out here, just from the air vents alone, imagine the sound in there. It must be deafening,” John notes, as one of the security guards I met earlier with Emma creeps around a corner, watching us, pacing ominously. “What happened to the one who went off in the ambulance?” John asks, he recieves a smirk and shrug from the security by means of reply. We continue to walk to the end of the site, the smell strong and unmissable, and I learn how awful the conditions truly are - these beagles never see sunlight, they go from cramped shed to cramped shed, sawdust filled pen littered with their own faeces to metal trolley that wheels them through a minute of the outside world before they’re loaded into a van, driven away to a lab, and tested on. It’s sickening to think, and yet here it is, happening right in front of me.
Knowing how to maintain morale, John lightens the mood by showing me snuffle marks in the ground, a sign of badger activity, and teaches me how to tell the difference between a badger and a fox den. It fascinates me that there is still so much love for nature and the world in him, even after all these years of tirelessly fighting the powers that be, and not finding his work done yet. “Some treat their body like a temple, I treat mine more like an amusement park,” he laughs as we rejoin the residents at the camp, now a true place of respite after the sound and smell of the tour I was just taken on. The alarm sounds, and a car drives out of MBR’s gates, accelerating unneccessarily fast away down the road to escape the shouts of the protestors. I ask the group for a photograph, and feel quite emotional as I capture them together, four incredibly dedicated activists on a site they are fighting day in day out to remain at. I feel the weight of the risk that eventually, Camp Beagle could be crushed by laws, injunctions, and actions from MBR and police, unless more people take a stand, and join their work, or the Government begins to listen to their demands. I know however, that the fighting spirit of the residents will never die, no matter what repercussions they face. As I hug them all goodbye, for now, and head back along the verge to leave, I feel a huge sense of gratitude that they exist, putting so much energy into a cause they believe in.
At the time of publishing, John has just been arrested, and at midnight a night or so ago will have been bailed away from the camp. I find this out from his report via instagram video, which begins with a little light laughter at the fact that Emma’s dog Willow has had a bite of his bail sheet, making her thoughts of the arrest known. It’s not a funny report, however. The anguish in John’s voice is impossible to ignore, as he explains the nature of the incident, showing where his wrists bled from handcuffs, pointing to bruises where he has had knees or something of the sort in his ribs and back. The crime? Alledgedly flying his drone above a certain height, and out of range, despite his note that the model he uses cannot alledgely go higher than the legal limit, and his area of interest only being MBR, which is all in eye view. It’s interesting that this sting operation to arrest him occurred at the same time three vans came to collect puppies, an unusually large amount. It would be easy to assume that this could be a targeted attack at the camp, in particular their use of the drone, in an attempt to silence what has started to be a very successful exposure of the horrors taking place behind those gates. And as we know, harsh crack downs like this do not mean failure - it means your protest is usually working.
John’s bail conditions mean he can no longer be at Camp Beagle. He must remain a set distance away, and he cannot protest at the site or harass MBR workers while under this bail. As I learnt from Emma during my visit, if the camp at any point is empty, it will almost certainly be cleared out by police. The threat of this becoming reality feels particularly present after this escalation of events, and I think of the UK’s increasing violent policing against protests nationwide. Finishing this piece from my London bedroom, my own rescue dog asleep by my feet, I remember how filled with hope I felt whilst sharing a hot meal at the camp, surrounded by individuals who feel strongly enough about their cause that they live in the open air, on a Huntingdon roadside, 24/7, never giving up. This I think needs to be the feeling to take away from my first visit to Camp Beagle - no matter what, they are there, come rain or shine. Bail orders or not, this is not a group that will go quietly.
Camp Beagle post regular updates on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, follow them on those platforms to stay up to date with their work and see their livestream reports from MBR. On their website you can learn more about their work and read daily news from MBR.
John is currently raising money to support his legal battle to remain at camp, and out of prison or bail. If you would like to find out more, you can do so here.
Endless thanks to everyone at Camp Beagle for their welcoming hospitality and for allowing me into their world.