Exeter Uni animal rights group snag PETA Award

PETA's first-ever Student Award has been delivered to the University of Exeter's Animal Welfare Society in recognition of the student advocacy group's outstanding work in bringing to light the suffering of nearly 30,000 animals – 17,000 of whom are currently housed on campus – imprisoned and experimented on by the university over a seven-year period.

After submitting a Freedom of Information Act request and working with the school's student newspaper to publish their findings, the group kick-started a petition calling on the university to reduce the number of animals used in experiments by switching to animal-free methods - it quickly became the largest petition on campus.

The students of the Animal Welfare Society, who are now in talks with the university, received a framed certificate and boxes of delicious vegan chocolates from PETA. A photo is available here.

"School is about education, and the members of the University of Exeter’s Animal Welfare Society are helping their peers learn respect and compassion for animals", says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi.

"PETA are calling on caring young people everywhere to follow the example set by these students and encourage their universities to work towards eliminating cruel animal experiments."

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to experiment on" – point out that animal experiments teach us nothing about the health of humans because animals of different species absorb, metabolise and eliminate substances differently than humans do. Experimenting on animals is unreliable, and many animal-free methods exist that could spare animals a lifetime of suffering.

For more information, please visit ww.PETA.org.uk