Our purpose is to protect animals from suffering. Right now, animals are being mutilated in experiments, slaughtered for food, skinned for fashion, and confined for entertainment, and they can’t wait decades or centuries, they need our help right now. This can require tactics like naked marches, undercover investigations, and colorful ad campaigns that some people find shocking, but we can’t make the changes that are desperately needed if we go unheard.
MILAN PERERA: When Reuben Skeats wakes up in the morning even he is not sure where the day will take him. It could be outside a local slaughterhouse or a university building. He could be in London or Addis Ababa.
Although he was born in Kent, Skeats recently adopted Bristol as his home when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) advertised a Bristol-based position to campaign against the forced swim testing of mice.
Bristol24/7 spoke with him recently, soon after footage emerged on Tuesday 23 July of British Olympic dressage champion Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse.
The footage provoked widespread condemnation and Dujardin subsequently withdrew from the Paris Olympics. Skeats said more needs to be done to combat animal abuse: “All animals are unique individuals with their own desires, and they experience pain, fear, stress, joy, and companionship, just like we do.
“They want to be free to make their own choices, express their natural behaviour, and follow their instincts.
“I know if I were trapped in any of the exploitative industries that use animals, I’d want those in a position to advocate for me to be doing everything they could.
“I want to live in a just and free society and that will only happen if we demand it. As the famous quote goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Skeats’ awakening came a few years ago, when he watched “a powerful documentary that takes an in-depth look at the way humans treat other animals and shows viewers why we must be more compassionate towards the other species we share the planet with.”
Skeats continued, “I also read Animal Liberation by the philosopher Peter Singer, which awakened me to the existence of ‘speciesism’, our society’s systematic disregard of nonhuman animals.
“The understanding that animals deserve the right, just as humans do, to be free from exploitation for experimentation, food, clothing, or entertainment fundamentally changed how I saw the world.
“After this epiphany, I thought that if those around me were equipped with the same information they would feel the same way but I found that people often need to be shaken from the status quo.
“So, I decided to become an activist. PETA entities around the world champion animal rights through undercover investigations, animal rescues, attention-grabbing protests, media campaigns, and groundbreaking legal work, and I’m very proud to be a part of it”…
Some say Skeats and his fellow activists use scare tactics to drive their narrative. To this Skeats said: “All we do is tell the truth – if it’s scary to hear it, imagine what it’s like to live it. Our purpose is to protect animals from suffering, and we take advantage of every opportunity to reach people with powerful messages.
“This can require tactics like naked marches, undercover investigations, and colourful ad campaigns that some people find shocking, but we can’t make the changes that are desperately needed if we go unheard.”
He added: “Right now, animals are being mutilated in experiments, slaughtered for food, skinned for fashion, and confined for entertainment, and they can’t wait decades or centuries – they need our help right now. While we wait for the law to catch up, we can make powerful choices about how we live, from what we eat and wear to how we educate and entertain ourselves. These are things we can do today to protect animals”…
Two weeks ago, Skeats was arrested in East Africa and held in prison overnight.
Skeats recounted: “I was scouting out a demo location in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where PETA was planning a protest to call on Ethiopian Airlines to stop shipping endangered monkeys to laboratories to be abused and killed in crude and painful experiments.
“Monkeys in these shipments are torn from their families in nature, confined to small wooden crates, and crammed into dark cargo holds for as long as 30 hours as they’re flown around the world…
“While I was there, my colleague, his 11-year-old son, and I were arrested and detained in an Ethiopian police station for 30 hours before being deported.
“The Ethiopian authorities’ extreme reaction and attempt to silence us shows how worried the government and airline are about the public finding out about their mistreatment of endangered monkeys.
“Unfortunately, you don’t have to travel far to find sentient individuals being tortured in laboratories”…
In recent years, Skeats has been campaigning against the University of Bristol for forced swim testing mice.
The University of Bristol describes forced swim tests as “experimental procedures in which rats or mice are placed into a container of water with no means of escape. The rodents will first try to escape before settling down, and floating or swimming steadily.” At the end of the study, the mice are killed.
Skeats and his fellow PETA activists have disrupted several University of Bristol events to protest this practice, including the University’s State of the City Address held in October 2023. SOURCE…
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