Right to Release
In 2016, Animal Liberation partnered with Beagle Freedom Australia and other like-minded organisations to encourage Australian state governments to allow healthy dogs, cats, and other animals to be rehomed after laboratory testing.
2010-2013
Campaign Launched
Right to Release was created by Beagle Freedom Protect (USA) founder, Shannon Keith in 2010. The campaigns goal was to have healthy animals rehomed after laboratory testing. The state of Minnesota was the first state to agree in 2014.
In 2013, Beagle Freedom Australia launched an adaptation of the same bill in Australia.
2016
Collaboration
In 2016, Animal Liberation, Animal Justice Party NSW, and Humane Research Australia joined with Beagle Freedom Australia, to urge the Australian state governments to clear up the current laws and guidelines surrounding the use of animals in research and teaching.
The Right2Release Bill aims to make it mandatory for scientific research facilities to provide dogs and cats with the opportunity to be homed following experimentation. Many of these animals were unjustly born into scientific research – and they shouldn’t be forced to die there!
Dogs and cats are used in Australian research laboratories for toxicity testing, inducing and observing infections, wound healing, aversive stimuli behavioural tests, and so much more.
The most recent publicly available statistics for NSW show that 4,725 dogs were used in 2016 while 1,230 cats were used*. In the vast majority of cases, these animals are killed following experimentation, no matter what the experiments were.
*NSW 2016 Animal Use in Research Statistics, report prepared by the NSW Department of Primary Industries Animal Research Review Panel. Click here to read the report.
Below are two stickers that were available to purchase to raise awareness about the proposed bill.
2017 - 2021
Outcome
Animal Liberation’s petition received over 37,000 signatures in support of the bill. In 2017, Mark Pearson, from the Animal Justice Party NSW, tabled the legislation, however, it was rejected by the Liberation National Government. This meant that they did not agree to allow registered rescue organisations to take in dogs and cats who had been used in medical experiments - and supported their euthanasia.
In Victoria, Andy Meddick from the Animal Justice Party VIC, has campaigned for the Labor Government to pass similar legislation and they are close to winning!
You can continue to support this campaign by signing your states petition, here.
2022
Bill passed
In October, the NSW Parliament passed a new law that finally gives dogs and cats used for research and experimentation the right to be rehomed. This includes ensuring the animal is prepared for rehoming, by providing them with exercise, environmental enrichment, socialisation, handling and basic training.
Read the full Bill here (PDF).