Animal rights activists staged a protest at the Philip Mould gallery in central London, replacing a portrait of King Charles with a picture of Wallace, a stop-motion cartoon character from “Wallace and Gromit.”
The action was intended to draw attention to alleged animal cruelty on RSPCA-accredited farms.
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Two members of the group Animal Rising entered the gallery shortly after midday on Tuesday.
In a video posted by Animal Rising on Instagram, the activists can be seen using paint rollers to affix self-adhesive posters over the portrait.
The king’s face was covered by an image of Wallace, accompanied by a speech bubble saying, “No cheese, Gromit. Look at all this cruelty on RSPCA farms!”
King Charles is the royal patron of the RSPCA, which manages an accreditation scheme known as “RSPCA assured.”
Over the weekend, Animal Rising published an investigation into 45 such farms, alleging animal cruelty and suffering at each one, with 280 legal breaches found across the farms.
Daniel Juniper, a former nursery teacher named by Animal Rising as one of the protestors, said: “With King Charles being such a big fan of Wallace and Gromit, we couldn’t think of a better way to draw his attention to the horrific scenes on RSPCA-assured farms.”
“Even though we hope this is amusing to his majesty, we also call on him to seriously reconsider if he wants to be associated with the awful suffering across farms being endorsed by the RSPCA.”
The gallery confirmed that no damage was done to the portrait.
An RSPCA spokesperson responded: “We welcome scrutiny of our work, but we cannot condone illegal activity of any kind.”
“We remain confident that our RSPCA assured scheme is the best way to help farmed animals right now, while campaigning to change their lives in the future. However, any concerns about welfare on RSPCA assured-certified farms are taken extremely seriously and RSPCA assured is acting swiftly to look into these allegations.”
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