“Disruptive protests,” where advocates publicly disrupt events or activities, can draw significant attention to animal protection issues. However, whether this attention leads to increased support or backlash remains an open question. Similarly, it’s important to determine whether any short-term backlash persists or if it shifts to more positive attitudes over time.

This study evaluates the impact of Animal Rising’s 2023 disruption of the U.K.’s biggest horse racing event, The Grand National. To draw attention to animal exploitation, protesters went onto the racetrack and delayed the start of the race. This gained widespread media coverage and caused an increase in member sign-ups and donations to Animal Rising. Despite this mobilization, opinion polls conducted immediately after the protest suggested that it was linked to more negative attitudes towards animal protection (see the Faunalytics’ summary of a previous study on this event).

Building on this initial data, the researchers conducted polls six months after the Grand National Protest, comparing them with polls taken before and immediately following the protest. The study included 1,356 respondents who were asked about their views on animals used for entertainment and food, and if they thought society’s relationship with animals is broken. The aim was to assess how this protest impacted the public’s attitudes towards animals and whether these attitudes evolved in the months following.

The authors also gathered 4,757 participants’ responses to short written vignettes of different types of protests. This expanded the study to consider other types of disruptive animal rights protests (e.g., open rescues of sheep and fast-food drive-through blockades). Finally, the authors collected additional data from 1,441 participants to gauge general changes in public opinion towards animal protection over the same period. This poll took the opinions of separate groups of people and therefore did not assess changes in the attitudes of specific people or attempt to link the changes to the protest.

As mentioned, there were negative changes in public opinion immediately after the event. People who were aware of the protest or the Animal Rising activist group tended to agree less that society’s relationship with animals is broken. Exposure to the protest also caused people to consider the use of animals for entertainment more morally acceptable and produced lower agreement that we should change how we treat animals used for food. Similarly, reading vignettes about other types of disruptive protests was associated with a negative change in public opinion. Hence, immediately after the protest, the authors concluded that disruptive animal rights protests tend to have negative effects on the public’s attitudes towards animal protection.

However, six months after the protest, the new poll showed that these negative opinions had largely subsided. There was no longer a strong link between knowing about the protest and believing that society’s use of animals for entertainment and food is morally acceptable, or that society doesn’t have a broken relationship with animals. How often respondents reported thinking about animal welfare issues had also changed back to pre-protest levels. Therefore, the direct impact of the Grand National protest on public opinion wasn’t visible six months later — even for those that were initially strongly negative.

The other poll also assessed general changes in public opinion. This poll included the same issues as before (e.g., the use of animals in entertainment and food production), along with new questions about whether people would support bans on horse racing, animal testing, factory farming, and all animal farming. Participants’ views towards animals became more favorable over this six-month timeframe. However, unlike the main poll, this set of questions did not attempt to determine if these positive shifts in attitudes were due to specific events like the Grand National protest or other initiatives.

In conclusion, the Animal Rising protest at the Grand National spotlighted animal rights issues and mobilized animal rights advocates. Despite initial backlash, this study suggests that short-term negative changes in public opinion dissipated over six months. This is encouraging for advocates, as it indicates that the backlash effect may be overestimated. However, additional research is needed to generalize these findings beyond this specific protest. It’s also unclear whether the neutralized negative attitudes will eventually turn positive. Regardless, disruptive protests will remain an important tool for mobilizing those who are already somewhat aligned with animal protection issues.