The University of Bristol has issued a statement after a video was posted on social media appearing to show students 'pickling' a rat in a jar.
The video, which has been viewed more than a million times on TikTok, shows footage claimed to have been filmed inside university accommodation Orchard Heights, halls for students of Bristol University, with the tagline 'me moving into my uni accomm thinking it's going to be nice'. It then shows screenshots of messages, emails and a picture of a rat which had been 'pickled' in a jar flashing up on the screen, along with a new tagline reading 'the people living in it'.
The video also contains a screenshot of a message asking 'who the f*** s** in the washing machine' and 'which of you f**** p***** out of your windows?'
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It includes a screenshot from what claims to be an email from 'The conduct team' which reads: "Good morning (blanked out). We have been informed that someone is keeping/pickling a rat in Kitchen (blank).
"If the resident the rat belongs to can please reply to this email. Many thanks."
The University of Bristol said in a statement that it does not condone the behaviour and dealt with the matter as soon as it was made aware of it.
An Instagram page featured in the video (now known as uob_pets) also contains an image of the animal in a jar dating January 31, as well as various memes associated with it.
One caption reads: #justicefortheorchardheightsrats, with one person commenting underneath to ask "And this is university educated people? I hope whoever did it gets the exact same happen to them."
A University of Bristol spokesperson said: “It goes without saying that we do not condone this type of behaviour from our students. As soon as we were made aware of this at the start of February, we dealt with the matter as quickly as possible and the item was removed from the building."
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