Statistics Reveal 42% Rise In Scotland’s Animal Experiments

In 2008, researchers in Scotland conducted 555,567 experiments on 544,949 animals, representing a 42% increase in experiments over 2007; Scotland makes up 14% of Britain’s total animal experiments.

The majority of increases in animal experimentation occurred in fish (+258% to 184,335), birds (+38% to 6,193), amphibians (+345% to 383), mice (+12% to 290,081), hamsters (+56% to 688), and pigs (+16% to 883). Experimentation in the number of non-human primates decreased by 2% to 929 primates in total.

Of the 555,567 procedures conducted in Scotland, 417,734 (75%) were conducted at universities or medical schools, 58,910 (11%) at commercial organizations, 52,100 (9%) at other bodies other than government, and 26,823 (5%) within government departments.

More than two-thirds (68%) of all procedures used no form of anesthesia, which is a 50% increase from 2007. The procedures using genetically modified animals rose by 17-32% of all procedures in Scotland. Experiments using animals with a harmful genetic defect increased by 26%.