Animals Used For Education

Is there cruelty in your classroom?

Every year, approximately 5.7 million animals are killed for use in classroom dissections. Biological supply houses sell dead and living animals to an assortment of institutions. They breed mice and rats, obtain animals like fetal pigs from slaughterhouses, and trap or take other types of animals from a variety of locations (e.g., frogs from the wild and dogs and cats from pet stores, backyards, and the streets of the United States and Mexico).

Regardless of where those animals used in dissection come from, their fate is the same: a cruel, terrifying and certain death at the hands of uncaring and often incompetent and sadistic biological supply house workers. PETA investigators working inside one biological supply house documented animals' being removed from gas chambers and injected with formaldehyde without first being checked for vital signs (formaldehyde is a severely irritating caustic substance that causes a painful death), cats and rats struggling during infusion, and employees spitting on the animals.

Despite the availability of life-like models and sophisticated computer programs, educators continue to force students to participate in dissection, which is a cruel, archaic, environmentally destructive, and meaningless ritual.

In addition to the millions of animals used in dissection, tens of thousands of live mice, rabbits, rats, and turtles are tortured and killed in college- and university-level physiology and psychology demonstrations. Turtles have nails driven into their brains and holes drilled into their shells so that their hearts can be viewed and manipulated, and frogs are paralyzed so that their exposed muscles can be stimulated by electricity. Similarly, mice, rabbits, and rats are subjected to highly invasive procedures at the hands of students and professors who have absolutely no veterinary medical training whatsoever. Other live animals are subjected to electric shock, starvation, maternal deprivation, aggression, and more in debilitating experiments designed to mimic human disorders.

While there was a time when dissection and the use of live animals in the classroom went unchallenged, today's students are ready, willing, and able to work with PETA to use humane non-animal methods that are not only more effective, but also readily available.

Give the Animals 5

PETA has identified five tests on animals that could be stopped today without any threat to public health and safety. Simple, effective alternatives to 5 common animal tests.

Cut Out Dissection

Dissection is the practice of cutting into and studying animals. Every year, millions of animals are used in secondary and college science classes. Each animal cut open and discarded represents not only a life lost, but also one piece of a trail of animal abuse and environmental havoc.

Help Modernize Medical Education

The majority of medical schools in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, have replaced their use of live animals in physiology, pharmacology, and/or surgical-training exercises with humane and effective non-animal teaching methods.

"Life Sciences" Kill

Each year, college and university "life sciences" programs consume thousands of animal lives in cruel, crude, and unnecessary physiology demonstrations.

Medical Training

Read how the TraumaMan® non-animal training simulator is changing the face of medical education.

PCRM's Dissection Alternatives

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