The Welfare of Animals Part ppsx

both parents will be working than in the past, and second, people are moving

into high density housing with no garden or land for the animals to use, which

means that they are often confined indoors all day by themselves. In addition

there is increasingly less opportunity to exercise dogs off leash, with small areas

being devoted to such activity in the major towns and cities and restrictions

being placed on use of open land and beaches.

The large numbers of animals euthanased in shelters each year continues to be

a major cause for concern. Estimates in the United States vary from 3–4 million

(HSUS, 2005) to 10 million (AH, 1997) cats and dogs euthanased annually.

Laboratory Animals

The number of laboratory animals worldwide is hard to estimate because

countries record the different species used in different ways and some record

none at all. A few record all animals used. Clearly the total number used

annually is much less than the number of companion or farm animals. Recent

estimates suggest that Australia,4 UK, Canada and Italy respectively use

annually approximately 5.8, 2.6, 1.7 and 0.9 million vertebrate animals annually

for research, with a total for 15 European Union member states of 11.6 million

animals in 1996 (Bayvel, 2004; Gauthier, 2004; Passantino et al., 2004; Anon,

1996). In Japan the data collected from universities, institutes and laboratory

testing companies suggested that just over 10 million animals were used in 1995,

but the number recorded had supposedly dropped to 5.6 million by 1998, mainly

because concerns about adverse publicity caused many institutes involved in

vaccine development to withhold information on the numbers of animals that

they were using. In addition the Japanese government prevented stray dogs and

cats in pounds from being used in research. In the USA only the number of non￾human primates, cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters and guinea-pigs used for research is

recorded, which is perhaps only 4% of the total, that must include many mice and

rats. Thus the total use of these six species in the USA, currently about 0.8 million

per year, suggests a total vertebrate use of approximately 20 million per year.

Developing countries, particularly in south-east Asia, are increasing their

animal research, partly because they are becoming more involved in medical

research and partly because some scientists are moving there because stringent

regulations are making it difficult to work freely and rapidly in developed

countries where the public are more vocal about the animals’ welfare. In some

countries, such as the United Kingdom, governments are attempting to limit

numbers to assuage public concerns, and there are reports of declining numbers

of animals being used for research being since the 1980s in the UK, since about

1985 in the US and since the early 1990s in Canada (Gauthier, 2004). One

4

In Australia the definition of animals used is likely to be more broad ranging than other

countries, with a greater chance of double counting of animals by different institutions.

156 9 The Scale and Intensity of the World’s Animal Industries

analyst believes that animal use for experimentation increased exponentially

between 1910 until 1970 due to the development of biomedical disciplines, then

declined due to greater public awareness, increased legislation and better qual￾ity of animals used in laboratories until the mid 1990s (Baumans, 2004). After

this time, he believes that it has increased due to the increased use of large

numbers of animals for genetic modification experiments. Although his sources

of information are not clear, his total use of animals for research, at 75–100

million per year is similar, but slightly higher, to the estimate presented above.

The United Kingdom publishes annual statistics on animal use, and these have

recently shown small (1–2%) increases annually (Hudson, 2007). This is

believed to be due to large-scale genetic experiments.

The most common laboratory animal is still the mouse, accounting for about

two thirds of all procedures (Hudson, 2007). The number used increased in the

1980s due to their extensive use in molecular biology experiments, then in the

1990s decreased as in vitro models became more popular. More recently, in many

institutions the use of mice for the production of transgenic mutants has been

expanding due to technical developments (Gauthier, 2004). In this research

thousands of animals are used in individual experiments in the hope that a few

valuable mutants will result from genetic modifications. Previously only a few

tens or hundreds of animals would be used for a single experiment.

Zoo Animals

Zoo animals are less numerous than most other forms of animal use, there being

1200 core zoos worldwide, with an estimated 1 million captive animals in total,

and about 3000 vertebrate species exhibited in total (IUDZG/CBSG, 1993).

Many of these contribute to the International Species Information System

(ISIS), which involves 613 institutions from 70 countries on six continents.

Members keep and share standardized information on more than 1.8 million

zoological specimens of 10,000 taxa, but this includes invertebrates (World

Association of Zoos and Aquariums, 2005). The number of animals worldwide

may be increasing as zoos attempt to keep self-sustainable numbers for captive

breeding and release programmes. However, there is also public pressure on

zoos to treat animals well, which may result in some zoos keeping fewer species

with additional space and enrichment for each. There are also many animals in

sanctuaries and shelters, apart from companion animals, which it would be

difficult to quantify because most are small and unregulated.

Utility Animals

Utility animals, for work or entertainment, number about 100 million, which

are mainly horses used for agricultural work. The mechanization of the

Scale of the Animal Industries 157