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16 U.S.C. §1531 et seq. (1973)

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found. The lead federal agencies for implementing ESA are

The law requires federal agencies, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the NOAA Fisheries Service, to ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species. The law also prohibits any action that causes a "taking" of any listed species of endangered fish or wildlife. Likewise, import, export, interstate, and foreign commerce of listed species are all generally prohibited.

Endangered Species and EPA

The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) implements key portions of the Endangered Species Act. OPP regulates the use of all pesticides in the United States and establishes maximum levels for pesticide residues in food, thereby safeguarding the nation's food supply.

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support delivery of services > public affairs > official information dissemination > public information & outreach > provide public information

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Summary of the Endangered Species Act | US EPA

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The Endangered Species Act focuses on conserving threatened and endangered plants and animals. One way EPA helps protect endangered species is through regulating the use of pesticides, and establishing maximum levels for pesticide residues in food.

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The Mountain-Prairie Region

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
134 Union Boulevard
Lakewood, Colorado 80228

December 30, 1998
Cindy Hoffman 202-208-5634
NATION MARKS 25 YEARS OF ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION
"Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed." With these words, on December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, a law which has proven to be one of the strongest and most foresighted efforts ever made to protect the delicate web of life.

"It is a law which has at various times challenged, inspired, angered, and above all made us ask hard questions about the impact of human activities on our environment and how they can be balanced with the need to protect the diversity of life," says Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt.

The law's purpose is to conserve "the ecosystems upon which endangered and threatened species depend" and to conserve and recover listed species. It is a challenge which encompasses not only familiar and beloved mammals, birds, and fishes, but also little-known plants, amphibians, reptiles, insects, and crustaceans. But the worthiness of the law's broad purpose has become more apparent over the years, as scientists have found the value of rare plants and animals as sources for new medicines and genetic reservoirs for new agricultural crops.

Earlier endangered species laws passed in 1966 and 1969 raised public awareness about the plight of rare animals. But it was the 1973 Endangered Species Act that provided the real tools to help wildlife and plants facing extinction.

"Over the years the Endangered Species Act has evolved greater flexibility and increased recognition for the contributions of partners across all sectors of our society. I believe the Act will help us assure wildlife and wild places as a birthright for generations of Americans to come," Secretary Babbitt says.

The law has steadily built an impressive track record. By the time they are deemed to merit the special protection of the Endangered Species Act, many species have been declining for many years and face multiple threats to their continued existence.

Often research is needed to determine the exact causes of their decline or the best means of restoring them. Yet in 25 years, the Endangered Species Act has proven remarkably effective at preventing extinction's and slowing the decline of imperiled species. Nearly half of all species listed for a decade or more are now either stable or improving in status. Only seven -- less than 1 percent -- have been found to be extinct. Preventing the extinction of the remaining 99 percent of listed species is one of the Act's greatest successes.

But the Act's first 25 years have not been without controversy -- at times, intense controversy. Although protection of most species has gone without much public notice, a few -- like the snail darter and the northern spotted owl -- have been lightning rods for controversy. Often, it is the decline of these species that has caused society to confront hard issues about how we should manage our rivers, forests, and other natural resources. In that sense, endangered species have been "Mother Nature's 911," signaling changes in the environment that require our attention.

"Has the Endangered Species Act generated controversy?" asks Jamie Rappaport Clark, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Of course. But I believe most Americans now recognize that the Endangered Species Act is ultimately about our own future. The law doesn't protect just the famous and well-loved species. It seeks to assure healthy and balanced life systems for all species -- ours included. The Act has sparked much debate over the years, and that's wholesome; that's how a public dialogue is encouraged and laws can be improved. But on the 25th anniversary, I think it's important to note that this law has given us a society far more on the plus side of the ledger than on the minus. There have been some tremendous restorations and some vitally important strides for scores of rare plants and animals."

One of the most remarkable events of 1998 was the announcement that the peregrine falcon is ready to graduate from the list of endangered and threatened species. The Peregrine Fund, the Raptor Center, the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, states and many volunteers have worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service over the last two decades to successfully breed and release peregrines into the wild. Today their numbers have reached 1,593 breeding pairs, inhabiting skyscrapers, bridges, and cliffs in 40 states. Many more species will be following the peregrine on its road to recovery in the near future, including our national symbol, the bald eagle, the Aleutian Canada goose, and the Tinian monarch -- a fitting tribute to the 25th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.

Other highlights this year included the captive breeding program for the endangered black-footed ferret, which experienced its most successful year to date. Managed by the Service and many partners (the Toronto Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, Henry Doorly Zoo, Louisville Zoological Garden, National Zoo, and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Park), the program produced 339 surviving kits from a total of 452 born in captivity this spring. As a result, over 200 ferret kits were placed into reintroduction sites and field breeding programs this year. This success is even more impressive considering that the ferret was thought to be extinct until a Wyoming ranch dog brought one home in 1981.

The California condor reintroduction program continued this year as well, in partnership with the Peregrine Fund. Condors have been released in Arizona and California, increasing the population of free-flying condors from zero in 1987 to 44 today.

The Act's flagship species, the whooping crane, fell to less than 20 individuals in the early 1940's. Today more than 200 whooping cranes exist in the wild, with 200 more in captive breeding populations. The greenback cutthroat trout was widely believed extinct until a remote population as discovered in the 1960's. Thanks to recovery actions under the Endangered Species Act, the greenback is on the verge of complete delisting.

But, despite its successes, need for the Act continues. This year, the Service has added 57 species to the endangered species list, bringing the list of endangered and threatened species to 1179. "Listing a species means that other conservation efforts have failed," says Service Director Clark. "Ideally we should be protecting more species earlier by addressing larger habitat issues. The Endangered Species Act at least gives us one last chance to do right by a creature."

Seventy percent of all endangered and threatened species make their homes on privately owned lands, so the involvement of landowners is critical to the management of these vulnerable species. The Clinton Administration has worked on ways for landowners to become more involved in the protection of endangered species on their lands while allowing for smart economic development to continue.

"These efforts have paid off," according to Director Clark. "In local communities all across the country, people are taking a real interest in saving species. All Americans owe tremendous gratitude to concerned groups and individual private citizens who have dedicated their efforts to saving species that were virtually on the brink of extinction."

Through habitat conservation plans (HCP's), the Service works with landowners to conserve species and their habitats while providing for economic growth. HCP's offer long-term planning for both landowners and for species. To date, 243 habitat conservation plan permits have been signed and about 200 more are being developed. These habitat conservation plans cover approximately 6.5 million acres.

One of the highlights of the HCP program was the completion of San Diego's Multi-Species Conservation Plan, covering 85 endangered and threatened species. "With the U.S. population expected to increase by 125 million in the next century, San Diego now offers a model to the nation for how to plan for and balance the needs of man and nature, demonstrating that the preservation of ecosystems and the unique plants and wildlife they support is compatible with growth and development. This is endangered species protection in the real world," says Secretary Babbitt.

"The basic message of the Endangered Species Act is something everybody understands: extinction is forever," Babbitt concludes. "Once a species and its habitat are lost, they can't be brought back. The Endangered Species Act gives us one last chance to intervene on behalf of a species, and to save some important living part of America for the future."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System comprised of more than 500 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands, and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state wildlife agencies.

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Nations Marks 25 years of Endangered species Protection

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The Mountain-Prairie Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 134 Union Boulevard Lakewood, Colorado 80228 December 30, 1998 Cindy Hoffman 202-208-5634 NATION MARKS 25 YEARS OF ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION "Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed."

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Critics say that the new rules limit much-needed protections for at-risk wildlife

smithsonian.com

The Trump administration announced on Monday that it will implement several changes to the Endangered Species Act-changes that will, according to conservation advocates, weaken legislation that has played a pivotal role in protecting the nation's at-risk wildlife.

Signed by President Richard Nixon in 1973, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) currently protects 1,663 animal and plant species, 388 of which are considered threatened and 1,275 are endangered. The law has been credited with helping bring multiple species back from the brink of extinction, among them the bald eagle, the humpback whale, the California Condor and the American alligator. But as notes, "the law has long been a source of frustration for drillers, miners and other industries because new listings can put vast swathes of land off limits to development."

Republicans have long pushed for an overhaul of the law. And the new rules, which are expected to go into effect next month, "appear very likely to clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live," according to Lisa Friedman of the New York Times.

One of the key changes pertains to threatened species, which are one classification below endangered species but used to automatically receive the same protections. Now, protections for threatened plants and animals will be made on a case-by-case basis, slowing down the process and likely reducing overall protections for species that are ultimately added to the list, as Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, tells 's Jonathan Lambert.

The new rules also impose limitations on how threats are assessed. Officials used to take into account factors that could harm species in the "foreseeable future," but now lawmakers have more discretion in deciding what "foreseeable future" should mean. So they may choose to disregard climate factors-like rising sea levels and extreme heat-that will likely impact species several decades from now.

Additionally, the revisions curtail an important function of the ESA: protecting lands that at-risk species need to survive. One new stipulation requires regulators to assess lands that are currently occupied by threatened or endangered species before looking at unoccupied areas. But as Madeleine Gregory of explains, many species are at risk precisely because they have been forced into a small fraction of their original habitat, and protecting more land around them can help species recover.

Yet another change to the ESA saw the removal of language stipulating that only scientific evidence should be considered when deciding whether a species should be protected, essentially allowing reviewers to take economic loss into consideration as well. Gary Frazer, the assistant director for endangered species with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, stressed in a press conference that listing decisions will continue to be based on science. But allowing economic analyses to factor into the process, even just for " informational purposes," is a "giant concession to industries that have long complained about having to make excessive accommodations because of the law," the Los Angeles Times writes in an op-ed.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said that the new revisions "fit squarely within the President's mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public, without sacrificing our species' protection and recovery goals." But critics maintain that regulations will in fact hamper conservation efforts at a time of biodiversity crisis. In May, the United Nations released an alarming report stating that one million species are at risk of extinction, due to factors like climate change, pollution, deforestation, overfishing and poaching. Advocates say that to ensure the long-term sustainability of the planet's ecosystems, 30 percent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 30 percent of the world's oceans will need to be effectively managed by 2030.

"Instead of looking for solutions to the global extinction crisis that threatens up to one million plant and animal species, this administration has decided to place arbitrary and unlawful restrictions on the very federal regulators that Congress has tasked with protecting them," David Hayes, executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law and a former interior deputy secretary under the Obama and Clinton administrations, tells the Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press.

Conservationists and multiple state attorney generals have promised to sue the administration over the revisions, arguing that they are illegal because they are not rooted in scientific evidence, according to 's Nathan Rott.

"This effort to gut protections for endangered and threatened species has the same two features of most Trump administration actions: it's a gift to industry, and it's illegal," Drew Caputo, a vice president of litigation for the advocacy group Earthjustice tells the AP. "We'll see the Trump administration in court about it."

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Trump Administration Overhauls How the Endangered Species Act Is Enforced

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smithsonian.com The Trump administration announced on Monday that it will implement several changes to the Endangered Species Act-changes that will, according to conservation advocates, weaken legislation that has played a pivotal role in protecting the nation's at-risk wildlife.

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Trump Administration's Changes to The Endangered Species Act Risks Pushing More Species To Extinction

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"The new rules completely undermine the strength of the ESA...The point of the act is to prevent extinction, this is going to do the opposite."

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Our planet's rich variety of plant and animal life provides many important products and services-from foods and medicines to clean water and pest control-as well as a multitude of less tangible benefits.

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Up to 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are at risk of extinction - many of them within decades - according to scientists and researchers who produced a sweeping U.N. report on how humanity's burgeoning growth is putting the world's biodiversity at perilous risk.

Some of the report's findings might not seem new to those who have followed stories of how humans have affected the environment, from shifts in seasons to the prevalence of plastics and other contaminants in water. But its authors say the assessment is the most accurate and comprehensive review yet of the damage people are inflicting on the planet. And they warn that nature is declining at "unprecedented" rates and that the changes will put people at risk.

"Protecting biodiversity amounts to protecting humanity," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said at a news conference about the findings Monday morning.

The report depicts "an ominous picture," says Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (commonly called the IPBES), which compiled the assessment.

"The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever," Watson says. He emphasizes that business and financial concerns are also threatened. "We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide," he says.

The report lists a number of key global threats, from humans' use of land and sea resources to challenges posed by climate change, pollution and invasive species.

"Insect pollinators are unfortunately an excellent example of the problems caused by human activities," Scott McArt,an entomology professor at Cornell University, says in a statement about the report.

"There's actually a newly coined phrase for insect declines - the 'windshield effect' - owing to the fact that if you drove your car at dusk 30 years ago, you would need to clean the windshield frequently, but that's no longer the case today," McArt says.

In its tally of humanity's toll on the Earth, the assessment says "approximately 60 billion tons of renewable and nonrenewable resources are now extracted globally every year," adding that the figure has nearly doubled since 1980.

Here's a short selection of some of the report's notable findings:

75% of land environment and some 66% of the marine environment "have been significantly altered by human actions."

"More than a third of the world's land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources" are used for crops or livestock.

"Up to $577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss."

Between 100 million and 300 million people now face "increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of coastal habitats and protection."

Since 1992, the world's urban areas have more than doubled.

"Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980," and from "300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge" and other industrial waste are dumped into the world's water systems.

"Biodiversity and nature's contributions to people are our common heritage and humanity's most important life-supporting 'safety net.' But our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point," says Sandra Díaz of Argentina, a co-chair of the global assessment.

Díaz and other experts portrayed humans as both the cause of the threat and a target of its risks. As humanity demands ever more food, energy, housing and other resources, they say, it's also undermining its own food security and long-term prospects.

"The essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed," says Josef Settele, a co-chair from Germany. "This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world."

The report found patterns of "telecoupling," which another co-chair, Eduardo S. Brondízio of Brazil and the U.S., describes as the phenomenon of resources being extracted and made into goods in one part of the world "to satisfy the needs of distant consumers in other regions."

That pattern, Brondízio says, makes it more complicated to avoid damage to nature through the usual avenues of governance and accountability.

While the report's eye-popping statistics about what the world stands to lose because of human activity are drawing headlines, conservation advocates say they hope the assessment helps people grasp the bigger picture.

"The hope is that folks will be able to extrapolate beyond the individual stories they've been seeing about orcas or monarchs or bees or bats or caribou or whatever," says Collin O'Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. He adds that the new report could help people "see that this is a systemic threat that could potentially cause the sixth extinction even, if we don't act quickly."

Hundreds of experts worked together to create the global assessment, with a total of 455 authors representing 50 countries taking part, according to the IPBES.

The agency calls the report one of the most comprehensive assessments of the planet's health ever undertaken, saying it is the first global biodiversity assessment since 2005.

Its findings are based on reviews of some 15,000 scientific and government sources, the IPBES says, adding that in addition to those formal sources, the report also includes insights from indigenous and local communities.

To create the assessment, the IPBES was asked to answer several wide-ranging questions, from reporting on the current status and patterns of change in the natural world to "plausible futures" for nature and the quality of life through 2050. Other questions sought to find interventions and challenges for coping with those changes - and possibly improving dire outcomes.

The goal, the report's authors say, was not only to take stock of a worsening predicament but to give policymakers "the tools they need to make better choices for people and nature."

The assessment highlights dire predictions for habitats and native species in South America and parts of Asia. But the NWF's O'Mara warns that the U.S. also has much to lose - especially if biodiversity is viewed as someone else's problem.

"This is a problem here at home," O'Mara says. "About one-third of all species right now in the U.S. are at heightened risk of potential extinction in the next couple of decades."

Echoing what environmental experts said in Europe as the IPBES released its report, O'Mara says it is not too late to act.

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1 Million Animal And Plant Species Are At Risk Of Extinction, U.N. Report Says

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Up to 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are at risk of extinction - many of them within decades - according to scientists and researchers who produced a sweeping U.N. report on how humanity's burgeoning growth is putting the world's biodiversity at perilous risk.

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Speaking in Paris at the launch of the Global Assessment study - the first such report since 2005 - UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said that its findings put the world "on notice".

"Following the adoption of this historic report, no one will be able to claim that they did not know," the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said. "We can no longer continue to destroy the diversity of life. This is our responsibility towards future generations."

Highlighting the universal importance of biodiversity - the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems - Ms. Azoulay said that protecting it "is as vital as fighting climate change".

Presented to more than 130 government delegations for their approval at UNESCO headquarters, the report features the work of 400 experts from at least 50 countries, coordinated by the Bonn-based Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( IPBES).

In addition to providing exhaustive insights on the state of nature, ecosystems and how nature underpins all human activity, the study also discusses progress on key international goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs), the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The report also examines five main drivers of "unprecedented" biodiversity and ecosystem change over the past 50 years, identifying them as: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change, pollution, and invasion of alien species.

One in four species at risk of extinction

On at-risk fauna and flora, the study asserts that human activities "threaten more species now than ever before" - a finding based on the fact that around 25 per cent of species in plant and animal groups are vulnerable.

This suggests that around one million species "already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss".

Without such measures there will be a "further acceleration" in the global rate of species extinction, which is already "at least tens to hundreds of times higher, than it has averaged over the past 10 million years", the report states.

It notes that despite many local efforts, including by indigenous peoples and local communities, by 2016, 559 of the 6,190 domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture were extinct - around nine per cent of the total - and at least 1,000 more are threatened.

Crop security threatened long-term

In addition, many crop wild relatives that are needed for long-term food security "lack effective protection", the report insists, while the status of wild relatives of domesticated mammals and birds "is worsening".

At the same time, reductions in the diversity of cultivated crops, crop wild relatives and domesticated breeds mean that farming will likely be less resilient against future climate change, pests and pathogens.

"While more food, energy and materials than ever before are now being supplied to people in most places, this is increasingly at the expense of nature's ability to provide such contributions in the future," the report states, before adding that "the biosphere, upon which humanity as a whole depends...is declining faster than at any time in human history".

Marine pollution 'has increased tenfold since 1980'

On the issue of pollution, although global trends are mixed, air, water and soil pollution have continued to increase in some areas, the report insists. "Marine plastic pollution in particular has increased tenfold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species", it says, including 86 per cent of marine turtles, 44 per cent of seabirds and 43 per cent of marine mammals.

The 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is also the first of its kind to examine and include indigenous and local knowledge, issues and priorities, IPBES said in a statement, noting that its mission is to strengthen policy-making for the sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development.

"The loss of species, ecosystems and genetic diversity is already a global and generational threat to human well-being," insisted Sir Robert Watson, IPBES Chair. "Protecting the invaluable contributions of nature to people will be the defining challenge of decades to come. Policies, efforts and actions - at every level - will only succeed, however, when based on the best knowledge and evidence."

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World is 'on notice' as major UN report shows one million species face extinction

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A hard-hitting report into the impact of humans on nature shows that nearly one million species risk becoming extinct within decades, while current efforts to conserve the earth's resources will likely fail without radical action, UN biodiversity experts said on Monday.

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The outlook for biodiversity on Earth is grim, according to a new United Nations report.

UN scientists warn that roughly 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction due to human activity. It would be the first mass extinction since humans started walking the earth and has dire implications for the survival of our own species. Already, humans are losing key ecosystem services that nature provides, including crop pollination, storm mitigation, and clean air and water.

"We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide."

Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

"The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture," said Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. "The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide."

Hundreds of scientists from around the globe came together and compiled information on species extinctions and loss of habitat. They arrived at the figure of one million at-risk species by measuring diversity in different areas, the amount of habitat that has been lost and the amount of habitat projected to be lost in the coming years.
Related: Is 'new economics' the way to save the planet?

"We're already losing so many species because of our footprint, because of altered habitats. ... It makes it even harder for species to adapt to climate change because their ability to move is impacted by habitat loss and fragmentation."

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity

"The UN wants to bring this issue to the forefront in the same way that climate change has been brought to the forefront with [the] IPCC reports," explains Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. For many species, extinction could occur in the next couple of decades if humanity doesn't take action soon. And our ability to reverse the current trends diminishes as time goes on, he adds.

Species loss and climate change are deeply interrelated. "We're already losing so many species because of our footprint, because of altered habitats," Greenwald explains. "It makes it even harder for species to adapt to climate change because their ability to move is impacted by habitat loss and fragmentation."

Habitat that remains may be less suitable for many species if local conditions become too warm, too wet or too dry. Or in other cases, the climate might still be right for plants, but not for their pollinators.

In addition to habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution and direct exploitation are the primary threats to species worldwide, Greenwald says. While oceans and tropical rain forests are particularly vulnerable, species of all kinds in every type of ecosystem require protection from extinction.

The report concluded that a third of all fisheries are unsustainable, and while efforts have been made to slow tropical deforestation, it continues at an alarming rate.

"The conversion to palm plantations in Indonesia has been one of the most striking examples in recent years, but there are others as well," Greenwald says. "We have to figure out a way to help these countries not destroy their forests and protect their forests," he maintains. "It's critically important for biodiversity. It's also critically important for climate because these forests help regulate our climate and store massive amounts of carbon."
Related: Climate change: Obsession with plastic pollution is just a distraction
Coral reefs, which are enormously important to biodiversity in the oceans, also continue to suffer great losses. Fifty percent of the world's coral reefs have died since 1870. Greenwald has witnessed this loss personally. He spent a month in 1990 at a campground in Maui, where he swam in a coral reef teeming with life. He returned to the same campground this spring and "observed, largely, a dead reef where there had once been this incredibly live, beautiful reef," he says.

Near-shore habitats, whether tropical or nontropical, contain most of the species in the ocean; human activity has the most impact on these areas, he points out.

Closer to home, in North America, the leading edge of the extinction crisis is our freshwater ecosystems - our rivers and streams, Greenwald says. "That's where the most species have been lost. We're at risk of losing many fish, mussels, crayfish. We've been working to get these species protected under the Endangered Species Act."
Related: Scientists warn a million species at risk of extinction
Greenwald believes the report did a good job of highlighting the concept of "ecosystem services," which explain why biodiversity loss affects humanity.

"Most of our medicines come from species and from ecosystems; all of our food; ecosystems clean our water, clean our air, moderate floods, moderate our climate. We need ecosystems for our quality of life and for our very own survival."

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity

"Ecosystems do things for us," Greenwald explains. "Most of our medicines come from species and from ecosystems; all of our food; ecosystems clean our water, clean our air, moderate floods, moderate our climate. We need ecosystems for our quality of life and for our very own survival."

The component parts of any ecosystem are its species and as more species are lost, the ability of that ecosystem to function and provide these services becomes compromised.

An analogy that's often used is an airplane, Greenwald says. "You can maybe lose a couple bolts here and there and the plane will still fly. But as you lose more and more parts, you're going to eventually drop from the sky. That's the concern - that we're going to lose these ecosystem services, which provide so much benefit to us."

As distressing as this all may sound, Greenwald believes we must also remember that "there's a lot of nature left to protect and we still have a beautiful world."

"We just need to work harder to protect it," he says. "We have to let those in power know that this is critically important to us and that we need change. We need a fundamental transformation in how we do business, both to address loss of biodiversity and to address climate change."
This article is based on an interview that aired on PRI's Living on Earth with Steve Curwood.

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A UN report says Earth faces 'unprecedented' threat to biodiversity

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The outlook for biodiversity on Earth is grim, according to a new United Nations report. UN scientists warn that roughly 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction due to human activity. It would be the first mass extinction since humans started walking the earth and has dire implications for the survival of our own species.

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People are putting nature in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over 1 million species of plants and animals, scientists said Monday.

But it's not too late to fix the problem, according to the United Nations' first comprehensive report on biodiversity.

"We have reconfigured dramatically life on the planet," report co-chairman Eduardo Brondizio of Indiana University said at a press conference.

Species loss is accelerating to a rate tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past, the report said. More than half a million species on land "have insufficient habitat for long-term survival" and are likely to go extinct, many within decades, unless their habitats are restored. The oceans are not any better off.

"Humanity unwittingly is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity's own future," said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research. He was not part of the report.

"The biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that," Lovejoy said.

Conservation scientists convened in Paris to issue the report, which exceeded 1,000 pages. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) included more than 450 researchers who used 15,000 scientific and government reports. The report's summary had to be approved by representatives of all 109 nations.

Some nations hit harder by the losses, like small island countries, wanted more in the report. Others, such as the United States, were cautious in the language they sought, but they agreed "we're in trouble," said Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund, who observed the final negotiations.

"This is the strongest call we've seen for reversing the trends on the loss of nature," Shaw said.

The findings are not just about saving plants and animals, but about preserving a world that's becoming harder for humans to live in, said Robert Watson, a former top NASA and British scientist who headed the report.

"We are indeed threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric" of humanity, Watson told The Associated Press.

It's also an economic and security issue as countries fight over scarcer resources. Watson said the poor in less developed countries bear the greatest burden.

The report's 39-page summary highlighted five ways people are reducing biodiversity:

- Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless. About three-quarters of Earth's land, two-thirds of its oceans and 85% of crucial wetlands have been severely altered or lost, making it harder for species to survive, the report said.

- Overfishing the world's oceans. A third of the world's fish stocks are overfished.

- Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. Almost half of the world's land mammals - not including bats - and nearly a quarter of the birds have already had their habitats hit hard by global warming.

- Polluting land and water. Every year, 300 to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge are dumped into the world's waters.

- Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. The number of invasive alien species per country has risen 70% since 1970, with one species of bacteria threatening nearly 400 amphibian species.

"The key to remember is, it's not a terminal diagnosis," said report co-author Andrew Purvis of the Natural History Museum in London.

Fighting climate change and saving species are equally important, the report said, and working on both environmental problems should go hand in hand. Both problems exacerbate each other because a warmer world means fewer species, and a less biodiverse world means fewer trees and plants to remove heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the air, Lovejoy said.

The world's coral reefs are a perfect example of where climate change and species loss intersect. If the world warms another 0.9 degrees (0.5 degrees Celsius), which other reports say is likely, coral reefs will probably dwindle by 70% to 90%, the report said. At 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius), the report said, 99% of the world's coral will be in trouble.

"Business as usual is a disaster," Watson said.

At least 680 species with backbones have already gone extinct since 1600. The report said 559 domesticated breeds of mammals used for food have disappeared. More than 40% of the world's amphibian species, more than one-third of the marine mammals and nearly one-third of sharks and fish are threatened with extinction.

The report relies heavily on research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, which is composed of biologists who maintain a list of threatened species.

The IUCN calculated in March that 27,159 species are threatened, endangered or extinct in the wild out of nearly 100,000 species biologists examined in depth. That includes 1,223 mammal species, 1,492 bird species and 2,341 fish species. Nearly half the threatened species are plants.

Scientists have only examined a small fraction of the estimated 8 million species on Earth.

The report comes up with 1 million species in trouble by extrapolating the IUCN's 25% threatened rate to the rest of the world's species and using a lower rate for the estimated 5.5 million species of insects, Watson said.

Outside scientists, such as Lovejoy and others, said that's a reasonable assessment.

The report gives only a generic "within decades" time frame for species loss because it is dependent on many variables, including taking the problem seriously, which can reduce the severity of the projections, Watson said.

"We're in the middle of the sixth great extinction crisis, but it's happening in slow motion," said Conservation International and University of California Santa Barbara ecologist Lee Hannah, who was not part of the report.

Five times in the past, Earth has undergone mass extinctions where much of life on Earth blinked out, like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Watson said the report was careful not to call what's going on now as a sixth big die-off because current levels don't come close to the 75% level in past mass extinctions.

The report goes beyond species. Of the 18 measured ways nature helps humans, the report said 14 are declining, with food and energy production noticeable exceptions. The report found downward trends in nature's ability to provide clean air and water, good soil and other essentials.

Habitat loss is one of the biggest threats, and it's happening worldwide, Watson said. The report projects 15.5 million miles (25 million kilometers) of new roads will be paved over nature between now and 2050, most in the developing world.

Many of the worst effects can be prevented by changing the way we grow food, produce energy, deal with climate change and dispose of waste, the report said. That involves concerted action by governments, companies and people.

Individuals can help with simple changes to the way they eat and use energy, said the co-chairman of the report, ecological scientist Josef Settele of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany. That doesn't mean becoming a vegetarian or vegan, but balancing meat, vegetables and fruit, and walking and biking more, Watson said.

"We can actually feed all the coming billions of people without destroying another inch of nature," Lovejoy said. Much of that can be done by eliminating food waste and being more efficient, he said.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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UN report: Humans accelerating extinction of other species

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People are putting nature in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over 1 million species of plants and animals, scientists said Monday. But it's not too late to fix the problem, according to the United Nations' first comprehensive report on biodiversity.

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effects of endangered species on the environment

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threatened endangered and extinct species

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how can the government protect endangered species

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epa endangered species protection program

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EPA's Endangered Species Protection Program helps promote recovery of listed species. The ESPP determines if pesticide use in a geographic area may affect any listed species. Find needed limits on pesticide use in Endangered Species Protection Bulletins.

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Before the ink dried on the Trump administration's regulatory revisions to the Endangered Species Act last month, environmentalists and the media declared them a disaster. "These changes crash a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act's lifesaving protections," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity in a widely quoted statement. "For animals like wolverines and monarch butterflies, this could be the beginning of the end."

Almost every past attempt to update the nearly 50-year-old law has been met with strong resistance, regardless of the administration in power-and understandably so. Public support for the act consistently ranks high, and the appeal of saving species from extinction transcends party affiliation.

But much of the commentary about the new rules-which make several changes to the way the government implements the act-has nonetheless been misleading and overblown. Far from " gutting" the act, as CNN reported, many of the revisions are procedural changes. And some of the more substantive changes have a good chance of improving the overall effectiveness of the act.

As a tool for protecting and recovering imperiled species, the Endangered Species Act has a mixed record. On one hand, 99 percent of species listed under the act have avoided extinction. On the other hand, only 2 percent have recovered and been delisted.

It's not hard to see why. The act's punitive regulatory approach may be good for stopping destructive land-use activities that could push a species beyond the brink of extinction, but it does little or nothing to reward private landowners who recover species or restore critical habitat. In fact, it often does the opposite: The act imposes costly regulatory burdens on landowners, effectively turning endangered species into liabilities to be avoided rather than assets to be conserved. And because most endangered species rely, at least in part, on private lands for habitat, few species have recovered.

A clear-eyed assessment of the Trump administration's changes would consider not simply whether the new rules are more or less stringent than before, but whether they are likely to improve what the act does poorly (recovering species) while preserving what the act does well (preventing extinctions). A strong case can be made that the new rules will succeed on both counts.

To see how, consider one of the more significant rule changes: the removal of a blanket policy issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1975 that extends the act's full protections to all listed species, regardless of whether they are considered endangered (those currently at risk of extinction) or threatened (those that could become endangered "in the foreseeable future"). Since then, the same strict regulations have applied to threatened species and endangered ones, unless the agency issues a special provision stating otherwise.

The new rules will restore Congress's original distinction between threatened and endangered species by tailoring protections to match the needs of the species-a change that could provide better incentives to recover species. Going forward, the Fish and Wildlife Service will decide on a case-by-case basis which protections a threatened species should receive, allowing the agency to issue baseline protections without unduly restricting activities that pose little or no threat to the species-including management actions such as grazing or forest management that could improve habitat for certain species but might otherwise have been forbidden under the full endangered-species protections.

This could go a long way toward encouraging species recovery. Before the recent rule change, landowners who worked to improve species' status from endangered to threatened often received nothing in return. And likewise, once a species was listed as threatened, landowners had little reason to prevent a further decline: The same burdensome restrictions applied in either case.

Now, under the new rule, the incentives of landowners will be better aligned with the interests of at-risk species. Landowners can be rewarded with regulatory relief if an endangered species' status improves, and they will have ample incentives to recover threatened species to avoid a more-stringent endangered listing. And, importantly, the Fish and Wildlife Service will be able to craft more-flexible rules for threatened species that encourage states, landowners, and conservationists to collaborate on recovery efforts-such as projects that permit certain land-use activities in exchange for conserving and improving habitat elsewhere-while retaining the ability to impose stricter endangered protections if a threatened species continues to decline.

If the goal of endangered-species policy is simply to control land use and stop development, then the status quo is fine. But if the goal is truly to recover species, then changes are long overdue.

As an example, consider the monarch butterfly. Populations of the iconic insect, which migrates throughout much of the United States each year, have fallen as much as 90 percent in recent decades. The decline is in large part due to a lack of milkweed, a plant that monarchs depend on but that is being increasingly eradicated by modern agriculture. (Milkweed is, after all, a weed.) The Fish and Wildlife Service has until next year to decide whether to list the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act-a decision that could affect landowners across the country.

Under the old rules, in which all listed species receive full protection by default, listing the butterfly under the Endangered Species Act would be the surest and fastest way to deter many landowners from helping recover the species. Landowners would have no incentive to plant milkweed, which the species relies on exclusively to lay eggs and as a food source for its caterpillars. Planting milkweed would create monarch habitat, which could then make landowners subject to burdensome regulations. Harming a butterfly or its habitat-even inadvertently, as part of everyday land-use activities-could trigger the act's full civil and criminal penalties.

Some landowners might even be encouraged to preemptively destroy existing monarch habitat, a phenomenon that has been well documented for other endangered species. For example, several studies have found that timber owners in North Carolina began cutting trees earlier, or clear-cutting forests entirely, to avoid land-use restrictions that would have arisen if their forests became old-growth habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers.

The new rules aim to change that. In the case of the monarch, a less-stringent threatened listing could allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to encourage participation in voluntary conservation measures without creating perverse incentives that would undermine the butterfly's recovery. The Environmental Defense Fund, for example, has been developing a habitat-exchange program that offers incentives for farmers to plant milkweed. Similar programs could be encouraged or developed under the new threatened-species listing rules, which could be crafted to support-not undermine-ongoing voluntary conservation efforts. For instance, rules could be issued that allow landowners enrolled in a voluntary conservation program to be exempt from certain land-use regulations.

Another rule change reverses a policy that allowed the government to designate "critical habitat" on lands that are currently unoccupied or uninhabitable by a species. Such designations impose costly regulations and permitting requirements on landowners and generate plenty of conflict, but they do little to promote conservation.

In 2011, the government designated 1,500 acres of private land in Louisiana as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog-even though the species had not been seen in the state for 50 years and could not survive on the land unless significant modifications were made to it, including replacing the current commercial pine plantation with the historic, fire-dependent longleaf pine forest found there centuries ago. The landowner's reward for receiving such a designation: a potential $34 million loss in development value, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service's own estimates. Not surprisingly, the landowner had little interest in recovering the frog.

The conflict resulted in a unanimous Supreme Court opinion last year that held that only habitable land could be designated as critical habitat. The Trump administration's new rules conform to the Court's ruling by requiring that unoccupied critical-habitat areas "contain one or more of the physical or biological features essential to the species' conservation" and that there be "reasonable certainty" that such a designation will contribute to the conservation of the species.

Media reports about several other regulatory changes have simply been inaccurate. Many outlets have asserted that the new rules will allow economic factors to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to list a new species. The reality is that the new rules explicitly acknowledge that the Endangered Species Act forbids economic considerations from influencing listing decisions. The new rules simply remove a gag order that forbade the Fish and Wildlife Service to report economic costs.

Moreover, the government cannot suddenly ignore climate change in listing decisions, as some have claimed. The new rules clarify the definition of "foreseeable future" as extending only as far into the future as agency officials "can reasonably determine." This language simply codifies a policy that the Fish and Wildlife Service has followed since 2009, during which period many species have been listed based in part on threats arising from a changing climate.

Overall, many of the changes finalized last month are far more modest than environmentalists and the media have portrayed. And some of the more substantive changes, such as restoring the regulatory distinction between threatened and endangered species, will likely reduce conflicts with landowners and encourage more collaboration in species-recovery efforts-all without reducing the act's effectiveness at preventing extinction.

If the goal of endangered-species policy is simply to control land use and stop development, then the status quo is fine. But if the goal is truly to recover species, then changes are long overdue. The new regulations, if implemented effectively, could help promote the recovery of many species by getting the incentives right-putting species not just on a federal list, but on a path to recovery.

This post originally appeared in the National Review.

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The New Endangered-Species Regulations Are Good for Species

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Before the ink dried on the Trump administration's regulatory revisions to the Endangered Species Act last month, environmentalists and the media declared them a disaster. "These changes crash a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act's lifesaving protections," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity in a widely quoted statement.

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The Endangered Species Act is the strongest law for protecting biodiversity passed by any nation. Its purpose is to prevent the extinction of our most at-risk plants and animals, increase their numbers and effect their full recovery - and eventually their removal from the endangered list.

Currently the Act protects more than 1,600 plant and animal species in the United States and its territories, many of which are successfully recovering.

Over the past four-plus decades, the Endangered Species Act has repeatedly demonstrated that - when used to the full extent of the law - it works. The Act has been more than 99 percent successful at preventing extinction. Were it not for the Act, scientists have estimated, at least 227 species would have likely gone extinct since the law's passage in 1973.

The Act Under Attack

But the Act has just been attacked like never before. Most recently, the Trump administration's changes to this law will weaken it beyond recognition. This is just a glimpse of what the new policies will do:

"Threatened" wildlife will no longer receive any level of protection;

The financial costs of safeguarding endangered species will now be weighed;

Developers will be allowed to bulldoze, mine, drill and log in crucial habitat; and

Wildlife awaiting help could face even longer life-threatening delays.

Hard Numbers Back Up the Act

The Endangered Species Act isn't just keeping species from extinction - it's also helping hundreds of species recover. And we have hard numbers to prove it.

The Center has released several in-depth reports on the Act's success, but our first and perhaps our most reknowned is our 2012 study documenting 110 species that have seen tremendous recovery while protected under the Act, with the great majority meeting or exceeding recovery timelines set by federal scientists. This study built on Center work showing that of all species listed in the northeastern United States, 93 percent are stable or improving and more than 80 percent are meeting the recovery targets established in federal recovery plans.

In sum, here's a handy list of key quantitative measures of the Act's success:

From 1973 to 2013, the Act prevented extinction for 99 percent of species under its protection.

The Act has shown a 90 percent recovery rate in more than 100 species throughout the United States.

The Act has allowed the designation of millions of acres of critical habitat, which is crucial to species' survival and recovery. In fact, imperiled species with federally protected protected critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without. Center for Biological Diversity fact: Just since 2008, the Center has won designation of 233 million acres of critical habitat, 95 percent of all critical habitat acres set aside between 2008 and 2013 - an area larger than the entire national forest system (191 million acres), twice as large as California (105 million acres), and almost three times the size of the national park system (84 million acres).

The Act has poll-proven strong public support. A national poll commissioned by the Center in 2013 found that 2 out of 3 Americans want the Endangered Species Act strengthened or left alone, but not weakened. More recent polls have found even greater support, with 9 out of 10 people polled supporting a strong Endangered Species Act.

Below are but a few examples of species that have seen their numbers soar because of the Endangered Species Act.

Get the latest on our work for biodiversity and learn how to help in our free weekly e-newsletter.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The Extinction Crisis
Learn about the global extinction crisis that the Endangered Species Act was set up to fight against.

Contact: Noah Greenwald

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The Endangered Species Act: A Wild Success

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The Endangered Species Act is the strongest law for protecting biodiversity passed by any nation. Its purpose is to prevent the extinction of our most at-risk plants and animals, increase their numbers and effect their full recovery - and eventually their removal from the endangered list.

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By / Last updated July 31, 2012 / / 15 minutes of reading

To keep the lights on, we receive affiliate commissions via some of our links. Rankings remain impartial. Our review process.

When it comes to factory farming there is a lot of misinformation out there designed to muddy the waters. Our goal is to help you understand the factory farming facts so you can form your own opinions on where to spend your money.

What is the Definition of Factory Farming?

A "factory farm" is a farm that raises animals for food or for animal products without focusing on the health or living conditions of the animals. The factory farming process focuses instead on raising as much livestock as possible within the space available in order to produce as much product as possible - hence the term factory farming. Most commonly factory farming focuses on the production of meat, eggs and milk for human consumption.

How Did Factory Farming Come About?

Before there were factory farms, animals were raised on ranches and farms in the open air. The animals would be taken care of used for what they could produce until they could no longer produce those things. For example, chickens were raised in the open air and housed in coops. When the hens stopped laying eggs, they would be slaughtered and eaten. Meats like veal were more likely to be produced if the animal injured itself than by simply being slaughter at 4-5 months of age.

Factory farming had its beginning in the 1920's after it was discovered that vitamins - particularly vitamins A and D could be added to animal feed. The addition of these vitamins to feed meant that animals no longer required exposure to sunlight or exercise outdoors in order to grow. Unfortunately for the animals this meant that many of them became subject to indoor living year round.

The Beginning of Factory Farming Trouble

As factory farming became increasingly popular, more and more animals were being kept indoors. Farmers began trying to maximize their profit by crowding increasing numbers of animals in to confined areas. Unfortunately this type of housing leads to the rapid spread of disease among animals. As one animal contracts a disease - for example swine flu - other animals that are within close proximity will also contract that disease and so on and so forth until the entire population is exposed. In attempts to reduce this type of spreading of disease the use of antibiotics in factory farming became popular. Antibiotics to combat disease in factory farmed animals were developed in the 1940's. By using antibiotics to combat the disease spread by overcrowding, farmers could still increase their productivity without having to worry about producing "unhealthy" animals.

Benefits of Factory Farming for Farmers

When first introduced, the concept of factory farming was a popular one for farmers for a number of reasons. The main benefit was the increase in productivity that farmers experienced from being able to crowd more animals in to housing units. This not only meant more product to sell, but it also meant lower production costs since they no longer had to purchase large runs of land on which to let the animals roam. As factory farming took off, farmers also found that they could implement mechanization and assembly line techniques that would allow faster processing of their animals as well.

Downfalls to Factory Farming

Animals Well Being

In addition to the faster spread of illness as has already been mentioned, factory farming carries with it additional perils. One of the most significant is the general well-being of the animals concerned. The animals in question were not built to thrive spending their lives indoors in extremely cramped and crowded situations. When such incredible numbers of animals are forced in to cramped surroundings they are subjected to suffering. Being unable to roam, being deprived of sunlight and fresh grass, these animals are being deprived of their basic needs. In cramped warehouses or factory farms, these animals are nose to tail which not only creates pain from lack of exercise and being forced to stand, but it also contributes to a breakdown of the natural hierarchy and social nature of the animals themselves.

Increased Use of Antibiotics

As any human being who has been subjected to lengthy courses of antibiotics will tell you, there are often some very unpleasant side effects that accompany these drugs. Since these overcrowded factory farming conditions require animals to be injected with antibiotics in order to prevent disease spread, these animals are frequently exposed to these unpleasant side effects.

Exposure to Hormones

As farmers begin to fall prey to factory farming in a desperate attempt to make their bottom line and stay in business, they often find themselves turning to hormone supplements. As these farmers give their animals hormone supplements they experience a higher product yield from unusually large animals. While this increased yield results in a larger paycheck for the farmer, unfortunately it also results in suffering for the animals. Again, as any woman who has taken birth control pills can tell you, hormones can be crazy things. The animals in factory farms have no say as to whether or not they ingest these products and as a result they often suffer the side effects from hormone ingestion.

Details of Confinement

For many (but not all) animals in factory farms, confinement does not only mean being crammed in to a crowded warehouse, for some it means being confined in small cages. These small cages often times prevent the animals from moving at all, giving them no space to lay down, no way to communicate with each other and a natural fear from being in an unfamiliar situation. Add to this unusual confinement the amount of ammonia in the air from the elimination habits of all of these animals, and factory farm confinement is simply a torturous place to be for anyone. As if confinement and ammonia weren't enough, these animals are also deprived of natural sunlight.

Mutilation in Factory Farming

In some instances of factory farming, animals are subjected to mutilation. Such actions can involve ear cutting, tail docking, branding and castration. While some of these practices are performed under sterilized circumstances by registered veterinarians, in many factory farms they are conducted on the animal within cramped confinement and without appropriate medical care. While these actions may make a factory farmers life easier, it simply adds to the suffering of the animals in question.

Determining the Fact from Fiction

Factory farming is an issue that many people feel passionate about and as such it is easy to become lost in the propaganda. It is important to be able to decipher fact from fiction in order to make an educated decision in regards to factory farming. Let's take a look at some official statistics.

Animals in Factory Farms

According to Horrigan, Leo, Lawrence, Robert S., Walker, Polly, "How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture," Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future, July 9, 1999 "Each full-grown chicken in a factory farm has as little as six-tenths of a square foot of space. Because of the crowding, they often become aggressive and sometimes eat each other. This has led to the painful practice of debeaking the birds." Along these lines, hogs can also become aggressive when kept in tight spaces and turn to biting each other's tails. This leads to tail docking practices.

According to Grace Links, the concrete floors or slatted floors that are part of the structure of many factory farming units, result in skeletal deformities in animals. These animals do not naturally live on such hard surfaces; their skeletons were designed for life in the dirt and grasslands.

According to the Humane Society, often animals in factory farms are forcibly overfed in order to produce particular products such as foie gras.

Many times animals in factory farming are prevented to perform natural behaviors such as nesting as a result of overcrowding conditions.

Research finds that breeding animals used by factory farms have considerably shorter life spans as a result of the constant cycles of pregnancy and giving birth.

Selective breeding done by factory farms to produce oversized animals to produce more product, results in "mutant" like animals that are unhealthy and unable to thrive.

Grace Links also estimates that some 80% of pigs slaughtered in the United States have pneumonia at their time of slaughter as the result of exposure to gasses produced by animal excretion in the factory farm.

Erik Marcus states that the genetic manipulation that many broiler chickens undergo is so severe that some 90% of them have difficulty walking because of deformities.

Pollution from Factory Farms

According to the USDA animals from the US meat industry are responsible for 61 million tons of waste, that's five tons of waste for every US citizen.

The Environmental Protection Agency claims that chicken, hog and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers throughout 22 states in the US and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.

A microscopic organism named Pfiesteria that feeds of the nitrogen found in animal waste is lethal to fish and humans. In one example according to Susan Zakin, author of a 1999 article on pollution, states that in 1991 1,000,000,000,000 fish died in the Neuse River, North Carolina from Pfiesteria exposure alone.

As factory farms crowd more animals in to their warehouses, more feed is required to feed these animals. The demand for more feed results in increased water use, deforestation of land, use of pesticides and herbicides on land for crop growth, reduced soil fertility and desertification. All of these factors destroy land that could otherwise sustain the "average" farm community.

The Centers for Disease Control Mortality Weekly Report claims that the pollution caused by animal waste results in depression, death, miscarriage, nausea, skin infections and respiratory infections for those who live within close proximity to factory farms.

The Economy of Factory Farming

According to the State of Utah Governor's Office of Planning and Budget in 1995, between 1969 and 1992, the number of farmers producing 1000 hogs or more annually increased by 320%. This was accompanied by a decline in the number of producers selling 1,000 hogs annually by 73%.

According to Earth Times, meat production has increased around the world from 44 million tons in 1950 to 211 million tons in 1997.

Susan Zakin also points out that some 90% of the poultry pollution in the United States results from just ten companies.

The Use of Antibiotics in Factory Farming

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the overuse of antibiotics in animals has resulted in the development of even more strains of drug resistant bacteria. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences noted that the approximate cost of treating these anti-biotic resistant infections in the United States alone is $30 billion!

According to the American Medical News, some fifty million pounds of antibiotics are produced every year within the United States. Of these fifty million pounds, 16 million pounds are used on livestock in order to increase their growth rate.

According to a 1994 edition of Newsweek, antibiotics that are used in farm animals leave behind strains of drug resistant microbes in the products produced by these animals. As the consumer ingests these microbes through milk or meat, they introduce these resistant bacteria to the body.

Specific Animal Conditions in Factory Farms

Chickens

Broiler Chickens are otherwise known as meat chickens. They are raised for their meat alone and are only kept until they reached the desired weight. Because of the genetic alterations, vitamins, hormones and antibiotics they are given, their bones often cannot keep up with the rate of growth of the rest of the body, leaving the chicken unable to support its own weight. These chickens are housed in such overcrowded facilities that their beaks and toes are cut off to prevent them from injuring each other and they are kept in continuous darkness to avoid conflicts between the chickens.

Layer Hens are raised for their eggs. Hormones cause the hens to lay earlier than they naturally would and the chickens are housed in a way that focuses only on the egg. The cages they live in have slanted floors which can cause painful foot problems. The cages themselves are about 14 inches square and house 5-8 chicks. Their beaks are seared off to prevent fighting. Chickens depend on sunlight to guide them in the laying process. This is one reason why chickens lay fewer eggs during the winter. To combat this, factory farms keep the hens in perpetual light. When the hens do stop laying eggs, they are starved until they go into the molt process, which will lead to another laying session. If the hens stop laying eggs altogether, they are slaughtered. Chickens that are born male are suffocated in garbage bags.

Pigs

Pigs are taken care of through an automated process and are kept in the dark until they are led out for slaughter. Because there are so many in one area together, they constantly breathe in the bacteria from their own waste and develop diseases from it.

Cattle

Veal is the tenderest of all cattle meat because it is taken from young cattle whose muscles have not become fully developed. To make sure that the veal is as tender as possible, the animal is housed in a two foot crate so that it cannot move. The lack of movement prevents the muscles from developing. Iron is withheld from their diet so that they retain the white color that veal consumers are so fond of. The animal lives in this manner for 4-5 months, until it is slaughtered.

Dairy Cows produce meat and baby cows. Since the cow can produce milk for up to 10 months after she gives birth, she is kept pregnant continuously. These animals are fed through automated systems. Their waster is also removed by automated systems, as is their milk. The cows are allowed outside twice a day to be milked. Otherwise, they remain in their small pens.

Beef cattle are cows raised specifically to become beef. One of the most thoughtless automated processes in the factory farms is the way that beef cattle are knocked unconscious by an automated device before they are killed. To kill a beef cattle, the animal is hung upside before its throat is cut so that the blood can be drained immediately. Since the automated process for knocking cattle out is not always effective, they are sometimes awake when they are hung upside down and killed.

Remedies to Factory Farming

Many people find themselves less familiar with how to remedy factory farming methods, making it difficult to make an argument against it. Below you will find some practical remedies to factory farming.

Public Awareness

One of the most significant things that can be done to discourage factory farming is to raise public awareness. It is up to local residents of communities as well as local governmental associations to determine whether they want factory farms in their jurisdiction. The general public is rarely aware that they are actually entitled to both review and comment on pollution reduction plans and to enforce the terms of those plans when a factory farm is not in adherence to those terms.

Accountability and Regulation

One significant problem that exists with factory farming is that there are very few regulation or accountability measures in place. It is important that new systems be put in place to ensure that these types of farms not only obtain permits to run their factory farms, but that they also monitor the quality of local water that is currently being affected by runoff. In cases where run off does occur and pollute the land around factory farms, it is crucial that farmers be held accountable for the cost of any clean up and be forced to put proper waste disposal plans in to effect.

The Implementation of New Technology Methods

Some advocates for an overhaul of factory farming methods believe that strengthening of factory farm technology would greatly reduce the need for administration of antibiotics to factory farm stock. Such advances in technology are believed to be able to significantly reduce the pathogens present in factory farms currently.

Implementation of Alternative Farming Practices

The amount of pollution, both to local water supplies and to the products that result from factory farming, should be enough to lead to state and federal support of alternative farming methods. Primarily, farms should be encouraged to focus on farming methods that do not rely upon such a high concentration of livestock in such a limited space. A focus should also be put upon livestock farming methods that allow animals more freedom to roam rather than being contained in such unhealthy environments. Additionally, farms should be focusing on methods of containing animal waste such as keeping animal waste drier which greatly reduces problems caused by runoff and spillage.

Small Feedlot Pollution Reduction Programs

Many smaller factory farms do not fall within the regulations established for larger industrial facilities. As a result, these small feedlots are exempt from voluntary programs designed to improve management practices. Additionally, these smaller farms find themselves unable to take advantage of technical assistance that is made available to larger farms, this type of access would help to reduce some of the common problems that factory farming causes and experiences.

Putting Pressure on the Consumer

One of the most significant factors in decreasing the practice of factory farming is the opinion of the consumer. If more consumers stand up and express their disapproval of farms that take on factory farming practices, then these farms simply will not be able to sustain themselves. The easiest way for consumers to make this type of impact is to only purchase meat, milk and eggs that are certified as organic, free range or antibiotic free. While these products may be slightly more expensive, they are products that support healthy farming practices and are much healthier products over all.

Why You Should Stand Up Against Factory Farming

Animal Rights

Many people stand up against factory farming practices because of the cruelty that the animals in these situations undergo. From tail docking to the incredibly cramped conditions they are kept in, there is absolutely no way that these animals are able to remain healthy physically and psychologically in factory farming conditions.

Environmental Health

For other people, the reason they stand up against factory farming is the amount of pollution that it promotes locally. As runoff from animal waste infiltrated local earth and water, the results can be devastating to local animal populations as well as local human populations.

Health Effects

Not only does the runoff from factory farms affect the health of the environment, animals and people, but the hormone and antibiotic treatments given to factory farm animals have a number of health effects as well. In an effort to preserve your own health you need to make the conscious decision not to expose yourself to the hormones and antibiotics that factory farming animals are subjected to.

Supporting Small Business

Farming methods that do not employ factory farming techniques are often small farming establishments and by supporting them, you are supporting small local businesses. Refusing to patronize larger factory farms is the perfect way to support local produce and encourage healthy sustainable farming methods.

There are many reasons why people choose to stand up against factory farming, but currently not enough people are doing so. If everyone was aware of the basic facts that underlie the factory farming industry and took a stand, there is simply no way that these types of operations could remain in business.

Tagged With: Vegan

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Factory Farming Facts So You Can Make Your Own Decisions - Earth's Friends

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Understand the factory farming facts so you can form your own opinions on where to spend your money. This comprehensive guide is sure to educate.

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Science Trek
One in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world's known plants are in danger of extinction. Find out more about endangered species and visit some of the endangered animals at ZooBoise.

Aired: 12/01/17

Rating: TV-G

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Science Trek | Endangered Species Basics | PBS

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Grocery stores may seem like a cornucopia, offering every imaginable fruit, veggie, cereal and meat. But a new report suggests that our food comes from just a few crops and types of livestock. And that could spell trouble if climate change drives any of these species to extinction.

"While wild elephants and rhinos thoroughly deserve our support, we should also be raising the alarm for our disappearing agrobiodiversity," Ann Tutwiler, director general of Biodiversity International, the organization who published the report, writes for the . "After all, if there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains the 7 billion people on our planet."

The organization aggregated data from dozens of previous studies and reports on agricultural diversity from around the world. The results suggest that three-quarters of Earth's food supply draws on just 12 crops and five livestock species.

"Overreliance on too few varieties and species is leaving the food system unnecessarily exposed to shocks and stresses, as well as neglecting a high-impact solution to major health, environmental and food security challenges," the organization says in a statement. For example, the reliance of Irish farmers on a single species of potato for nearly all of their food in the 19th century allowed the Irish potato famine to devastate the country, reports Damian Carrington for the .

The effects can already be seen in some places, Tutwiler writes, such as in Tanzania, where yields of coffee have been cut in half since 1960 by droughts and temperature changes. Cacao and tea crops that power the economies of many developing nations are on the verge being decimated by a warming Earth.

"These crops are the tip of the iceberg," Tutwiler writes, noting that 940 species cultivated by humans are under threat.

Diversification of our food could also have other benefits. By growing a greater number of crops, farms could incorporate practices such as crop rotation that helps maintain higher levels of soil nutrients and reduce the need for added fertilizers, reports Stuart Braun for Deutsche Welle. Also, incorporating more native crops could produce larger yields, thus helping to alleviate food insecurity, writes Carrington.

One of the biggest offenders of monoculture is the growth of cereals and soy to feed the ever-growing livestock industry. This large-scale production of meat takes a heavy toll on the environment, according to Braun, driving emissions release and climate change. By reducing reliance on meat, societies could both reduce emissions and support diversification of food sources.

The new report seeks to raise awareness of the importance of such diversification. "Agrobiodiversity is a precious resource that we are losing, and yet it can also help solve or mitigate many challenges the world is facing," Tutwiler writes. "It has a critical yet overlooked role in helping us improve global nutrition, reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to climate change."

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Just a Few Species Make Up Most of Earth's Food Supply. And That's a Problem

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The looming threat of extinction from climate change makes the lack of diversity in the world's food supplies a dangerous prospect

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NaturalON - Natural Health News and Discoveries

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Factory farms are referred to as CAFO's confined animal feeding operations, and while it may sound harmless we assure you it isn't. There is a reason why these companies work so diligently to make sure we are never shown what really happens in these animal cruelty factories, in fact the state of Iowa has gone as far as proposing a law to make it illegal to show undercover films taken of what goes on in these killing stations. If we saw the shocking truth of the filth and the cruelty these animals endure there would be far more conversions to vegetarianism.

With the amount of steroids injected into their bodies and their food supplies to make them grow freakishly fast and large, and the waste products from these farms polluting our environment the EPA has gone as far as comparing these sites to Chernobyl. This is precisely the reason for the unexplainable rise in Americans contracting the deadly virus MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection).

The following infographic explains the negative effects these farms pose our land and water supplies and precisely the negative effects on our bodies for eating these foods. This is all the more reason to support your local organic farmer and to serve your family antibiotic free foods for their continued health.

"Click on image to enlarge"

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Shocking Truth about Factory Farms Infographic

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Factory farms are referred to as CAFO's confined animal feeding operations, and while it may sound harmless we assure you it isn't. There is a reason why

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What is animal testing?

The term "animal testing" refers to procedures performed on living animals for purposes of research into basic biology and diseases, assessing the effectiveness of new medicinal products, and testing the human health and/or environmental safety of consumer and industry products such as cosmetics, household cleaners, food additives, pharmaceuticals and industrial/agro-chemicals. All procedures, even those classified as "mild," have the potential to cause the animals physical as well as psychological distress and suffering. Often the procedures can cause a great deal of suffering. Most animals are killed at the end of an experiment, but some may be re-used in subsequent experiments. Here is a selection of common animal procedures:

Forced chemical exposure in toxicity testing, which can include oral force-feeding, forced inhalation, skin or injection into the abdomen, muscle, etc.

Exposure to drugs, chemicals or infectious disease at levels that cause illness, pain and distress, or death

Genetic manipulation, e.g., addition or "knocking out" of one or more genes

Ear-notching and tail-clipping for identification

Short periods of physical restraint for observation or examination

Prolonged periods of physical restraint

Food and water deprivation

Surgical procedures followed by recovery

Infliction of wounds, burns and other injuries to study healing

Infliction of pain to study its physiology and treatment

Behavioural experiments designed to cause distress, e.g., electric shock or forced swimming

Other manipulations to create "animal models" of human diseases ranging from cancer to stroke to depression

Killing by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means

What types of animals are used?

Many different species are used around the world, but the most common include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates (monkeys, and in some countries, chimpanzees). Video: Watch what scientists have to say about alternatives to animal testing.

It is estimated that more than 115 million animals worldwide are used in laboratory experiments every year. But because only a small proportion of countries collect and publish data concerning animal use for testing and research, the precise number is unknown. For example, in the United States, up to 90 percent of the animals used in laboratories (purpose-bred rats, mice and birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates) are excluded from the official statistics, meaning that figures published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are no doubt a substantial underestimate.

Within the European Union, more than 12 million animals are used each year, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom being the top three animal using countries. British statistics reflect the use of more than 3 million animals each year, but this number does not include animals bred for research but killed as "surplus" without being used for specific experimental procedures. Although these animals still endure the stresses and deprivation of life in the sterile laboratory environment, their lives are not recorded in official statistics. HSI believes that complete transparency about animal use is vital and that all animals bred, used or killed for the research industry should be included in official figures. See some animal use statistics.

What's wrong with animal testing?

For nearly a century, drug and chemical safety assessments have been based on laboratory testing involving rodents, rabbits, dogs, and other animals. Aside from the ethical issues they pose-inflicting both physical pain as well as psychological distress and suffering on large numbers of sentient creatures-animal tests are time- and resource-intensive, restrictive in the number of substances that can be tested, provide little understanding of how chemicals behave in the body, and in many cases do not correctly predict real-world human reactions. Similarly, health scientists are increasingly questioning the relevance of research aimed at "modelling" human diseases in the laboratory by artificially creating symptoms in other animal species.

Trying to mirror human diseases or toxicity by artificially creating symptoms in mice, dogs or monkeys has major scientific limitations that cannot be overcome. Very often the symptoms and responses to potential treatments seen in other species are dissimilar to those of human patients. As a consequence, nine out of every 10 candidate medicines that appear safe and effective in animal studies fail when given to humans. Drug failures and research that never delivers because of irrelevant animal models not only delay medical progress, but also waste resources and risk the health and safety of volunteers in clinical trials.

What's the alternative?

If lack of human relevance is the fatal flaw of "animal models," then a switch to human-relevant research tools is the logical solution. The National Research Council in the United States has expressed its vision of "a not-so-distant future in which virtually all routine toxicity testing would be conducted in human cells or cell lines", and science leaders around the world have echoed this view.

The sequencing of the human genome and birth of functional genomics, the explosive growth of computer power and computational biology, and high-speed robot automation of cell-based (in vitro) screening systems, to name a few, has sparked a quiet revolution in biology. Together, these innovations have produced new tools and ways of thinking that can help uncover exactly how chemicals and drugs disrupt normal processes in the human body at the level of cells and molecules. From there, scientists can use computers to interpret and integrate this information with data from human and population-level studies. The resulting predictions regarding human safety and risk are potentially more relevant to people in the real world than animal tests.

But that's just the beginning. The wider field of human health research could benefit from a similar shift in paradigm. Many disease areas have seen little or no progress despite decades of animal research. Some 300 million people currently suffer from asthma, yet only two types of treatment have become available in the last 50 years. More than a thousand potential drugs for stroke have been tested in animals, but only one of these has proved effective in patients. And it's the same story with many other major human illnesses. A large-scale re-investment in human-based (not mouse or dog or monkey) research aimed at understanding how disruptions of normal human biological functions at the levels of genes, proteins and cell and tissue interactions lead to illness in our species could advance the effective treatment or prevention of many key health-related societal challenges of our time.

Modern non-animal techniques are already reducing and superseding experiments on animals, and in European Union, the "3Rs" principle of replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experiments is a legal requirement. In most other parts of the world there is currently no such legal imperative, leaving scientists free to use animals even where non-animal approaches are available.

If animal testing is so unreliable, why does it continue?

Despite this growing evidence that it is time for a change, effecting that change within a scientific community that has relied for decades on animal models as the "default method" for testing and research takes time and perseverance. Old habits die hard, and globally there is still a lack of knowledge of and expertise in cutting-edge non-animal techniques.

But with HSI's help, change is happening. We are leading efforts globally to encourage scientists, companies and policy-makers to transition away from animal use in favour of 21st century methods. Our work brings together experts from around the globe to share knowledge and best practice, improving the quality of research by replacing animals in the laboratory.

Are animal experiments needed for medical progress?

It is often argued that because animal experiments have been used for centuries, and medical progress has been made in that time, animal experiments must be necessary. But this is missing the point. History is full of examples of flawed or basic practices and ideas that were once considered state-of-the-art, only to be superseded years later by something far more sophisticated and successful. In the early 1900's, the Wright brothers' invention of the airplane was truly innovative for its time, but more than a century later, technology has advanced so much that when compared to the modern jumbo jet those early flying machines seem quaint and even absurd. Those early ideas are part of aviation history, but no-one would seriously argue that they represent the cutting-edge of design or human achievement. So it is with laboratory research. Animal experiments are part of medical history, but history is where they belong. Compared to today's potential to understand the basis of human disease at cellular and molecular levels, experimenting on live animals seems positively primitive. So if we want better quality medical research, safer more effective pharmaceuticals and cures to human diseases, we need to turn the page in the history books and embrace the new chapter-21st century science.

Independent scientific reviews demonstrate that research using animals correlates very poorly to real human patients. In fact, the data show that animal studies fail to predict real human outcomes in 50 to 99.7 percent of cases. This is mainly because other species seldom naturally suffer from the same diseases as found in humans. Animal experiments rely on often uniquely human conditions being artificially induced in non-human species. While on a superficial level they may share similar symptoms, fundamental differences in genetics, physiology and biochemistry can result in wildly different reactions to both the illness and potential treatments. For some areas of disease research, overreliance on animal models may well have delayed medical progress rather than advanced it. By contrast, many non-animal replacement methods such as cell-based studies, silicon chip biosensors, and computational systems biology models, can provide faster and more human-relevant answers to medical and chemical safety questions that animal experiments cannot match.

"The claim that animal experimentation is essential to medical development is not supported by proper, scientific evidence but by opinion and anecdote. Systematic reviews of its effectiveness don't support the claims made on its behalf" (Pandora Pound et al. British Medical Journal 328, 514-7, 2004).

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A list of and links to question and answer pages about animal testing.

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By: Ian Murnaghan BSc (hons), MSc - Updated: 11 Mar 2023 | *Discuss

There are many pros and cons to the practice of animal testing. Unfortunately, neither seem to fully tip the scale to a side that pleases everyone - including the general public, government and scientists.

Pros or Postives of Animal Testing

1. Helps researchers to find drugs and treatments:
The major pro for animal testing is that it aids researchers in finding drugs and treatments to improve health and medicine. Many medical treatments have been made possible by animal testing, including cancer and HIV drugs, insulin, antibiotics, vaccines and many more.

2. Improves human health:
It is for this reason that animal testing is considered vital for improving human health and it is also why the scientific community and many members of the public support its use. In fact, there are also individuals who are against animal testing for cosmetics but still support animal testing for medicine and the development of new drugs for disease.

3. Helps ensure safety of drugs:
Another important aspect to note is that animal testing helps to ensure the safety of drugs and many other substances humans use or are exposed to regularly. Drugs in particular can carry significant dangers with their use but animal testing allows researchers to initially gauge the safety of drugs prior to commencing trials on humans. This means that human harm is reduced and human lives are saved - not simply from avoidance of the dangers of drugs but because the drugs themselves save lives as well as improve the quality of human life.

4. Alternative methods of testing do not simulate humans in the same way
Scientists typically use animals for testing purposes because they are considered similar to humans. As such, researchers do recognise the limitations and differences but the testing is done on animals because they are thought to be the closest match and best one with regards to applying this data to humans.

Cons or Negatives of Animal Testing

1. Animals are killed or kept in captivity:
In animal testing, countless animals are experimented on and then killed after their use. Others are injured and will still live the remainder of their lives in captivity.

2. Some substances tested, may never be used for anything useful:
The unfortunate aspect is that many of these animals received tests for substances that will never actually see approval or public consumption and use. It is this aspect of animal testing that many view as a major negative against the practice, as it seems that the animal died in vain because no direct benefit to humans occurred.

3. It is very expensive:
Another con on the issue of animal testing is the price. Animal testing generally costs an enormous amount of money, as the animals must be fed, housed, cared for and treated with drugs or a similar experimental substance. On top of that, animal testing may occur more than once and over the course of months, which means that additional costs are incurred. The price of animals themselves must also be factored into the equation. There are companies who breed animals specifically for testing and animals can be purchased through them.

4. Animals and humans are never exactly the same:
There is also the argument that the reaction of a drug in an animal's body is quite different from the reaction in a human. The main criticism here is that some believe animal testing is unreliable. Following on that criticism is the premise that because animals are in an unnatural environment, they will be under stress. Therefore, they won't react to the drugs in the same way compared to their potential reaction in a natural environment. This argument further weakens the validity of animal experimentation.

Personal Choice

While there are numerous pros and cons of animal testing, the ethical aspect overshadows both of them, which means that emotion may be the ultimate determining factor in whether a person believes the benefits of animal testing outweigh the problems associated with the practice.

For more information about the ethics of animal testing on this site, read the following features:

1. The controversy of animal testing
2. Medical treatments that have been found as a result of animal testing
3. Medical trials on humans.

External Resources

Read around the subject at external sites - here are two very good resources:
The BBC education page on animal ethics The Government legislation relating to animal testing
You might also like...

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Using Animals for Testing: Pros Versus Cons

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By: Ian Murnaghan BSc (hons), MSc - Updated: 11 Mar 2023 | *Discuss There are many pros and cons to the practice of animal testing. Unfortunately, neither seem to fully tip the scale to a side that pleases everyone - including the general public, government and scientists.

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Nearly 10 billion animals are killed for human consumption each year in the United States. 99% are raised on factory farms, which maximize agribusiness profits at the expense of the animals, the environment, social justice, and public health.

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VIDEO 02:04

Curly's Final Moments & His Herd's Incredible Response

A Brief History of Factory Farming

After seven weeks going undercover at meat processing plants in Chicago, Illinois, author Upton Sinclair published The Jungle to expose the dangerous working conditions for laborers and cruelty towards animals in the industry. Instead, the public became infuriated over the details surrounding food quality, as his work also pointed out the extremely unsanitary practices involved. As put by Sinclair, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

After seven weeks going undercover at meat processing plants in Chicago, Illinois, author Upton Sinclair published The Jungle to expose the dangerous working conditions for laborers and cruelty towards animals in the industry. Instead, the public became infuriated over the details surrounding food quality, as his work also pointed out the extremely unsanitary practices involved. As put by Sinclair, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

A Look Inside Today's Factory Farms

Goats are also raised for meat, milk, and fibers. More than 620,000 goats were slaughtered for meat in the U.S. in 2018-usually at just 3-5 months old, a fraction of their natural lifespan. Like dairy cows, goats used for dairy are kept continually impregnated through artificial insemination so that they keep producing milk.

chickens are slaughtered for food each year in the United States.

Animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Many slaughterhouses experience a very high rate of labor turnover, sometimes greater than 100% in a year.

The CDC warns that 3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals.

"Thousands of people who say they love animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the ... terror of the abattoirs."

The Animals in Animal Agriculture

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What is Factory Farming? | Farm Sanctuary

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Nearly 10 billion animals are killed for human consumption each year in the United States. 99% are raised on factory farms, which maximize agribusiness profits at the expense of the animals, the environment, social justice, and public health.

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Why Factory Farming Isn't What You Think

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Why Factory Farming Isn't What You Think

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What we eat and where our foods come from have changed a lot over the last two decades. Today small and medium scale farms have given way to "big" factory farms due to their enormous success. By adopting factory farms practices, some farmers have gained a greater financial success and the largest of these business are practically monopolies.

This can be seen in the "Factory Farm Nation 2015" where statistics show that the number of livestock units on factory farms increased from 23.7 million in 2002 to 28.5 million in 2012. "Livestock units" utilizes one scale to measure different kinds of animals based on their weight - one beef cattle can therefore be comparable to two-thirds of a dairy cow, eight hogs or 400 chickens. The major attitude change in farming has affected environmental and public health and we see immediate consequences of using pollutants and contaminants, which will endanger human health.

To understand the concept of factory farms, the official definition is "a large industrialized farm; especially: a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost" (Merriam-Webster). But it is necessary to explain a very common misconception regarding just how many animals a factory farm needs to have. A factory farm (only) needs to have 500 beef cattle, 500 dairy cows, sell 500,000 chickens annually or house 100,00 egg-laying chickens (Factory Farm Nation 2015). When most people think about factory farms they picture thousands of animals crowded in very small spaces for their whole life, but these numbers clarify how a factory farm actually can look like.

It is therefore possible for a factory farm to both be profitable and be considerate towards the animals' life-quality. Knowing the difference between factory farms treatment of animals, based on a foods label or packaging, is impossible for most consumers. There is not enough information provided and unfortunately the majority of shoppers do not know what the information really means.

Factory farms are one of the biggest reasons why it possible to consume meat every day if one wants. Factory farming comes under criticism when thousands of animals are crowded in small facilities, diseases may become common and consumers who consume these products can be exposed to serious health effects. This puts further pressure on the meat industry since factory farms have a main focus on operational efficiencies to create a less expensive and more accessible product for consumers. According to American Humane's survey nearly 95% of participants are "very concerned" about the welfare of farm animals and 69% of consumers responding to a Context Marketing survey (2010) said they would be willing to pay more for food that "promises to be produced to higher ethical standards", showing that this is an issue that consumers truly care about.

A model from the chicken industry can be found in the "gold standard" rating system (based on a Wageningen University Study, 2006), that evaluates the welfare of poultry production and reviews twenty-two production systems that range from cage systems to barn systems. Each one is rated on 25 different points, where results demonstrate that cage systems rank the lowest at zero, while the 12 hen system score a perfect ten. Free-range eggs rated at 6.1 and cage-free rated in the middle at 5.8.

However, there is currently no standard rating system for beef, pork, or broiler chicken, leading to most not having the tools to grade the welfare of animals on factory farms. There is one exception; Whole Foods has collaborated with Global Animal Partnership and has created a 5-step Animal Welfare Rating System, which increases the transparency in food production and makes it possible to understand animals' welfare on factory farms. Showing the way for other retailers and providing one model that can inspire a rating system that would be standard across the board.

I would like to recommend the food industry create a similar system that would be more extensive and created to rate all livestock where humane treatment would be easy to identify and consumers would be able to choose what farms they want to support. A consumer would recognize a color-coded symbol, which would represent a grade on the rating scale. Which may also motivate shoppers to purchase the "highest grade" products, and allow them to make more responsible food choices. One consequence could be that some shoppers would feel like that they can't afford buying the highest quality livestock every time they shop, which may actually force them into smaller portion sizes, or buying less often, but of a better quality - helping them follow the Dietary Guideline recommendations to eat less meats.

By reinforcing transparency of our food supply, supermarkets will earn a better reputation and more trust with their shoppers...and at the same time empower customers to make educated decisions. It comes down to promoting a system that would make it easy for customers to choose more humane alternatives.

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Why Factory Farming Isn't What You Think

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What we eat and where our foods come from have changed a lot over the last two decades. Today small and medium scale farms have given way to "big" factory farms due to their enormous success. By adopting factory farms practices, some farmers have gained a greater financial success and [...]

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Can we do science without animal testing?

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Get the facts about cosmetics testing on animals and our fight to end this cruel and unnecessary practice worldwide.

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Cosmetics and personal care products companies are committed to eliminating animal testing whenever possible, while also ensuring the safety of the products that consumers use and trust every day.

While the FDA's Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act ( FD&C Act) does not specifically require the use of animals in testing cosmetics for safety, the Agency does require manufacturers to substantiate the safety of their products and ingredients. In some cases, after considering validated alternatives, companies may conclude animal testing is the only way to achieve this. Despite some limitations on these alternative test methods, the vast majority of the industry's safety assessments of cosmetics and personal care products are already performed without testing on animals.

Cosmetic and personal care products companies have been strong leaders in the search for and development of alternative testing methods for cosmetic safety assessments, and have worked with regulators in the U.S. and globally to accept these procedures as valid alternatives for all toxicity testing methods.

For nearly four decades, cosmetics and personal care products companies have been at the forefront in significantly reducing the use of animals in product safety testing. In 1981, the industry's trade organization - The Personal Care Products Council (then, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association) - approved a $1 million grant to fund the Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), dedicated to developing viable alternatives to animal testing.

As a direct result of industry's leadership efforts, today the vast majority of safety assessments are conducted without animal testing, despite some limitations on alternative methods. Existing alternative approaches include the use of large databases leveraging historical data, computer modeling that estimates biological properties of ingredients (also known as in silico models), and the use of new safety assurance methods, such as Quantitative Risk Assessment for skin contact allergens.

The principles for incorporating these new approaches integrating in silico, in chemico, and in vitro approaches into risk assessments for cosmetic ingredients, so called 'Next Generation Risk Assessment' has been the subject of a task force consisting of scientists from both regulatory authorities and the cosmetics industry in the International Cooperation on Cosmetics Regulation ( ICCR).
These advances enabled cosmetics manufacturers to discontinue the practice of testing finished products on animals in the 1980s, long before it was called for by the European Union in 2004.
In addition, the industry no longer tests product ingredients on animals, except in very rare cases when it is required to meet government regulations ( e.g., China).

To date, the personal care products industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the development of scientifically valid alternatives to animal testing. We remain committed to continuing this search and are working diligently to promote the acceptance of such alternatives by regulatory bodies around the world.

While there has been tremendous progress, alternatives are not yet available for all types of safety testing. There is enormous difficulty in trying to mimic the complex interactions of the body's many different organs, tissues, and cells and how an outside substance may trigger an effect in an organism - or have no effect at all.

This does not, however, change personal care product companies' commitment to eliminating animal testing for all components of cosmetic and personal care products. The industry firmly believes in the feasibility of elimination, and that ending animal testing is of benefit for all parties - consumers, animal welfare, and industry.

Some cosmetics companies include promotional claims on their labeling or advertising materials that their products are "Cruelty-Free" or "Not Tested on Animals." While there are no legal definitions for these terms in the U.S., companies are required to substantiate that a marketing claim is truthful and not misleading to consumers. In the EU, guidelines were established in the 2006 the Cosmetics Directive for the claim "not tested on animals."

In the United States, there is no nation-wide ban on the use of animal testing to substantiate safety. California passed a law in 2000 that prohibits animal testing when alternatives have been scientifically validated and adopted by appropriate regulatory agencies.

Since its inception in 1989, China's Cosmetic Hygiene Management Regulation has required animal testing on all imported cosmetics products. These tests are conducted in Chinese Government-owned labs as part of a larger process meant to validate product safety by Chinese standards.

Very recently, China has begun to allow certain products (manufactured in China) to forgo these required tests in favor of the safety assessment approach employed by global companies. The global personal care products industry continues to work with the Chinese government to encourage acceptance of alternatives to animal testing for all products, whether imported or manufactured locally.

In India, a national cosmetics animal testing ban was implemented in June 2014, and an import ban became effective in November 2014.

The European Union's Cosmetics Directive provides a regulatory framework for phasing out animal testing for cosmetics. Beginning in September 2004, animal testing of finished cosmetic products was banned. Subsequently, a ban on the marketing of products whose ingredients have been tested on animals for the purpose of cosmetics regulation, with the exception of tests for certain toxicological endpoints for which no alternatives existed, went into effect in March 2009. Finally, in March 2013, a full ban went into effect on the marketing of cosmetics whose ingredients have been tested on animals, with no exceptions.

While much has been achieved to end the use of animals in research, not all global regulators and authorities currently accept (or make the broadest use of) the alternatives currently available. In addition, accepted alternatives do not yet exist for all safety endpoints. The cosmetics industry remains firmly committed to continuing research and working closely with the global scientific community until validated alternatives are available to answer all relevant safety questions and meet the needs of government regulators around the world.

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Cosmetics and personal care products companies are committed to eliminating animal testing whenever possible, while also ensuring the safety of the products that consumers use and trust every day. While the FDA's Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act ( FD&C Act) does not specifically require the use of animals in testing cosmetics for safety, the Agency does require manufacturers to substantiate the safety of their products and ingredients.

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The debate about animal research and testing has no shortage of emotion. The testing of cosmetics and other consumer products on animals is already banned in Europe and several other countries, and the practice is contested with a justifiable ferocity in the US and other markets where it is still legal.

While the days of legal animal testing for consumer research are hopefully numbered, in the medical context the picture is more complex. Popular opinion tends to be more accepting of animal research on an ethical level when it is used as a means of improving medical, scientific or veterinary knowledge. In the UK, for example, a 2014 survey found that 68% of respondents accepted the practice for medical research if there were no other alternatives.

How vital is animal research?

However, beyond the ethical debate over the use of animals for medical research, just how scientifically useful is data from animals in the development of effective drugs for humans? The general consensus in the scientific community is that animal research has been a cornerstone of medical research for countless decades, and has played a vital role both as a means of pre-clinical safety and efficacy testing before starting human trials, and as a method of building the fundamental knowledge that feeds into new treatments and medical innovations.

"All but a handful of Nobel Prize winners for physiology and medicine have been animal researchers," says Chris Magee, head of policy and media at Understanding Animal Research, a UK-based advocacy group campaigning to build understanding and acceptance of animal testing in biomedical research. "As well as discovering things like the role of insulin in diabetes using dogs, we've been able to develop and test medicines for many conditions, elucidate biological mechanisms and base treatments on animal physiology."

Critics from the anti-vivisection movement, meanwhile, contend that data from animal models is of dubious value to human medicine and that more reliable, ethically-sound and human-focused alternatives are available.

"Genetically, biochemically and physiologically, animals are not humans," says Dr Jarrod Bailey, a geneticist and senior research scientist at anti-vivisection group Cruelty Free International. "Mice aren't rats; cats aren't dogs, and monkeys aren't humans. Not only is there no robust, published evidence to support claims that animal testing of drugs is predictive of human responses - something bizarre after so many decades of the practice - but there are several reports suggesting a poor predictive nature of animal tests for humans; that toxicity in animals is not a good predictor of toxicity in people."

The case against animal research

Bailey argues that the role of animal research in the medical breakthroughs of previous decades has been overplayed by proponents of the practice.

"The past contribution of animal research to medicine is wildly exaggerated, and any sort of involvement of animals in any area of research, however tenuous or even confounding, is translated to a necessary and helpful involvement," Bailey says. "Many of these claims don't stand up to scrutiny: there are formidable arguments supporting the crucial and pivotal roles of non-animal approaches to salient medical breakthroughs throughout history, rather than of animal experiments. This includes painkillers, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, anaesthetics, AIDS drugs, and more - all of which are used by pro-animal research lobby groups to defend [animal testing]."

A major role played by animal research is in the pre-clinical testing phase for new drugs, to gather data on the safety and efficacy of a treatment before human subjects are exposed to its effects. But do the myriad genetic differences between species make it impossible to dependably extrapolate data from animal testing into a human model?

"The animal testing paradigm, on which drug development is still largely based, is failing."

Bailey says research conducted by himself and others has shown that inter-species genetic variability means that making meaningful inferences between animal and human reactions is not feasible; the genetic differences are just too high. He cites dozens of HIV/AIDS vaccines and hundreds of stroke treatments that have demonstrated efficacy in animal models - including monkeys and chimpanzees - but which have yielded no human HIV/AIDS vaccines and precious few stroke treatments to date.

"Even after relatively few years of study, these differences are myriad and of great consequence," says Bailey. "Many of them affect immune function, which explains the failure of many disease models - and of course if understanding of a disease is flawed, the search for effective treatment is going to be - and many affect the metabolism of drugs directly. So we don't just know empirically that the paradigm is failing - we are beginning to understand why."

This variability has also raised questions about the usefulness of animal testing to improve the safety of Phase I clinical trials in humans. There are well-known instances in which animal testing failed to predict sometimes deadly health risks for human patients, including clinical trials of monoclonal antibody TGN1412 at Northwick Park Hospital in London in 2006, during which the experimental drug caused catastrophic systemic organ failure in six healthy participants, despite demonstrating safety and efficacy in a wide range of animals.

A statistic often used by opponents of biomedical animal research is that, according to data from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 92% of drugs that are successful in animal testing subsequently fail in human trials. Bailey notes that failure rates are getting worse and are indicative of the systemic weakness of animal testing.

"This tells us that the animal testing paradigm, on which drug development is still largely based, is failing," he says. "The scientific literature is replete with concerns over this, as well as calls to transition to more predictive and more human relevant approaches as a matter of urgency. These calls are getting more desperate as the industry struggles."

In defence of animal research

Magee is quick to offer a rebuttal to the failure rate figures, noting that these statistics refer to all pre-clinical research, the majority of which, he says, isn't animal testing.

"The failure of a candidate compound to make it all the way through pre-clinical testing and clinical trials is indeed this high, which isn't surprising at all and merely points to the fact that it's hard to find a compound that can become a drug whatever method you're using," Magee says. "In fact, some 86% of compounds that pass a stage one clinical trial in human volunteers 'fail' by stage three for reasons as diverse as efficacy and economic viability, none of which implicates the animal model."

The contribution of animal research to the safety of human trials, Magee adds, can be measured in the fact that adverse events in clinical trials are the dramatic exception in an otherwise excellent record.

"The numbers rather speak for themselves in that sense," Magee notes. "In the UK each year there are around 600,000 people volunteering for clinical trials, yet there have been no fatalities and only one serious incident in over 30 years of phase one clinical trials. This simply could not be the case if animal models weren't successfully screening out harmful compounds."

As for the TGN1412 incident at Northwick Park Hospital, Magee attributes the safety failure to a lax trial approach, which treated volunteers with the varied doses of the drug at the same time, rather than staggering the treatments one at a time.

"More often, animal research provides the basic knowledge upon which treatments can be based."

When it comes to extrapolating efficacy data between species, Magee acknowledges that this requires "more caution with regard to the species used and the target system", and notes that "humanising" test subjects using genetic manipulation shows potential as a means to reduce the problem of genetic variation while still having the benefit of working within a living system, which is one of the disadvantages of some alternatives to animal testing.

While Magee staunchly defends the utility of animal research to improve clinical trials, he argues that the practice plays a larger role in the underlying scientific experimentation that can lead to important innovations.

"As useful as it is, toxicological testing of potential new drugs makes up only around 15% of animal research," he says. "More often, animal research provides the basic knowledge upon which treatments can be based and we can trial experimental techniques like new surgical approaches to childhood heart conditions or curing paralysis. In general we are interested in both the similarities and the differences between species. Breast cancer drug Herceptin is based on a mouse antibody for instance, and we've candidate treatments for Ebola which were developed in a similar way."

Scientific discoveries can be decades apart from the medical innovations they inform, as is the case with Sir John Gurdon's pioneering frog-cloning experiments in the 1960s, for which he developed the nuclear transfer techniques that have facilitated modern stem cell research, including Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka's Nobel Prize-winning discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

Encouraging the use of alternatives

One of the most important questions when considering animal research and its usefulness in medicine is not whether it has made a positive impact - which it clearly has done at many points, to some degree or another - but whether it is irreplaceable. In Europe, after all, it is illegal to conduct animal testing if an alternative is available, although there is no such law in the US and many other regions.

Naturally, Bailey argues that animal research is eminently replaceable, and somewhat surprisingly, Magee generally concurs. Technologies such as stem cell platforms, 3D tissue and organ cultures, and computer simulation are opening up new options both as complements to animal research and as potential replacements for it.

Bailey is particularly excited about the use of 3D tissue and organ cultures, "in which mini human organs made up of different cell types all function individually as well as together, and also 'body on a chip' approaches that permit the study of several human tissues/organs at once, with circulatory systems, metabolism, and so on. Would you rather take a drug for the first time that had been tested on rats and dogs, or that had been tested on a suite of alternatives that are human-relevant?"

"We are in the beginning of a golden age of alternatives."

Magee, meanwhile, notes that "we are in the beginning of a golden age of alternatives, with many more becoming available, and many parts of the pharmaceutical industry are busy assessing the value of various non-animal assays and approaches. Our organisation is increasingly focused on identifying and removing roadblocks to the creation and adoption of alternatives - if there are cheaper or better models, there is no advantage to our members in using an animal study."

This gradual process of reducing reliance on animal models is supported by legislation such as Europe's decision to outlaw animal research when alternatives are available, and by organisations like the UK's National Centre for the 3Rs (Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research), which Magee says "spends millions of pounds every year funding research into alternative technologies".

Where Bailey and Magee's views diverge is the speed at which the transition should be made. Bailey doesn't claim that alternatives aren't being used, rather that they are "not used nearly enough, and still take a back seat to animal use". Cruelty Free International, along with other organisations, would support an immediate ban on animal research, and believes that pharma companies and research organisations would be able to adapt to using alternative testing methods in the time it would take for a ban to come into force.

On top of legislative change and funding for alternatives, pressure applied by organisations like Cruelty Free International represents an important means of helping to ensure that companies and laboratories don't simply turn to animal testing as a default, and that alternatives are employed whenever they are feasible. There may well come a time when technological advances turn animal research into a relic of the past, but the current best practice employed in Europe seems a sensible compromise until that time comes, and other regions would do well to follow suit.

"In many ways the animal research 'debate' is a little bogus," says Magee. "It doesn't genuinely have two sides because nobody is suggesting we should always use animals, whereas there are those who say we should never use animals. Instead, researchers are in the middle ground, saying that only if an experiment has passed two tiers of ethical review is it ethical. The 'debate' asks us 'animal research: yes or no?', when we've only ever said 'maybe, if it's worthwhile, ethical and there's nothing better available.'"

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Of mice and men: debating animal research in drug development

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The debate about animal research and testing has no shortage of emotion. The testing of cosmetics and other consumer products on animals is already banned in Europe and several other countries, and the practice is contested with a justifiable ferocity in the US and other markets where it is still legal.

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Why are Animals Used for Medical Research?

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Why are Animals Used for Medical Research?

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Each year, more than 110 million animals-including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds-are killed in U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. Before their deaths, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. In addition to the torment of the actual experiments, animals in laboratories are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them-they are confined to barren cages, socially isolated, and psychologically traumatized. The thinking, feeling animals who are used in experiments are treated like nothing more than disposable laboratory equipment.

Animal Experiments Are Wasteful and Unreliable

A Pew Research Center poll found that 52 percent of U.S. adults oppose the use of animals in scientific research, and other surveys suggest that the shrinking group that does accept animal experimentation does so only because it believes it to be necessary for medical progress. 5,6 The majority of animal experiments do not contribute to improving human health, and the value of the role that animal experimentation plays in most medical advances is questionable.

In an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that medical treatments developed in animals rarely translated to humans and warned that "patients and physicians should remain cautious about extrapolating the finding of prominent animal research to the care of human disease ... poor replication of even high-quality animal studies should be expected by those who conduct clinical research." ⁷

Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory, whether they be mice or monkeys, are never identical to those that occur naturally in human beings. And because animal species differ from one another biologically in many significant ways, it becomes even more unlikely that animal experiments will yield results that will be correctly interpreted and applied to the human condition in a meaningful way.

For example, according to former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner, "We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn't work in humans." ⁸ This conclusion was echoed by former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who acknowledged that experimenting on animals has been a boondoggle. "We have moved away from studying human disease in humans," he said. "We all drank the Kool-Aid on that one, me included. ... The problem is that it hasn't worked, and it's time we stopped dancing around the problem. ... We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans." ⁹

The data is sobering: Although at least 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been successful in nonhuman primate studies, as of 2015, every one has failed to protect humans. ¹⁰ In one case, an AIDS vaccine that was shown to be effective in monkeys failed in human clinical trials because it did not prevent people from developing AIDS, and some believe that it made them more susceptible to the disease. According to a report in the British newspaper The Independent, one conclusion from the failed study was that "testing HIV vaccines on monkeys before they are used on humans, does not in fact work." ¹¹

These are not anomalies. The National Institutes of Health has stated, "Therapeutic development is a costly, complex and time-consuming process. The average length of time from target discovery to approval of a new drug is about 14 years. The failure rate during this process exceeds 95 percent, and the cost per successful drug can be $1 billion or more." ¹²

Research published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that universities commonly exaggerate findings from animal experiments conducted in their laboratories and "often promote research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge important limitations." ¹³ One study of media coverage of scientific meetings concluded that news stories often omit crucial information and that "the public may be misled about the validity and relevance of the science presented." ¹⁴ Because experimenters rarely publish results of failed animal studies, other scientists and the public do not have ready access to information on the ineffectiveness of animal experimentation.

Funding and Accountability

Through their taxes, charitable donations, and purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products, members of the public are ultimately the ones who-knowingly or unknowingly-fund animal experimentation. One of the largest sources of funding comes from publicly funded government granting agencies such as NIH. Approximately 47 percent of NIH-funded research involves experimentation on animals, and in 2020, NIH budgeted nearly $42 billion for research and development. 15,16 In addition, many charities--including the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, and countless others-use donations to fund experiments on animals. One-third of the projects funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society involve animal experimentation. ¹⁷

Despite the vast amount of public funds being used to underwrite animal experimentation, it is nearly impossible for the public to obtain current and complete information regarding the animal experiments that are being carried out in their communities or funded with their tax dollars. State open-records laws and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act can be used to obtain documents and information from state institutions, government agencies, and other federally funded facilities, but private companies, contract labs, and animal breeders are exempt. In many cases, institutions that are subject to open-records laws fight vigorously to withhold information about animal experimentation from the public. ¹⁸

Oversight and Regulation

Despite the countless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly inadequate regulatory measures in place to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent them from being used when a non-animal approach is readily available. In the U.S., the species most commonly used in experiments (mice, rats, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians) comprise 99% of all animals in laboratories but are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). 19,20 Many laboratories that use only these species are not required by law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinary care, to search for and consider alternatives to animal use, to have an institutional committee review proposed experiments, or to be inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity. Some estimates indicate that as many as 800 U.S. laboratories are not subject to federal laws and inspections because they experiment exclusively on mice, rats, and other animals whose use is largely unregulated. ²¹

As for the more than 11,000 facilities that the USDA does regulate (of which more than 1,200 are designated for "research"), only 120 USDA inspectors are employed to oversee their operations. ²² Reports have repeatedly concluded that even the minimal standards set forth by the AWA are not being met by these facilities, and institutionally based oversight bodies, called Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), have failed to carry out their mandate. A 1995 report by the USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "found that the activities of the IACUCs did not always meet the standards of the AWA. Some IACUCs did not ensure that unnecessary or repetitive experiments would not be performed on laboratory animals." ²³ In 2000, a USDA survey of the agency's laboratory inspectors revealed serious problems in numerous areas, including "the search for alternatives [and] review of painful procedures." ²⁴ A September 2005 audit report issued by the OIG found ongoing "problems with the search for alternative research, veterinary care, review of painful procedures, and the researchers' use of animals." ²⁵ In December 2014, an OIG report documented continuing problems with laboratories failing to comply with the minimal AWA standards and the USDA's weak enforcement actions failing to deter future violations. The audit highlighted that from 2009 to 2011, USDA inspectors cited 531 experimentation facilities for 1,379 violations stemming from the IACUCs' failure to adequately review and monitor the use of animals. The audit also determined that in 2012, the USDA reduced its penalties to AWA violators by an average of 86 percent, even in cases involving animal deaths and egregious violations. ²⁶

Research co-authored by PETA documented that, on average, animal experimenters and laboratory veterinarians comprise a combined 82 percent of the membership of IACUCs at leading U.S. institutions. A whopping 98.6 percent of the leadership of these IACUCs was also made up of animal experimenters. The authors observed that the dominant role played by animal experimenters on these committees "may dilute input from the few IACUC members representing animal welfare and the general public, contribute to previously-documented committee bias in favor of approving animal experiments and reduce the overall objectivity and effectiveness of the oversight system." ²⁷ Even when facilities are fully compliant with the law, animals who are covered can be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, forcibly restrained, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. No procedures or experiments, regardless of how trivial or painful they may be, are prohibited by federal law. When valid non-animal research methods are available, no federal law requires experimenters to use such methods instead of animals.

Alternatives to Animal Testing

A high-profile study published in the prestigious BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) documenting the ineffectiveness and waste of experimentation on animals concluded that "if research conducted on animals continues to be unable to reasonably predict what can be expected in humans, the public's continuing endorsement and funding of preclinical animal research seems misplaced." ²⁸

Research with human volunteers, sophisticated computational methods, and in vitro studies based on human cells and tissues are critical to the advancement of medicine. Cutting-edge non-animal research methods are available and have been shown time and again to be more accurate than crude animal experiments. ²⁹ However, this modern research requires a different outlook, one that is creative and compassionate and embraces the underlying philosophy of ethical science. Human health and well-being can also be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation and concentrating on the prevention of disease before it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public is becoming more aware and more vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current research system and is demanding that tax dollars and charitable donations not be used to fund experiments on animals.

History of Animal Testing

PETA created " Without Consent"-an interactive timeline featuring almost 200 stories of animal experiments from the past century-to open people's eyes to the long history of suffering that's been inflicted on nonconsenting animals in laboratories and to challenge people to rethink this exploitation. Visit " Without Consent " to learn more about harrowing animal experiments throughout history and how you can help create a better future for living, feeling beings.
Without Consent
You Can Help Stop Animal Testing

Virtually all federally funded research is paid for with your tax dollars. Your lawmakers needs to know that you don't want your money used to pay for animal experiments.

Urge your members of Congress to endorse PETA's Research Modernization Deal, which provides a roadmap for modernizing U.S. investment in research by ending funding for useless experiments on animals and investing in effective research that's relevant to humans.
Take Action Not a U.S. Resident? Take Action Here
Animal Testing Facts and Figures

Almost 1 million animals are held captive in laboratories or used in experiments (excluding rats, mice, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and agricultural animals used in agricultural experiments), plus an estimated 110 million mice and rats

69 million animals used in experiments as reported by CCAC-certified institutions*

115,818 animals subjected to "severe pain near, at, or above the pain tolerance threshold of unanesthetized conscious animals"

*The Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) is a "national peer-review organization" that is funded by the Canadian government but has no regulatory capacity. Only institutions that receive public funds are required to be certified by the CCAC, and the figures reported by the organization reflect only this subset of facilities. Most private research facilities are not certified by the CCAC, and their animal use is not accounted for in the CCAC's figures.

76 million procedures on animals

Of those procedures, 110,400 were assessed to be "severe," including "long-term disease processes where assistance with normal activities such as feeding and drinking are required or where significant deficits in behaviours/activities persist."

References

¹Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, " Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities Used in Regulated Activities (Column B)" and " Annual Report Animal Usage by Fiscal Year: Total Number of Animals Research Facilities used in Regulated Activities (Column F)," 27 Apr. 2021.
²Larry Carbone, " Estimating Mouse and Rat Use in American Laboratories by Extrapolation From Animal Welfare Act-Regulated Species," Scientific Reports 11, 493 (2021).
³Canadian Council on Animal Care, " CCAC 2021 Animal Data Report," 2022
⁴U.K. Government, " Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2022," Home Office, 13 July 2023.
⁵Cary Funk and Meg Hefferon, " Most Americans Accept Genetic Engineering of Animals That Benefits Human Health, but Many Oppose Other Uses," Pew Research Center, 16 Aug. 2018
⁶Peter Aldhous and Andy Coghlan, " Let the People Speak," New Scientist 22 May 1999.
⁷Daniel G. Hackam, M.D., and Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., " Translation of Research Evidence From Animals to Human," The Journal of the American Medical Association 296 (2006): 1731-2.
⁸Marlene Simmons et al., " Cancer-Cure Story Raises New Questions," Los Angeles Times 6 May 1998.
⁹Rich McManus, "Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research," NIH Record 21 June 2013.
¹⁰Jarrod Bailey, " An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research," Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36 (2008): 381-428.
¹¹Steve Connor and Chris Green, " Is It Time to Give Up the Search for an AIDS Vaccine?" The Independent 24 Apr. 2008.
¹²National Institutes of Health, " About New Therapeutic Uses," National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences 9 Oct. 2019.
¹³Steve Woloshin, M.D., M.S., et al., " Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not So Academic?" Annals of Internal Medicine 150 (2009): 613-8.
¹⁴Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, " Media Reporting on Research Presented at Scientific Meetings: More Caution Needed," The Medical Journal of Australia 184 (2006): 576-80.
¹⁵Diana E. Pankevich et al., " International Animal Research Regulations: Impact on Neuroscience Research," The National Academies (2012).
¹⁶National Institutes of Health, " Budget," (last accessed on 3 May 2021).
¹⁷Pankevich et al.
¹⁸Deborah Ziff, " On Campus: PETA Sues UW Over Access to Research Records," Wisconsin State Journal 5 Apr. 2010.
¹⁹U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Animal Welfare, Definition of Animal," Federal Register, 69 (2004): 31513-4.
²⁰Justin Goodman et al., " Trends in Animal Use at US Research Facilities," Journal of Medical Ethics 0(2015): 1-3.
²¹The Associated Press, "Animal Welfare Act May Not Protect All Critters," 7 May 2002.
²²U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "Animal Care: Search."
²³U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, " APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," audit report, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁴U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, " USDA Employee Survey on the Effectiveness of IACUC Regulations," Apr. 2000.
²⁵U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, "APHIS Animal Care Program, Inspection and Enforcement Activities," audit report, 30 Sept. 2005.
²⁶U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, " Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Oversight of Research Facilities," audit report, Dec. 2014.
²⁷Lawrence A. Hansen et al., " Analysis of Animal Research Ethics Committee Membership at American Institutions," Animals 2 (2012): 68-75.
²⁸Pandora Pound and Michael Bracken, " Is Animal Research Sufficiently Evidence Based To Be A Cornerstone of Biomedical Research?," BMJ (2014): 348.
²⁹Junhee Seok et al., " Genomic Responses in Mouse Models Poorly Mimic Human Inflammatory Diseases," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (2013): 3507-12.

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Animal Testing Facts and Statistics | PETA

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The facts on animal testing are clear: Researchers in U.S. laboratories kill more than 110 million animals in wasteful and unreliable experiments each year.

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A doctor demonstrates a medical procedure using a simulator. As of June 24, medical schools disavowed using animals to teach students in favor of simulators. (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)

Deep in Tennessee near the Georgia border, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga sits in the shadows of the nation's more prominent medical schools. But it holds the distinction of being the last in the United States to use live animals to teach surgical skills to students.

A few days ago, the college quietly marked the end of the controversial practice, and by extension its elimination in the United States and Canada. "Effective immediately, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga has ceased to provide surgical skills training for medical students using live animal models," Robert Fore, its dean, wrote to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which has fought the practice for more than a decade.

Fore said UT Chattanooga will follow nearly 200 other medical schools in the two countries that now rely on surgery simulation and other technology that has rendered the use of dogs, cats and pigs obsolete. Johns Hopkins University Medical School ended its use of live pigs for laboratory classes only a few weeks before the Tennessee school.

Animals were used by schools to teach students how to apply anesthesia, remove organs, cut incisions, find a large vein and other procedures were routinely destroyed when the lessons were done. According to Pippin, the medical school in Chattanooga used 300 pigs per year to train students, but the committee has no idea how many lives will be spared by the termination of the practice because in most cases the death records were not kept.

"It's a watershed moment," said John Pippin, a retired cardiologist and director of academic affairs for Physicians Committee. "For anyone who went to medical school in years past it was a rite of passage, often a disturbing rite of passage to use a dog or cat or another animal in medical courses.

"It gets animals out of harms way and it allows medical school students to learn they can be great doctors without harming animals," he said. "The best you can say many thousands of animals a year that would have been killed to train medical students will not be."

Johns Hopkins sacrificed up to 40 pigs a year for a class that teaches surgical skills, said a spokeswoman, Audrey M. Huang. In a May 18 message to students, Roy Ziegelstein, a medical professor, wrote the Baltimore-based school "will no longer use live animals in your medical school education," following the path of "almost all medical schools" that have eliminated the practice.

The elimination of live animal surgical training by medical schools comes slightly more than a year after The National Institutes of Health quietly ended the federal government's long and controversial history of using chimpanzees for biomedical research.

Director Francis Collins announced that 50 chimpanzees still held by the government for medical research in 2015 would be sent to sanctuaries. That decision followed another by NIH two years earlier to release more than 300 chimps at research facilities across the country and resettle them. NIH's hand was forced when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started and completed a determination to list captured chimpanzees as endangered along with those in the wild.

Ziegelstein said Hopkins did not make its decision lightly. A "majority of students feel that live animal lab is highly valued and is of great benefit to their education," but the practice was "the most publicly controversial aspect of our medical school experience," and Hopkins had become isolated as other schools dropped it for simulators of human bodies that they considered superior to animals.

The appeal of using live animals, Hopkins students said, according to Ziegelstein, was the experience of being directly responsible for decisions in life-threatening situations, an opportunity that simulations could not provide.

But the bottom line for animal advocates and the physicians committee was that animals were being slaughtered for that opportunity. A task force that studied the issue at Hopkins concluded although students valued studies that led to the deaths of pigs, y "this laboratory experience is not essentialto the professional development of a medical student."

Animal rights advocates started fighting the killing of live animals for medical education 30 years ago before the physicians committee took up the issue in 2005, Pippin said. By that time, the development of medical simulators that evolved from flight simulators for pilots had been around for nearly 15 years.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine and George Washington University School of Medicine was among the first schools to turn to simulators and away from live animals. The University of Central Florida School of Medicine was established in 2006 without a live animal lab. But the Uniformed Services Universityof the Health Sciences didn't end the practice until three years ago.

They weren't ethical decisions. "I've found in general that ethics and what people may consider humane to creatures is not a major factor," Pippin said. "Quality of education and the expense are the two things that made a difference."

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One last U.S. medical school still killed animals to teach surgery. But no more.

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Deep in Tennessee near the Georgia border, the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga sits in the shadows of the nation's more prominent medical schools. But it holds the distinction of being the last in the United States to use live animals to teach surgical skills to students.

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Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

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Through lobbying, publishing research, training scientists, and attending and conducting scientific meetings, the Physicians Committee is dedicated to the goal of eliminating the use of animal testing across the globe.

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Through lobbying, publishing research, training scientists, and attending and conducting scientific meetings, the Physicians Committee is dedicated to the goal of eliminating the use of animal testing across the globe.

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Many preclinical studies carried out in vivo are poorly designed and generate irreproducible data, but efforts to address the problem are on the rise.

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In 1980, The New York Times featured a full-page ad from an animal rights group, which lambasted a prominent cosmetics company for testing its products on the eyes of rabbits. The campaign was so effective, it led to several beauty companies pledging hundreds of thousands of dollars toward research to find alternative testing methods that didn't involve animals.

Almost 40 years later, what are some of these alternatives, and how much progress have we made?

Before we delve into the answer, there's one important distinction to make: although "animal testing" usually conjures up the image of defenseless rabbits being prodded and poked in the name of beauty, the use of animals in research - and the search for alternatives - stretches far beyond the cosmetics industry. Animals like mice and rats are widely used in toxicology, the study of chemicals and their effects on us. Animals are also a crucial to drug discovery and testing. In biomedical research, animal models are the foundation of many experiments that help researchers investigate everything from the functioning of circuits in the brain to the progression of disease in cells. [ Do Animals Get Seasick?]

Despite their importance in these fields, there are now efforts to reduce the number of animals used in testing. That's due, in part, to ethical concerns that are driving new legislation in different countries. But it also comes down to money and time.

"In theory, non-animal tests could be much cheaper and much faster," said Warren Casey, the director of the U.S. National Toxicology Program's Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods, which analyzes alternatives to animal use for chemical- safety testing.

Another concern is that in some types of research, animals are too different from humans to successfully predict the effects that certain products will have on our bodies. "So we've got ethics, efficiency and human relevance," Casey told Live Science, the three main factors driving the hunt for alternatives.

So, what are the most promising options so far?

Data, data, everywhere

One approach is to replace animals with algorithms. Researchers are developing computational models that crunch huge quantities of research data to predict the effects of certain products on an organism.

"This is a very applicable approach. It's very cheap," said Hao Zhu, an associate professor of chemistry at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Zhu is part of a research team that has developed a high-speed algorithm that extracts reams of information from online chemical databases, to compare thousands of tested chemical compounds with new, untested ones by identifying structural similarities between them. Then, it uses what we know about the toxicity of the tested compounds to make reliable predictions about the toxicity of the untested varieties with a similar structure (assuming that this shared structure means the compound will have similar effects).

Typically, identifying the effects of a new compound would require scores of expensive, time-consuming animal tests. But computational predictions like this could help to lessen the amount of animal research required. "If we can show that the compound we want to put onto the market is safe, then I think these kinds of studies could be a replacement for current animal studies," Zhu said. A similar study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland showed that algorithms could even be better than animal tests at predicting toxicity in various compounds. [ How Psychedelic Drugs Create Such Weird Hallucinations]

Miniature organs

In recent years, scientists have started growing cultured human cells on scaffolds embedded on plastic chips, forming tiny structures that mimic the functioning of our heart, liver, kidneys and lungs. Known as organs-on-a-chip, these could provide a novel way to test the effects of new compounds or drugs on human cells.

Testing on these simplified, miniaturized versions of our physiology could deliver more human-relevant results than animal experiments. Crucially, the tests could also replace the use of whole animals in the exploratory stages of early research, when scientists don't necessarily need to test on whole systems. Organs-on-a-chip "for the most part address a single output or endpoint," Casey said - because all that may be required at this early stage is to test the behavior of one cell type in response to a drug or a disease, as a way to guide future research.

This could "help in most cases to reduce the amount of animal tests researchers are planning within ongoing projects," said Florian Schmieder, a researcher who is working on that goal by developing miniature kidney and heart models at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology, in Germany. As well as lungs, livers and hearts, some companies are developing artificial 3D structures that replicate human skin. That's particularly important in toxicology, where animal skin tests have long been a baseline for understanding the effects of new, untested compounds.

Replacing this with a harm-free model is now a reality, Casey said: " Skin tissue models have really proven to be pretty effective. They can provide insight on the acute changes - whether something's going to be corrosive and damage skin."

Human studies

One idea that's frequently raised as a counter to animal testing is that if humans want to benefit from new treatments, drugs and research, we should instead offer ourselves as the test subjects. That's quite a simplified and extreme view - and in most countries animal tests are required by law before drugs are given to humans, for instance. So it isn't necessarily practical, either.

But, there are carefully controlled forms of human testing that do have the potential to reduce animal use, without endangering human health. One such method is microdosing, where humans receive a new drug in such tiny quantities that it doesn't have broad physiological impacts, yet there's just enough circulating in the system to measure its impact on individual cells.

The idea is that this cautious approach could help eliminate nonviable drugs at an early stage, instead of using thousands of animals in studies that may only establish that a drug doesn't work. The approach has proved safe and effective enough that many major pharmaceutical companies now use microdosing to streamline drug development. [ Why Do Medical Researchers Use Mice?]

"There will of course be ethical concerns, but these could easily be outweighed by the potential gains in bringing safer and more effective medicines to market more efficiently," Casey said.

Where are we now?

So, what do these alternatives mean for the future of animal testing? In some areas of research like cosmetics testing - where so many existing products have already been proved safe through animal studies - there's a growing recognition that testing new products is something we really don't need to advance this industry. That's borne out by regulations like the one put forward by the European Union, which now bans animal testing on any cosmetic products that are produced and sold within the EU.

We're also seeing advances in toxicology research. Toxicologists have long relied on six core animal-based tests that screen new products for acute toxicity - checking whether a product causes skin irritation, eye damage or death if consumed. But in the next two years, these baseline tests will likely be replaced with non-animal alternatives in the United States, Casey said. The reason for this progress is that the "biology underlying these types of toxicity is much simpler than other safety concerns that can arise after [an animal is] exposed to a chemical for an extended period of time, such as cancer or reproductive toxicity," Casey said.

But in other areas of research, where the questions being investigated are more complex, animal models still provide the only way we currently have of fully understanding the varied, widespread, long-term effects of a compound, drug or disease. "Physiology is really, really complex and we still don't have a handle on it" - nor anything that legitimately mimics it aside from animal models, Casey said.

Even despite the most promising advances like the development of organs-on-a-chip, that's still a long way from anything representing a connected human body. "The major problem in developing artificial organ systems is to gain the whole complexity of a living organism in vitro," Schmieder said. "The problem here is to emulate the kinetics and dynamics of the human body in a really predictive way."

While organs-on-a-chip and other inventions might help answer simpler questions, right now whole-animal models are the only way to study more complex effects - such as how circuit functions in the brain are linked to visible behaviors. These are the types of questions that help us understand human disease, and ultimately lead to lifesaving treatments and therapies. So, the animal experiments that underlie those discoveries remain crucial. [ Do Animals Have Feelings?]

It's also worth noting that some of the most promising non-animal tests we have today - like algorithms - work only because they can draw on decades of animal research. And to advance in the future, we will need to continue this research, Zhu said.

"We can't use computers to totally replace animal testing. We still need some low-level animal testing to generate the necessary data," Zhu said. "If you asked me to vote for a promising approach, I would vote for a combination of computational and experimental methods."

So, are there alternatives to animal testing? The short answer is yes - and no. While we have several options, for now they're not sophisticated enough to eradicate animal testing. Crucially, however, they can reduce the number of animals we use in research. And with new regulations, and ever-smarter alternatives, we can at least be hopeful that in the future, the number of animals will continue to decline.

Originally published on Live Science.

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What Are the Alternatives to Animal Testing?

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In 1980, The New York Times featured a full-page ad from an animal rights group, which lambasted a prominent cosmetics company for testing its products on the eyes of rabbits. The campaign was so effective, it led to several beauty companies pledging hundreds of thousands of dollars toward research to find alternative testing methods that didn't involve animals.

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Alternative testing methods have many advantages over traditional animal tests-including being more humane-but implementing an alternative from idea to acceptance can take years.

Learn more about the step-by-step process, then check out our list of examples in action.

Step 1: Defining

The word "alternative" is used to describe any change in an animal test that achieves one or more of the "three Rs":

1. Replaces a procedure that uses animals with a procedure that doesn't use animals.

2. Reduces the number of animals used in a procedure.

3. Refines a procedure to alleviate or minimize potential animal pain.

Step 2: Developing

Scientists at private companies, universities and government agencies are developing new cell and tissue tests, computer models and other sophisticated methods to replace existing animal tests. These alternatives are not only humane; they also tend to be more cost-effective, rapid and reliable than traditional animal tests.

Step 3: Validating

Once an alternative test has been developed by a scientist, it must be scientifically "validated" or evaluated in multiple laboratories to see if its results reliably predict outcomes in people. Validation is sometimes a frustratingly slow process and the United States has unfortunately proved to be far slower at validating alternatives than the European Union.

Step 4: Accepting

After an alternative has been scientifically validated, it is then up to government authorities to decide whether, and to what extent, they will accept the use of the alternative to replace, reduce or refine animal use. The opinions of government regulators strongly influence the extent to which private companies use available alternatives instead of traditional animal tests.

Examples of Alternatives

More than 50 different alternative methods and testing strategies have been developed, validated and/or accepted by international regulatory authorities. These are a few examples:

Using blood from human volunteers to test for the presence of fever-causing contaminants in intravenous medicines can save hundreds of thousands of rabbits each year from traditional "pyrogen" tests.

EpiSkin™, EpiDerm™ and SkinEthic, each composed of artificial human skin, can save thousands of rabbits each year from painful skin corrosion and irritation tests.

The Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability Test and Isolated Chicken Eye Test use eyes from animals slaughtered for the meat industry instead of live rabbits to detect chemicals and products that are severely irritating to the eyes.

The 3T3 Neutral Red Uptake Phototoxicity Test can replace the use of mice and other animals in the testing of medicines and other products for their potential to cause sunlight induced "phototoxicity."

A combination of in vitro test methods and already available human and animal data may be used to determine the potential for skin sensitization instead of using the traditional guinea pig and mouse tests.

When testing to determine chemical concentrations that are deadly to fish and other aquatic life, use of the Fish Threshold Method can reduce the numbers of fish used by at least 70 percent compared with standard test methods.

A complete list of validated and/or accepted alternative methods and testing strategies is available on the Humane Society of United Society partner site AltTox.org.

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Alternative testing methods have many advantages over traditional animal tests-including being more humane-but implementing an alternative from idea to acceptance can take years. Learn more about the step-by-step process, then check out our list of examples in action.

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