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RE: The need for using animals as experimental subjects, and why releasing them into the wild is a terrible idea!

in #science7 years ago

During the parliament election this year 0.8% of voters in Germany elected the Animal protection party and even 1.4% in Berlin. That's an insane amount considering this is such a niche topic relative to the truly important national questions.
The animal rights movement has achieved tremendous progress, now reflected in the very tight regulations that are imposed on research animal use. The improvements in husbandry, including environmental enrichment, are necessary from the standpoint of faithfulness and transferability of results.
Speaking of tight regulations: you make yourself amenable to criminal charges if you use one more animal in your experimental group than you got approval for from the officials!
Counterproductively, the militant behaviour of some of the animal rights activists is shedding a really bad light on their whole movement. The resulting losses for research are outrageous.

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Well, I totally agree with what you said.

I was in particular not saying, in my very short comment, that one should be allowed to do anything one wanted to without any control. Of course there are regulations, and of course ethics is important. It is very important that animal research is controlled, but it is also important that this research is respected by the animal protection movement too (as long as the legal requirements are satistfied).

Activists who release research animals in nature do not, in my opinion, do something good for the animals themselves. As @irime said, most of them won't survive in nature, without talking about the threat for the local ecosystem.

I was picking up you commenting on emotional behaviour :-)

Thanks! I just wanted to make things clear (just in case :p)