Statistics

UK 

According to the latest Home Office figures more than 3.6 million animals were used in over 3.7 million experiments in the UK in 2010. This represents a 3% increase compared to 2009 on the number of experiments conducted and follows the first year of a slight decrease (of 1%) after 7 years of consecutive increases. This is an overall increase of 37% from the year 2000. 

Animals used included:

2,659,491 mice, 293,905 rats, 13,586 guinea pigs, 10,138 rabbits, 3,727 dogs, 152 cats, 2,649 primates

• The use of animals in skin and eye irritation tests has risen even though there are valid alternatives. The Home Office is not doing enough to reduce these experiments.
• For the first time since 2008, 24 animals were used for household product tests.
• The use of new world monkeys (marmosets and tamarins) has increased dramatically for the second year (last year the number of procedures rose 70%, this year it rose 78%). 

Source: Home Office 2011. Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2010. 

Europe

The latest figures are only for 2008, in which just over 12 million animals were used, a small decrease from 12.1 million in 2005. France, the UK and Germany were the highest users of animals. The numbers reported are lower than national figures because they don’t have to report certain types of animals such as genetically modified (GM) animals. 

• The 27 countries in the EU reported that they used 21,315 dogs, over 330,000 rabbits, over 9,500,000 rodents, over 750,000 birds and over 9,000 primates (9,569 old and new world monkeys and prosimians).
• 319,117 animals were used in acute lethal toxicity tests that can result in death, like the LD50. 354 of these were dogs.
• 56% of old world monkeys are still coming from non-EU countries, e.g. Asian countries (a decrease of 17% from 2005).

Source: European Commission (2010) The Sixth Report provides an overview on the number of animals used in the EU in 2008 for experimental and other scientific purposes.

International

Recent research by the BUAV and Dr Hadwen Trust suggests between 82 and 154 million vertebrate animals (115 million on average) may be used worldwide each year. 79% of countries don’t appear to publish the number they use. Based on our results, and controlling for the same uses and types of animals we estimate that the top 10 countries are United States, Japan, China, Australia, France, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil.

Taylor, K et al. 2008. Estimates of worldwide laboratory animal use in 2005. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36, 327–342.
 

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