More Animals Experimented on.

The latest figures released by the Home Office in its annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals report show the number of animal experiments performed in the UK are at the highest they’ve been in 25 years, with a rise of 68,100 procedures in the last year alone.

Tests involving cats went up 26 percent, pigs 37 percent, birds 14 percent and fish 15 percent. Testing of rats was down by 11 percent, guinea pigs by 16 percent and dogs by 21 percent. The number of experiments being done on primates also declined.

According to the Home Office, more than 3.79 million experiments were started in 2011. In 1987, 3.5 million experiments were reported. The increase is at odds with government promises to reduce the overall number of animals used in research.