A shocking experiment on pigs was conducted in NZ where live pigs were tied down and shot in the head – in some cases, repeatedly and at close range – just to see how the blood spattered from the bullet wound.1
Pigs are fundamentally different from humans, especially in regards to their skulls - it's purely bad science to use pigs in such studies when non-animal methods would give much more accurate results.
The exposure of this experiment created global outrage and was featured in UK news, ABC News and also grabbed the attention of PETA, the largest animal advocacy organisation in the world.
This highlights the obvious faults in the system and is not the first unethical and poorly designed experiment that has been approved and conducted in NZ - there is something seriously wrong here!
After countless NZAVS and PETA supporters sent an online message to the facilities about the cruelty of these experiments, their inapplicability to humans and the availability of superior non-animal research methods, all three institutions announced that these experiments are done and that they will not pursue them again.
Warning - images of the experiment are below.
More about the experiment:
Five live pigs and several slaughtered pigs were shot in this experiment. The live pigs were anaesthetised, and the hair on their heads was taken off with hair removal cream and clippers. Each pig was placed on a heating pad with their head raised. A semi-automatic pistol was used to shoot them from different distances and the impact was recorded with a high-speed camera. The experiment was repeated using slaughtered pigs.
The purpose of this experiment was to try and model backspatter patterns from gunshots to the head in humans by using pigs (backspatter is the material that sprays back from a gunshot wound).
This experiment was approved by the University of Otago Animal Ethics Committee.
