‍Vivisection is the practice of cutting into or using invasive techniques on live animals. It is commonly called animal experimentation.

What is animal experimentation?

Animal experimentation is the use of animals for claimed scientific purposes where animals are forced to undergo procedures that are likely to cause them pain, injury or death, and that is not meant to benefit the individual animal involved.

Animal experimentation is often detrimental to the individual animals involved and can include:

• Forcing animals to inhale toxic substances
• Force-feeding or injecting animals with potentially lethal substances
• Subjecting animals to situations whereby they are deprived of their basic needs (food, water, shelter, sunlight, air, companionship)
• Putting animals in terrifying situations to create depression and anxiety
• Creating illness, disease or injury deliberately by subjecting healthy animals to invasive medical procedures such as removing organs or tissues.
• Killing animals to use their bodies in dissections.
• Purposefully breeding animals to create offspring that are more susceptible to disease, pain or distress during their life.

Animal experimentation in NZ

Approximately 300,000 animals are used for research, testing and teaching (RTT) in NZ every year. Thousands (but not all) of these animals are subject to animal experimentation.

Learn about some of the NZ animal experiments that we have exposed here.