Editor’s Note: Poland made errors by including observations of fish larvae in their annual statistics. This accounted for over 400,000 fish being erroneously being added to the first publication of the statistics. We have now received the corrected version and the article below has been corrected. (May 4th 2016)
In the last two months we have seen statical releases on animal research by Northern Ireland, New Zealand and the Netherlands. We now have the latest releases from both Belgium and Poland.
Animal Research in Belgium
Belgium’s three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) independently publish the statistics for their region. We have collated the results[1][2][3] into a single table covering all of Belgium.
There were 664,472 procedures on animals in 2014. This was 6% higher than in 2013. However, overall the number of animals has fallen over the past 15 years. Wallonia and Flanders, the large regions that make up most of Belgium, unsurprisingly accounted for the most animal procedures.
Similar to other European countries, over 85% of procedures were carried out on mice, rats and fish. However, the 10% of procedures conducted on rabbits and guinea pigs represents a larger proportion than found in most other European countries.
Poland produced exceptionally detailed statistics for 2013, similar statistics can now be found for 2014.
The number of procedures conducted on animals in Poland rose steeply in 2014 by almost 45%, from 162,156 to 233,323 procedures. Much of this is down to a large rise in the number of rats used.
Dogs, cats and primates account for less than 0.2% of procedures, while mice, rats, birds and fish together account for approximately 89%.
Compare these figures to other countries here.
Speaking of Research seek to be the best source of information on the internet on animal research and testing statistics. Unfortunately language barriers mean that we often find it hard to get statistics from non-English speaking countries. If you speak multiple languages and are able to help us out finding the statistics from other countries we would be very grateful. Statistics for Belgium and Poland were both provided by helpful supporters. See more about how to help here.
[1] Flanders animal research statistics 2014 – http://www.lne.be/themas/dierenwelzijn/statistische-gegevens-over-het-gebruik-van-proefdieren
[2] Brussels animal research statistics 2014 – http://document.environnement.brussels/opac_css/elecfile/IF_Statistiques_Bien-etre_animal_NL
[3] Wallonia animal research statistics 2014 – http://environnement.wallonie.be/bea/ANIMAUX-EXPERIENCES-WALLONIE-2014.pdf
[4] Historical Data for Belgium, page 2 – http://www.bclas.be/sites/default/files/SID_NL%20spreads.pdf
[5] Poland animal research statistics 2013 – https://www.nauka.gov.pl/g2/oryginal/2014_09/434ab27be634574eb76dd03c4dd0e52d.pdf
[6] Poland animal research statistics 2014 – http://www.bip.nauka.gov.pl/sprawozdania_zwierzeta/sprawozdanie-rok-2014.html
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