23.10.25
Released today, the annual statistics of scientific procedures performed on living animals reveal the disappointing ‘phaseout’ of animals used in scientific research in Great Britain.
In the 2024 Labour general election manifesto, the message was ‘Change’, with a firm position to work with scientists, industry, and civil society towards phasing out animal testing. Yet, the delayed 2024 statistics released today have shown a mere 1% decrease in procedures carried out compared to 2023, anything but real ‘Change’ for animals used in science in Great Britain.
The numbers released today are a clear indication that our current government is in no rush to end the use of animals in scientific research. With a change of 1% in the number of procedures between 2023 and 2024, it couldn’t really be any slower.
Whilst we recognise that there are complexities with ‘just ending animal testing’, there are many areas that could be ceased immediately, such as making it mandatory to use historical data for chemical safety checks in household products rather than leaving it optional.
Naturewatch Foundation is calling on the government to immediately remove loopholes that permit the testing of household ingredients on animals, where there is no regulatory requirement to do so under the 2015 household product animal testing ban. Take action now.
The statistics show 2.64M total procedures:
- 1,869,064 procedures on mice.
- 150,221 procedures on rats.
- 381,898 procedures on fish.
- 2,698 procedures on guinea pigs.
- 1,083 procedures on hamsters.
- 479 procedures on gerbils.
- 1,131 procedures on other rodents.
- 6,195 procedures on rabbits.
- 257 procedures on ferrets.
- 5,293 procedures on cattle.
- 68,285 procedures on sheep.
- 74 procedures on goats.
- 3,518 procedures on pigs.
- 82 procedures on cats.
- 2,488 procedures on beagles.
- 158 procedures on other dogs.
- 11,483 procedures on horses.
- 647 procedures on other mammals.
- 979 procedures on other carnivores.
- 38 procedures on reptiles.
- 90 procedures on marmoset or tamarin monkeys.
- 76 procedures on rhesus macaque monkeys.
- 1,770 procedures on long-tailed macaque monkeys.
For more information on our animal experiments campaign, please visit our website.
