Researchers in New Zealand who secured live pigs to a surgical table and shot them in the head with a pistol as part of a study on blood-spatter patterns acted cruelly, an animal rights group has said.
The government-funded Institute of Environmental Science and Research said the pigs were sedated and treated humanely, adding that their analysis was important in understanding deaths of humans by shooting and could help in criminal cases.
The study, published in July in the International Journal of Legal Medicine, involved researchers from the institute as well as two of New Zealand's public universities.
It describes how five pigs were shot from close range with a Glock semi-automatic handgun to record the back-spatter of blood, bone and brain material.The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the experiment was unnecessary
because pigs are fundamentally different from humans and better results could be achieved using mannequins or computer modeling.
"These incredibly violent experiments are entirely indefensible, given their cruelty, inapplicability to humans and the superior non-animal research methods that are available," said Justin Goodman, the animal rights group's US director of laboratory investigations.
The group has sent letters to the institute as well as the University of Otago, where the study was conducted, and the University of Auckland, which contributed research, urging them to stop such experiments.
Goodman said using live animals for forensic science experiments is not as common as it used to be.
Keith Bedford, the general manager responsible for forensic science activities at the institute, said that it uses models and simulations wherever possible, but that in this particular experiment could not get the results it needed any other way.
"It goes to the ability to provide reliable, and the most informative, evidence in a court case," he said. "It may be critical in protecting someone's liberty."
Comment: An interesting justification. So let us get this straight, to "protect some human's liberty" a pig has to be shot in the head just to see which way the blood "spatters". And this relates to a human being how exactly? But perhaps this forensic science manager is referring to a pig-headed human? Otherwise, what kind of court would accept evidence in the form of the claim that the spatter pattern made by a bullet fired into a human head was identical to that made by a bullet fired into a pig head?
If this is the level of development of human science, then it barely reaches beyond that of the hypothetical 'science' that a group of pigs could plausibly conjure up.
But progress is always possible, and perhaps in some Utopian future time we will see such advances in human civilization and scientific knowledge that
human subjects will used in this way, rather than pigs. At the very least, we look forward to the day when human cadavers might be temporarily revitalized, perhaps with a pig blood transfusion, for just such a purpose. Surely that would be more humane (if somewhat less considerate of human sensitivities) all the way round and at least put on the first rung of the ladder leading towards real civilized behavior.
Whatever the case, human beings better hope that they really are the 'top of the food chain', because if we aren't, we can be sure that those 'above' us are treating us with exactly the same level of cruel indifference as we extend to defenseless animals.
In case you ever wondered...
Animals are suffering. People are suffering. It is all unjust. I have turned to vegetarianism to atone. Factory meat is 100% and I am now reaching the conusion any meat is wrong. We are meant to be the guardians of the earth and its inhabitants. If every family was responsible for the welfare of an animal I have a feeling it would even out. Or atleast it was supposed to. Now we farm them and decimate them. So many wasted lives. So much misery caused for nothing. And when there is noting left we'll consume each other. As in the days of Noah, except way worse.
Watch out for these conservations and do your research before supporting. Some Conservative efforts are simply deplorable pretexts to allow the elite to mercilessly hunt without bounds or publicity. Google Prince Philip and the WWF.
Loosethoughts