Mice-tests anger welfare groups

Press, 15 August 1988, Page 9

Mice-tests anger welfare groups

PA Wellington Experiments with mice by students at Nelson’s Nayland College have angered animal welfare groups.

The experiments were conducted to test the speed, physical strength, intelligence and survival instincts of the mice. They included a water test in which the mice had to jump on to a small raft to save themselves from drowning. The mice were also confined in cramped quarters. Fighting and constant misbehaviour was punished with solitary confinement in a mouse prison. The spokeswoman for Save Animals From Exploitation (S.A.F.E.), Ms Adrienne Hall, said any experimentation with animals must by law be first authorised by an animal ethics committee. She

said she could not see how any ethics committee could have approved this experiment. “First, these experiments are totally unnecessary. Many 'experiments like this have been conducted before and the results are known already. Second, it encourages children to exploit animals and play around with them as much as they like.” If the school did not have an ethics committee the school could be liable under law, and if it did have one it should be closely looked at. The Wellington director of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Mr Ross McLauchlan, said he could not see how any school authority could allow children to do something so cruel. He planned to write to the R.S.P.C.A. about the experiment.