Please also refer to …
Please also refer to …
2 April 2025
The annual status report of the JRC’s EU reference laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM) highlights recent EU statistics on animals used for scientific purposes, which show an overall reduction of 5% of animal procedures in the EU and Norway from 2018 to 2022.
In parallel, the biotechnology sector has experienced rapid growth, with cutting edge technologies and innovation transforming many domains including biomedical research, development of medicines and in vitro testing. Data show that in 2021, the global biotechnology market was worth €720 billion with an annual growth rate higher than 18%.
Statistics on the use of animals for scientific purposes for EU and Norway, including re-uses, in 2022. © EU, 2025
Establishing standards for in vitro biotech innovation
Standards are needed to foster a robust biotech ecosystem and facilitate technology transfer from research to industry.
ECVAM’s work has been instrumental in driving standardisation efforts in the in vitro biotech sector, including contributing to the CEN-CENELEC Focus Group on Organ on Chip. The group delivered a roadmap identifying priorities for standardisation of this disruptive technology, which underpins a new generation of sophisticated non-animal models and methods set to transform research and regulatory testing.
Validation is essential for the development of standard tests using non-animal methods. To ensure an internationally recognised and harmonised approach, ECVAM is co-leading the project to revise the OECD Guidance Document (no. 34) on the validation and international acceptance of new or updated test methods for hazard assessment.
Better protection of workers and consumers from mutagenic chemicals
The UN Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) was created by the United Nations to classify chemicals by the hazards they might pose to humans or the environment, such as being corrosive or acutely toxic. The GHS is used worldwide to facilitate trade, and to ensure safe packaging, transport and use.
ECVAM is leading an informal working group to update GHS classification criteria for identifying chemicals that can mutate the DNA of germ cells, which develop into ova in women and sperm in men, and thus can carry over health effects into future generations. This work is also considering options for adapting criteria to make better use of non-animal data and to provide more protection from cancer-causing chemicals.
Supporting EU’s open science policy
Through PRO-MaP, an initiative Promoting Reusable and Open Methods and Protocols, ECVAM has been driving improvements in methodological reporting and transparency in scientific publications, capitalising on innovation and improving health outcomes.
This work has been recently highlighted in an editorial of the journal Nature Methods, recognising the ECVAM Pro Map initiative as very valuable to the field.
Upcoming roadmap on phasing out animal testing
ECVAM is supporting the preparation of the European Commission “Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments”, to be published in 2026. It will serve as an actionable plan for accelerating the path towards replacing animal testing in the safety assessments of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals.
Alternatives in research and education
Finally, ECVAM has also made significant advances in promoting non-animal approaches in research and education, including the launch of its brand new Virtual Reality laboratory.
Other key initiatives include the development of the BioMedical Models Hub (BimmoH), an automated database that collects and organises information on non-animal models used in biomedical research, and the Student Ambassador Project, a self-sustaining movement to spread knowledge across European universities.
13.06.2025
RSPCA rescue animal, Spotty, is one of hundreds of pets under the Darwin shelter’s care. (ABC News: Jayden O’Neill)
Bernadette Relos and husband, Nathan Calverley, are self-described animal lovers who live in a bustling house in Darwin’s outskirts suburb of Berrimah.
They have two cats and a one-year-old puppy, which they recently adopted from a shelter.
The South Australian couple who moved to the Top End for work said their “fur babies” brought chaos and destruction, but much-needed colour to their lives.
“They bring life to the household … you can be lonely, and one of the cats will jump on you, and then you’re not lonely anymore,” Mr Calverley said.
“You could walk in the front door, and everyone doesn’t say a word, but the dog will come running … and start licking you and saying hello.”
Ms Relos said they decided to adopt because they wanted pets that would grow up with their young family.
But as some are choosing to bring furry friends into their forever homes, animal shelters are seeing the opposite.
Shelters being pushed to breaking point
Charles Giliam, the Northern Territory’s RSPCA operations manager, said there had been an increasing number of surrendered pets due to people experiencing financial difficulties.
He said most pets being dropped on shelter doorsteps were mixed breeds, weighing around 20 to 30 kilograms, with backyard breeding worsening the situation.
“[People] bring pets to us that are often in need of veterinary treatment … and say, ‘We just don’t have the money’,” he said.
The RSPCA estimates most dog owners spend an average of $25,000 on their pet during its lifetime, while cat owners spend $21,000 on average.
The charity says that within the first year of cat ownership, people could face up to $3,500 of expenses on food, desexing, grooming, bedding, toys and treats.
Mr Giliam said the influx of surrendered pets was creating significant challenges for shelters.
“We probably got about 15 to 20 people on our waiting list who are wanting to surrender … but we are chock-a-block full,” he said.
RSPCA national data showed around 81,000 pets were surrendered in the 2023/2024 financial year, with only 27,000 finding new homes.
David Neilson, a volunteer at the Darwin RSPCA shelter, said the increasing demand was leaving some volunteers “overwhelmed”.
“There are so many volunteers that are here through the week to walk the dogs and sit with the cats and we are not getting through everything … it makes it difficult,” he said.
Industry voices want to see change
While many in the rescue sector are worried about the growing crisis, there are also concerns the NT’s animal rights laws are ineffective.
Unlike most other Australian jurisdictions, the NT does not have a formal dog breeder licensing scheme, however breeders are still expected to meet standards of care under the Animal Protection Act.
Melissa Purick, a licensed dachshund breeder, said it was “frustrating” to see people buy pets from unlicensed backyard breeders without considering the animal’s welfare.
“I would like to see that stopped to start with, where you can’t sell puppies at the markets or the side of the road,” she said.
Hannah Bohlin, an animal advocate, believes growing use of social media is glamorising pet ownership without highlighting its challenges.
She said if people adopted pets that were incompatible with their lifestyle, cost of living could become a “scapegoat” to surrender animals that were no longer valued.
She wants the NT to look at what other states and countries are doing to manage pet breeding and ownership.
“I would like to see a discussion around the possibility of introducing some kind of licence system [to own a pet],” she said.
“Some European countries do operate this kind of system to get a dog in the first place.”
The NT’s Agriculture and Fisheries Department, which oversees animal welfare, said a review of the Animal Protection Act was currently underway.
“The NT government takes animal welfare seriously and is committed to strengthening animal welfare laws,” a department spokesperson said.
Animal rights group, Humane World for Animals, says it fears a revision of Europe’s regulations for chemical testing in Europe could lead to more animal testing.
Jun 13, 2025
A revision of the EU’s REACH regulation covering the ‘Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals’ must clean up the chemicals risk assessment and the chemicals market, falling in line with the Clean Industrial Deal, argue animal rights advocates.
With decarbonisation and boosting competitiveness priorities for the EU, within the chemical testing industries, it should create a ‘simplified legislative framework to reduce the administrative burden for the industry, while still maintaining the safety of human health and the environment’.
While a revision of REACH is welcomed by animal advocacy groups, particularly the opportunity to introduce more non-animal testing methods, the proposals to date have not been met with glee.
CEFIC, the forum of chemical companies across Europe, has produced a 10-point action plan to simplify REACH. One pressing point for Humane World for Animals is its call for the last resort requirement to be put under a microscope and refined in greater detail.
“We really need to see a much better leveraging of the last resort requirement, which is already built within REACH, where, in theory, animal testing should only be done as a last resort. But we, along with a number of our collaborators, published a paper last year which indicated that this wasn’t really happening,” says Jay Ingram, Managing Director, Chemicals, R&T, Humane World for Animals.
“This really needs to be strengthened, there needs to be a lot more specificity around what “last resort” actually means and how it is demonstrated, both by registrants (industry), who are going to be proposing tests, but also by the regulatory bodies themselves, who will be requesting additional data.”
“It needs to be much stronger in terms of how we actually determine whether this last resort threshold has been reached – we really need to see strengthening on the enforcement of that last resort requirement,” he says.
Testing in complex areas
Ingram has also expressed his concerns that the revision of REACH could lead to an increase in testing on animals in some complex areas.
“We are also insisting that this revision of REACH doesn’t bring in new or expanded animal testing. There’s been a revision to the CLP regulation last year, which brought in new classification categories for endocrine disruption, amongst other things,” says Ingram.
“The issue is endocrine disruption is an extremely complex topic from a toxicological perspective, and we fear that this change to CLP will have a knock-on change to REACH, where they will be asking for a huge amount more animal testing to be done to determine the endocrine disruption potential of chemicals,” he explains.
“And not just new chemicals, but also ones that have already gone through the REACH process, and that all of this new data will be generated without a clear idea of how or whether it can be used to make safer decisions about chemicals.”
“There are non-animal methods for endocrine disruption that are available and are of good quality,” says Ingram as he explains how complex the topic of endocrine testing is and that we must better understand the use of the data from such testing before there is a call for an increase on animal testing – technology can play a role as a safe alternative here.
New approach methods
One of CEFIC’s action plans to simplify REACH includes the introduction of a new safety assessment scheme that supports an increased uptake of reliable animal-free safety assessment methods – New Approach Methodologies, or ‘NAMs’.
CEFIC’s suggestion is to ‘reduce the hazard focus of REACH, allowing more flexibility in achieving a high degree of safety’ and to remove ‘default requirements for animal testing wherever possible.’
It wants regulators to give greater justification on ‘why concerns cannot be addressed using exposure-based approaches or NAMs, such as when rejecting proposals for read-across, grouping, or NAMs to avoid animal tests.’ It also seeks to ‘adapt data requirements to utilise NAMs together with exposure considerations: a chemical can only cause harm if it can reach a target and interact with it.’
Could we see a rise in the use of NAMs in chemical testing with the correct revisions to REACH?
“On a positive side, the Commission is also working on the roadmap for phasing out animal testing, which is the result of Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics/End Animal Testing European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI),” says Antigoni Effraimidou, a senior strategist at Humane World for Animals.
She added: “We can see there’s already movement, which we feel is very positive to see, because it marks a landmark opening for the advanced chemical safety assessment, and it can also bring this cultural change in the scientific world that we are looking for, and hopefully also regulatory transformation.”
“There are some complex endpoints which the Commission feels that there will be a need also to develop new non-animal methods, but we do see this attitude from the policy makers, the willingness to go through that,” she said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/monzo-court-trial-daniel-anjorin-b2769732.html
Monzo said he ‘received guidance and communication’ in his head that the cat ‘was being used against me by negative forces’
Friday 13 June 2025
Marcus Arduini Monzo with a samurai sword that was shown to the jury in his trail at the Old Bailey (Metropolitan Police/PA) (PA Media)
An alleged sword attacker tried to cook and eat his pet cat, but claimed to have no memory of killing a schoolboy during a rampage in London.
Prosecutors say Marcus Arduini Monzo, 37, skinned and deboned his cat Wizard before launching a 20-minute spree of violence in Hainault, east London, while allegedly under the influence of cannabis on 30 April last year.
Monzo is accused of murdering 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin, as well as mowing down pedestrian Donato Iwule with a van and attacking two police officers and a couple in their home on April 30.
At the Old Bailey on Friday, Monzo cried as he said he did not intend to harm anybody.
In the days before the attacks, Monzo said he “received guidance and communication” in his head that the cat “was being used against me by negative forces”. He told jurors he took his pet cat to a park to get rid of it.
He said the cat returned to his Newham flat on the morning of the rampage, and that he strangled it despite claiming he did not want to.
Asked why it was skinned, he told jurors: “After I strangled him he (the communication) was telling me that the cat had taken energy from me and to replenish and get the energy back I had to eat the cat.”
Monzo said he tried to cook it, but became “panicked and rushed”, believing an event “like an Armageddon” was happening.
Continue reading …
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Clearly a nut, the guy. But again, the link between violence towards Animals and Humans .. as if more proof were needed.
Please refer to ..
A new investigation has revealed that the EU is home to 22,263 industrial chicken and pig farms – housing more than 516 MILLION Animals in the worst factory farm conditions.
Despite this, the EU Commission, some producers, and even some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are advocating for a further increase in the number of farmed animals.
But what would this increase mean for animal welfare; human health, as well as impact on the environment ?
https://stories.agtivistagency.com/the-face-of-european-farming/
The AGtivist data led investigation has, for the fist time, identified, and mapped these industrial farm around Europe; showing that the EU has 10,862 chicken farms; each holding at LEAST 40,000 birds; raised for egg or meat production, and 8,854 pig farms, holding at least 2,000 pigs each; or 2,547 for breeding pigs.
During the past ten years, 2,746 mega farms have started operations with the EU; with the highest rate of development happening in Spain, where 1,385 new industrial farms started up in the past decade. 5,314 permits for such farms were applied for during the last decade.
Whilst mega farms are sweeping across the EU, small and medium ones are rapidly declining. Between 2005 and 2020 the EU lost 5.3 million farms; most of which were smallholdings. – whilst the total agricultural land area remained stable, thus indicating the change – consolidation – into larger operations.
This represents a decrease of 44% within 15 years.
Meanwhile, the number of mega farms GREW by 56% within the same period; with the top 8% of the highest producing farms controlling a staggering 63% of all livestock in the EU. Here is the proof if you question what we say.
The income disparities between these farms increased by up to sixty fold. Proof – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/02/revealed-the-growing-income-gap-between-europes-biggest-and-smallest-farms?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Key statistics from the report include:
- France has the highest number of industrial chicken farms at 2,342 farms.
- Spain has the highest number of industrial pig farms, with 2,580 for fattening pigs and 821 farms fot breeding pigs. It is also the country that saw the biggest expansion of new farms starting to operate in the last decade.
- Italy is in the top five countries for both industrial pig and chicken farms – 2,146 combined.
MEGA FARMS OPERATE INTENSVE FARMING SYSTEMS where chickens are densely packed into barns with INADEQUATE VENTILATION, INSANITARY CONDITIONS; ALONG WITTH NO ACCESS TO OUTDOOR SPACE OR NATURAL LIGHT.
The AGtivist investigations in Italy with our colleagues Essere Animali; revealed the reality of animal welfare on the ground; with chickens at a farm in Bergamo living in their own excrement and unable to stand no their feet because of their unnatural growth.
Photo – Stefania – AGtivist / Essere Animali.
In Brescia, investigators witnessed hens cramped together, on top of each other; while carcasses were left to decompose for around 3 weeks.
Photo – Stefania – AGtivist / Essere Animali.
In Spain, local investigators highlight the concentration of pigs in intensive farms, with pigs confined in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, suffering from both untreated injuries and disease. Sows are enclosed in metal crates of barely two metres squared; preventing natural movement and leading to severe physical repercussions.
Further Link
Thu 12 Jun 2025 16.07 CEST
An IDF soldier and dog on patrol in Hebron. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images
Military dogs involved in attacks on Palestinian civilians – including children – are likely to have been exported from European countries, investigation finds
Warning: readers may find some of the details in this piece distressing
It was only seconds after soldiers entered the Hashash family’s home in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank that the dog attack began. As military raids rolled out across her neighbourhood one morning in February 2023, Amani Hashash says she took her four children into a bedroom. When she heard Israeli military coming into their home she called out that they were inside and posed no threat.
Moments later the bedroom door was opened and a large, unmuzzled dog launched itself into the room, plunging its teeth into her three-year-old son, Ibrahim, who was asleep in her lap.
Continue reading …
Israeli soldiers from the Oketz canine unit at a training base in southern Israel. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
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Comment of our own:
So typical of Humans to turn “man’s best friend” into a killing machine. The dogs, as it says here, have no understanding of what they are made to do – and are as much victims as those they are set upon.
Disgusting …
World Animals Voice 