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Are the animals used in classroom dissection taken
from the wild? If so, wouldn’t this be endangering their populations?
Are there other environmental issues associated with classroom dissection?
According to the Humane
Society of the United States, most animals used in dissection —
including amphibians, birds, snakes, turtles, fish, and invertebrates
— are taken from the wild, even though many have been declining in
population. Smithsonian Institution researchers who surveyed 14 major
dissection-supply catalogs found only one that offered
“farm-raised” amphibians; none of the others verified their
sources.
Researchers from the World Conservation Union reported
in 2004 that a third of all amphibian species around the globe, including
frogs, were threatened with extinction. Although habitat loss, pollution,
and climate changes are the primary causes, demand for dissection specimens
only makes matters worse. Analysts estimate that 6 million wild frogs are
destroyed each year in the United States alone for dissection. Taking frogs from the wild also increases the
populations of insects, including those that carry disease. Frogs eat more
than their weight in bugs every day. Farmers the world over have long
relied on frogs to keep crops pest-free, but a lack of frogs in recent
years has led many farmers to switch to pesticides. Concerns about this
prompted India to ban frog sales in 1987. India had been earning $10
million yearly on frog exports but was spending $100 million importing
insecticides, according to the group Mercy for Animals. The use of formaldehyde in preserving animal specimens
is also a concern. Classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
as a “hazardous air pollutant, water pollutant and waste
constituent,” formaldehyde can cause nausea, headaches, and breathing
difficulties in people and has been linked to cancer in animal studies.
Teachers and students involved in frequent dissections are exposed to it
regularly. Further, schools discard millions of formaldehyde-laden
classroom specimens each year, raising questions about its effects on the
larger ecosystem as well. Animal-advocacy groups and some educators also question
dissection on both practical and ethical grounds. Although it is intended
to interest students in science, they say, it may be having an opposite
effect while also encouraging cruelty to animals outside class. According
to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a 1997 study of
seventh-graders found that fetal-pig dissections fostered callousness
toward animals and dissuaded students from pursuing science careers. The
PCRM also cites surveys in which as many as 90 percent of students said
that they should be able to opt out of dissection. A number of computer-based teaching tools now on the
market provide alternatives to live-animal dissection. Digital Frog
International’s award-winning “Digital Frog 2” allows a
student to “dissect” a computer-generated frog with a digital
scalpel. The nonprofit TeachKind provides a comprehensive online listing of
such resources. Nine U.S. states — Florida, California, Pennsylvania,
New York, Rhode Island, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, and New Jersey —
now have laws that allow students to opt out of cutting animals and to use
such alternatives. Other states have implemented policies that serve a
similar purpose.
For more
information: HSUS,
hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_education; PCRM,
www.dissectionalternatives.org; TeachKind,
www.teachkind.org/dissectalt.asp.
Send questions to Earth Talk, care of E/The Environmental Magazine,
P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2007.
