Foto: Pixabay/Wolfgang Ehrecke

The majority of animal experiments on birds are carried out on chickens. These experiments often aim to optimize industrial egg or meat production. In addition to investigating diseases, infections, and psychological disorders in animals resulting from industrial animal husbandry, domestic chickens are the most commonly used animal model for studying myopia in humans. This is despite the fact that effective treatments for myopia already exist.

For years, agonizing vocal studies have been conducted on songbirds, and research has been carried out to investigate migratory behavior to winter quarters using the magnetic sense protein in robins. There are reasonable doubts as to whether these experiments are legally permissible and ethically justifiable. 

The expansion of plant-based nutrition and production in line with the scientifically recommended Planetary Health Diet would not only help to achieve ecologically sustainable and healthy food production and nutrition, it would also render unnecessary animal experiments used to research diseases resulting from industrial animal husbandry, writes the animal rights organization Menschen für Tierrechte (“People for Animal Rights”).

In human drug research and development, developers tend to be very interested in human-specific methods because they are often more precise, reproducible, and simply less expensive than animal testing. The pharmaceutical industry estimates that the use of AI instead of animal testing could halve manufacturing costs in the coming years. 

The Animal Rights Organization calls for adequate funding for a rapid development of effective, animal-free methods in order to move closer to the goal of phasing out animal testing as set out in EU Directive 2010/63/EU. It also calls for a fundamental reform of the approval process for animal testing, e.g., to prevent duplication of animal testing. 

Further information:
https://www.tierrechte.de/2025/10/15/menschen-fuer-tierrechte-ernennt-den-vogel-als-versuchstier-des-jahres-2025/