Ch. 14— State Regulation of Animal Use • 321 
ANIMAL USE IN EDUCATION 
Past Trends 
Of all areas of State and local law dealing with 
the humane treatment of experimental animals, 
the realm of education is probably the most ne- 
glected. Statutes that refer to humane treatment 
in grammar and secondary schools usually con- 
tain very general terms, leaving the interpreta- 
tion for instructional and curricular requirements 
to local school authorities. 
Twenty -one States, in codes governing public 
instruction, list requirements for teaching stu- 
dents about the value of animals. These require- 
ments vary widely and correspond to legislative 
perceptions of both the morality and utility of hu- 
mane treatment. Some States, such as Pennsyl- 
vania and Wyoming, require a certain amount of 
time per week or other designated instruction 
period to be devoted to "kindness to” or “humane 
treatment of” animals. Others require such in- 
struction, in more general terms, on designated 
days of the year— “bird, flower, and arbor day” 
in Tennessee, "arbor and bird day” in Wisconsin, 
“bird” day in Utah, and "conservation” day in New 
York. New York, however, also requires general- 
instruction programs in "moral and humane edu- 
cation” and "protection of wildlife and humane 
care of domestic animals,” while Wisconsin man- 
dates such programs regarding "kindness to and 
the habits, usefulness and importance of animals 
and birds, and the best methods of protecting, 
preserving and caring for all animal and bird life.” 
California, besides requiring each teacher to "im- 
press upon the minds of the pupils the principles 
of morality . . . including kindness toward domes- 
tic pets and the humane treatment of living crea- 
tures,” requires public elementary and second- 
ary schools to house and care for live animals in 
a "humane and safe” manner and prohibits kill- 
ing or injuring, including anesthetizing, live verte- 
brates. Illinois and Massachusetts prohibit any "ex- 
periment upon any living animal for the purpose 
of demonstration in any study” in a public school. 
Further, dogs and cats may not be killed for vivi- 
section, nor can any animal provided by or killed 
in the presence of a pupil be so used. Dissection 
of dead animals is limited to classrooms before 
students "engaged in the study to be illustrated 
thereby” (74). 
Interest is increasing in laws restricting the use 
of at least some animals in experimentation be- 
low the undergraduate level. Recently introduced 
Kansas Senate Bill No. 529 forbids any school prin- 
cipal, administrator, or teacher from allowing any 
live vertebrate animal in a school or sponsored 
activity to be used as part of a scientific experi- 
ment or procedure in which the normal health 
of the animal is interfered with or in which fear, 
pain, suffering, or distress is caused. Covered ex- 
periments and procedures include, but are not 
limited to: 
. . . surgery, anesthetization, and the inducement 
by any means of painful, lethal, stressful, or 
pathological conditions through techniques that 
include but are not limited to: 
(a) administration of drugs; 
(b) exposure to pathogens, ionizing radiation, 
carcinogens, or to toxic, hazardous or pol- 
luting substances; 
(c) deprivation; and 
(d) electric shock or other distressing stimuli. 
Dissection of dead animals would be permitted 
if confined to classrooms, and the bill requires 
that its provisions not be construed to prohibit 
"biological instruction involving the maintenance 
and study of living organisms or the vocational 
instruction in the practice of animal husbandry.” 
Finally, the bill requires live animals in schools 
to be housed and cared for in a humane and safe 
manner, assigning personal responsibility to the 
teacher or other adult supervisor of a project or 
study. Violations would be punished as Class A 
misdemeanors. 
A bill introduced in Florida seeks to set State 
policy regarding experimentation with live ani- 
mals. The bill prohibits biological experiments on 
living subjects other than lower orders of life or 
