It was one of those stories that would make just about any animal lover wince.
As I was gathering the daily news clips last week, I came across this story from the Miami Herald, about schools in South Florida using animals for dissections in their science classes. Frogs have always tended to be the specimens of choice, but when some science classes began using cats for their specimens, as well as sharks, rats, some parents and students protested.
The debate was further reignited when a 19-year-old former student allegedly went on a cat-killing spree in Palmetto Bay, Fla. The teenager, who apparently had taken classes at a local high school that dissected cats, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty for killing and mutilating at least 19 cats in his neighborhood.
This debate has been going on for decades. Animal-rights activists feel animal dissentions are unnecessary they say students can learn biological basics from computer-simulated software and plastic models while some scientists and teachers say nothing can replicate an actual animal.
”People are always worried about where they come from,” Bruce Grayson, professor of biology at the University of Miami, told the Herald. “Do you know how many thousands of cats are euthanized in this country? If students can learn from them, and as long as they are properly obtained and disposed of, and as long as students use them in a responsible manner, then they are a useful teaching tool.”
But more companies are offering videos and other tools, and software that simulates virtual dissections has become much more realistic in recent years. It’s time for schools to rethink their dissection policies and look at alternatives.
And perhaps the biology classes particularly those that still dissect real animals can also teach about overpopulation of pets and how some of those ended up on a laboratory table.
Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor
