Rescued Lab Animals Seeing Sun For The First Time Will Make Your Day
More than 25 million animals are used for research, testing and educational purposes in the U.S. each year. But the use of animals in many of these experiments is often gratuitous or just plain ineffective -92 percent of drugs that succeed in animal tests, for example, never receive approval for human use.
In honor of World Day for Laboratory Animals on Friday, here are four rare happy endings where animals were finally freed after lifetimes of lab research.
1. These nine beagles who were freed from a laboratory in Nevada.
Here they are seeing grass and sunshine - and meeting their fellow captives - for the first time.
2. These two cats who were saved from a research laboratory in New York.
Here he is on his first day home, getting his first hugs.
Here he is seeing his first bird.
And here he is now.
3. These six rabbits who were rescued from a research lab in Spain.
4. These 38 chimpanzees who were rescued from a lab in Europe.
Most of them had been kidnapped from their jungle homes as babies, and this is the first time they had seen the sun and felt grass beneath their feet in 30 years. Their sense of amazement is incredible to watch - they even hug each other, grinning, when they realize it's for real.
These animals found freedom, but there are millions more like them still trapped in labs across the world. If you'd like to help, a good first step is to go cruelty-free - to find out more, visit sites like Leaping Bunny or My Beauty Bunny.