"Researchers to Study Avalanches By Burying Live Pigs in Snow"

nomensteven · 01-16-2010, 05:54 PM

This article is getting a decent amount of mainstream coverage. It is the number one story on digg.com right now. What do you folks think?
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/wor...pigs-snow.html

"
The use of live animals in scientific research has long been a testy subject (right out the gate with a pun, hm?), but ongoing experiments on lab mice don't seem to grab too many headlines anymore. No, it takes a particularly controversial or cruel-seeming experiment to get animal rights activists into the papers these days.

Take for instance, the most recent study that's stirring the ire of animal lovers everywhere: European researchers have planned an experiment in which 29 live pigs are to be buried under snow, and where they will essentially be observed dying. The experiment was set to begin last week, but has been postponed due to a firestorm of protest.

The study was an attempt to determine what factors make it possible for humans to "survive an avalanche in an air pocket until rescued without suffering permanent brain damage," according to the Canadian Press. The researcher's goal is to better understand how exactly air pockets are used to aid in survival, and in the long run, be able to present better guidelines on how people can survive avalanches.

In other words, the researchers' chief aim is to save human lives. Which seems a noble enough cause, no?

Animal rights activists don't think so--they claim the study is meaningless and pointless, and that it's needlessly cruel. According to the CP, Johanaa Stadler, head of the animal rights group Four Paws said, "It is absolutely unacceptable that these highly sensitive, helpless animals are killed for such an unnecessary test." The fact that the pigs were to be anesthetized and sedated didn't seem to help calm activists down any--and neither did a semi-snide comment from one of the researchers that the pigs days were numbered (whether in the snow or an abattoir) anyways.

And herein lies the conundrum--when is it ethical to sacrifice animals for the benefit of humans? Is it ever? Many would argue so--many of our greatest scientific discoveries and advances in medicine have come at the expense of animals who perished in the lab. Joseph Priestly, the scientist who first discovered the existence of oxygen, did so by suffocating countless mice in a sealed chamber. Few would argue that his contribution has been invaluable to science.

But perhaps it's when the goal or method of an experiment seem more ambiguous that our instincts to protect animals grows stronger, and the line between progress and needless cruelty grayer. Do the pigs really need to die? Don't we have advanced sensors that can tell this kind of thing? How many people really die from avalanches anyways? Would it really give scientists that much valuable information? All questions one might reasonably ask.

Six people have been killed by avalanches this winter so far in the US alone. Dozens are killed in Canada each year, more in Europe, and more around the world. It is an issue worth studying. As for the methodology, since I'm not a scientist, I can neither confirm nor deny that this is the most humane way to gather results.

The real question is, I think; would it be worth it if the scientists uncovered a way to instruct people to behave if caught in an avalanche that could spare them? Would that be worth the death of 29 pigs?

It's quite a loaded question indeed--one well worth debating.
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**chappyiam** · 01-16-2010, 09:29 PM

I have no problem with it, how about a Pig roast when there done, yum, yum.

**Crampedon** · 01-16-2010, 10:32 PM

Why oh why send out a press release stating what you are doing?

The smart move would have been to do the experiment THEN publish the results or use the info for it's stated purpose. To open the door to scrutiny beforehand is asking for it, especially when it's controversial.

About that pig roast, on a spit or Emu style? avalanche-kalua pig maybe?

**summit** · 01-16-2010, 10:48 PM

I'm no Green Peace lover, but what exactly do they expect to learn from killing 29 sedated pigs that they didn't already know?

**7cs** · 01-17-2010, 12:58 AM

It's not going to happen.

**axebiker** · 01-18-2010, 10:27 AM

I'm no activist, but I really don't get this one.

**nickinbc** · 01-18-2010, 11:11 AM

Difficult to really comment without some knowledge of exactly what they were doing.

However I doubt they could really reproduce avalanche burial conditions (snow in mouth and throat, chest compressed by snow compacted by the avalanche). How much will the anesthetization and sedation affect the results? And what exactly were they trying to achieve - an improved avalung?

**summit** · 01-18-2010, 01:01 PM

I wonder if they were trying to prove the hypothermia part of triple-H syndrome that IKAR is basing some of their algorithms on...

**farmer** · 01-18-2010, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by nickinbc

However I doubt they could really reproduce avalanche burial conditions (snow in mouth and throat, chest compressed by snow compacted by the avalanche).

place pig on slope, use bomb to trigger avy. real avy burial conditions reproduced

but I do agree with your other points

**summit** · 01-18-2010, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by farmer

place pig on slope, use bomb to trigger avy. real avy burial conditions reproduced

Minus skis, boots, clothes, forces interacting with human A&P... that's way too uncontrolled of an experiment.

**mogul5480** · 01-18-2010, 01:17 PM

Without any expertise on the scientific usefulness of the experiment, I will say this: It would be worth torturing to death 2900 pigs if it would save even 1 human life, in my opinion.

Again though, that's purely hypothetical, as I have no idea whether this experiment is actually useful or not.

**Roo** · 01-19-2010, 05:26 AM

Originally Posted by Summit

Minus skis, boots, clothes, forces interacting with human A&P... that's way too uncontrolled of an experiment.

Dress the pig up in ski gear and push it down the hill then bomb the slope.

That would be more awesome to watch than a squadron of drunken midget ninjas fighting in a cage against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

**inthemtns** · 01-19-2010, 09:20 AM

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Its not like they are using chimps! Although that would make a funnier youtube video.

Why 29 and not a round 30?

**Hayduke** · 01-19-2010, 05:45 PM

I fail to see what the problem is. I wouldn't sedate the fascist thugs either.

**Alpenglo** · 01-20-2010, 02:32 PM

Saw a presentation at ISSW 04? where they buried 1 pig (which they euthanized just before burial) to measure temperature changes. Pretty interesting. If I remember correctly they found that the pig retained heat much longer than anticipated. Burying 29 live ones ones seem a little excessively cruel though, IMO. A couple, sure, but its not they're looking for a cure for cancer or something.

If only we could teach pigs, to ski, in ski clothes, so that they could unwittingly trigger avalanches, then we might learn something. Only it would really be a bummer to find out that a pig rips harder than you.