Because a small discussion started in our WhatsApp group after the feedback session, we were asked to send our opinions to this e-mail address if we wanted.

The argument was made that dissection was a waste because the animals were put on the “dissecting table” and then thrown away.

From what I understood in class, the earthworms and roaches were bought in a store for animal feed, the mussels and trout were from a farm that produces them for food, the chicks would have been shredded*, and the frogs and mice were university breeding animals that couldn’t be used anymore. The crabs were from a research station that collects the animals, but I don’t know more about that... I hope the rest is right and I’m not making any false assumptions.

It was also argued that many universities offer this kind of course and the breeders therefore are faced with higher demands, leading to higher supplies and thus more animals are killed.

I have a different opinion about that.

Not every university that offers this course uses the same animals. For example, some universities use snails from university breeding programs instead of mussels or other fish instead of trout.

If demand increases at all, it is therefore only by a little.

Of course for the mammals a visit to a slaughterhouse could have been offered so that we could see what actual waste looks like.

I come from a farm with fattening pigs, and I still think our excessive eating of meat is a waste but not dissection like it’s done in the “cutting class.”

The animals that died serve to educate us in a way that is much more interesting and illustrative than if we only used books and texts. It makes a difference whether you just see anatomical characteristics drawn schematically in a book or whether you see and touch them yourself. The form, color, consistency, tissue characteristics, and particularities can never be described as well in books and pictures as they can with a living animal.

Nobody is forced to cut open an animal, and those who approached it with interest and concentration were also able to take away a lot from the practical exercises.

That’s how it was for me, anyway. A little bit of practical experience certainly doesn’t hurt in a university program that is otherwise so theoretical.

Martina, 1st semester, Biology

*Editor’s note: In Germany, male chicks in laying hen breeding facilities are shredded or killed with CO2. The university is working toward finding alternatives - e.g. with so-called dual-purpose chickens | more information