Many NATO countries have stopped using animals for military training. Not Canada. New documents reveal the toll of violent training exercises

Hundreds of young pigs have been killed as part of federal defence department training exercises after having been impaled, mutilated or exposed to chemical nerve agents, according to internal government documents.

Most countries have abandoned the use of live animals for medical training purposes and moved to high-tech mannequins and simulators that mirror human anatomy.

A 2012 study found more than two-thirds of NATO countries do not use animals as part of military medical training.

The Department of National Defence (DND) used and euthanized more than 1,800 pigs aged between 10 and 12 weeks as part of Canadian Armed Forces training exercises at a facility in Suffield, Alberta between 2012 and 2022. The department estimates the cost at nearly $1 million over that time.

Medical trainees must identify wounds on the injured animals, determine the best medical course of action and treat them. The animals either die during the training or are later euthanized, the documents show. In one case, a sedated pig suddenly began “vocalizing loudly” and another attempted to jump off the table.

In a written statement in response to questions from the Star, The DND said the use of pigs gives trainees increased “ability and confidence” in medical procedures so their skills can be “more effectively used on the battlefield to save lives.”

Such incidents of sedated pigs vocalizing and jumping are rare, and when they happened, the animals “were given more anaesthesia to ensure an appropriate plane of anaesthesia was obtained,” the statement reads.

“Why is the (Canadian) army still using live pigs to train the troops?” asks Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary medicine expert and former head of anesthesiology at Tufts Veterinary School in Boston who reviewed the newly released Canadian documents.

“Pigs are very intelligent animals that can feel pain. To put them through an improper anesthetic while undergoing severe surgical procedures is unethical, cruel and unnecessary. There are alternative methods.”

DND’s written statement, in response to Dodman’s comments, says “anesthetics are used responsibly following approved peer review protocols, under the guidance of veterinary experts including veterinary anesthesiologists, to ensure animals are properly anaesthetized.”

The records were obtained through access to information legislation by the Animal Alliance of Canada and shared with the Toronto Star.

The group is calling for the end of the practice, which they call “horribly cruel” and scientifically unfounded.

“The continued use of young pigs for trauma training … puts Canadian soldiers’ lives at risk by using archaic teaching methods and inapplicable animal models,” said Twyla Francois, animal research investigator with Animal Alliance. “We are urging (National Defence Minister Anita Anand) to replace young pigs with human patient simulators.”

Shalin Gala, one of the authors of the 2012 study and vice president of international laboratory methods with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said his organization’s latest research shows Canada is among only seven of the 30 NATO nations that continue to use animals for military medical training.

“The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) has been dragging its feet for years by still continuing to mutilate and poison live animals in barbaric drills,” he said.

The stark list of injuries to the young pigs is troubling, the details of which may be difficult to read.

They include “life threatening wounding,” “facial lacerations” and “sucking chest wounds” sustained from the use of “objects for impalement.”

And chemical warfare agents trigger symptoms including seizures, “scissoring of the jaw or grinding of the teeth,” irregular heart rhythms, fluid “accumulating in the airway” and a lack of oxygen that will “cause the skin to change color.”

The department says the training follows the guidelines and protocols of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) “to ensure the ethical treatment of animals” and works with international experts to assess simulation technologies “in an effort to minimize and eliminate, wherever possible, the use of animals in training.”

While the department seeks to “refine, reduce and where appropriate replace the use of live animals for research by using alternative experimental techniques,” the statement says, “there is no concrete scientific evidence at this time that can justify the complete replacement of such military medical training with simulation to achieve the advanced level of casualty training required by the CAF.”

While life-like dolls are used for most of the medical training, trainees are “sparingly given the opportunity to refine and improve their skills by using a non-human model,” the statement reads. “This training increases their ability and confidence in the procedures before they deploy so their skills can be more effectively used on the battlefield to save lives.”

Studies, experts and the government’s own internal documents raise concerns that pigs aren’t always a good surrogate for training medical staff how to treat humans.

“These pigs are the size of a 10-year-old child. That’s radically different from the size of a human soldier,” said Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit that advocates for removal of animals in medical testing.

PETA’s Gala said using pigs for medical training can lead trainees to miss major clinical signs of nerve agent poisoning in humans since the animals can’t communicate initial symptoms of exposure.

“In humans, by the time a nerve agent causes observable seizures, nerve damage could already be severe and soldiers and others may suffer more than they would have had the trainees learned using methods that prepared them to identify first subtle symptoms of human exposure that can’t be identified in animals who don’t speak our language.”

In more than a dozen instances, the internal documents acknowledge the differences between pig and human anatomy — and the problems that presents for the training exercises.

“With (non human model) there are various treatments that we will conduct that due to the anatomy are of little benefit to the candidates,” reads one.

It’s a risk cited in the federal documents as “training scars” — such as learning to insert a breathing tube in a pig in a way that would be incorrect for a human patient.

“Training scars can be one of the medics worst enemies because if this is how they are taught then they will repeat it when in a stressful situation,” the documents read. “We must develop our training in an extremely methodical way to avoid these scars at all costs.”

In its written statement to the Star, DND said the department “is continually adapting and refining all procedures where animal models are required for training to use the least number of animal models possible and any training that could result in a training scar is achieved using an alternative modality.”

The use of live animals in military medical training has been in steep decline, even in countries like the United States, which is among the seven NATO countries that still use them to some degree.

In 2011, the U.S. Army banned the use of primates in chemical weapon medical training.

Three years later, it stopped using live animals in a broader range of medical training scenarios unless alternatives — such as commercial training mannequins, actors, cadavers, or virtual simulators — are not appropriate. In 2017, the U.S. Coast Guard banned the use of animals altogether in its military medical training, calling the practice “abhorrent.”

A 2015 published study comparing the training outcomes of two separate groups of Canadian military trainees — one using simulators and the other pigs — found no meaningful difference. While it showed trainees often preferred animal training for some procedures, those testing on simulators during battlefield scenarios “were more likely to pass the assessment because they were more likely to be able to insert the tracheostomy tube into the trachea, compared with those medics tested on the animal model.”

A larger 2018 U.S. Army study comparing simulators and goats followed the results of more than 200 medics performing several emergency procedures. The authors concluded use of simulators “can produce a stress response equivalent to that of live tissue.”

DND’s response letter says: “We continue to evaluate new studies as they become available and adapt our methods as required. For now, the approach of using combined advanced simulation, with live tissue training (sparingly), continues to offer military medical trainees with the highest caliber medical training possible.”

Andrew Knight, veterinary professor of animal welfare and founding director of the Centre for Animal Welfare at the University of Winchester in the U.K., co-authored a 2020 paper that found 90 per cent of the 50 relevant published studies showed humane teaching methods were as or more effective than animal use.

“These results are clear — there is no valid educational reason for continued harmful animal use in education and training,” the study concludes.

The internal DND documents, which include numerous blacked out sections and pages, are incomplete. But they offer a sense of the program’s evolution.

Pigs have been used to train medical first responders and civilians in trauma, chemical warfare agents and radiation at the Suffield facility since at least 1997.

The “barrow” pigs — which are castrated young males — come from a “local supplier whose facility is regularly inspected and tested for diseases,” according to the documents.

The purpose of those federal purchases has largely avoided public scrutiny, in part thanks to what appears to be a carefully crafted public messaging strategy.

One internal document says the supplier must have a “media plan” and prepare a “cover story.” A PowerPoint slide titled “Public Affairs Considerations,” advises that students and instructors be briefed “regarding the sensitivities of (non human model) training.” There is even a paraphrase of a line from the popular film Fight Club, reminding participants of “the first rule” of the training model is to not talk about the training model.

“The references made to the film Fight Club were completely inappropriate and should not have been made,” DND said in its statement.

“When communicating about our work with live tissue (animal) training, we do have to consider sensitivities, as well as the security implications for contractors (who are often threatened by various groups). For this reason, we often have accompanying media plans when training is underway, should an escalated situation arise.”

The documented impacts of the exercises include the case of one pig fed a drug called Antisedan.

Sixteen minutes later, the sedated animal stirred and “started to vocalize loudly.” Symptoms also included “wheezing” and difficulty breathing.

“This is, by definition, incompetent anesthesia,” said Winchester University’s Knight. “There is no excuse for it.”

In its written response, DND said Antisedan is an approved drug in animal care and the incident detailed in the documents is an “extremely rare occurrence” and that while the animal made noise, “it was not in pain and was not ‘reviving.’ ”

The pig that attempted to jump off the table provides further evidence of incompetence in the program, says Tufts’ Dodman, who reviewed the documents.

“If you are going to use pigs and you think they are absolutely indispensable to save human lives, the very least you can do for these pigs (is) ensure they are properly anesthetized,” he said.

The military training technicians “didn’t understand what they were doing. They were using the wrong medications and they weren’t even doing it properly. There were pigs vocalizing, waking up, jumping off the table. They used the wrong quantities. It was just horrendous…It was a hack job.”

In response to the criticism, DND’s statement says its medical trainers “are required to complete several levels of training including theory, animal use ethics course, observation of training exercises, mentoring with a qualified technician and a final evaluation stage prior to being recognized as a qualified training technician.”

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