This Federal Act aims at protecting the following categories of animals insofar they are used or intended to be used for scientific and educational purposes: live vertebrates, also including self-feeding larvae and mammalian foetuses from the last third of their normal development; animals at an earlier stage of development, which are likely to experience pain, suffering or permanent damage after animal experiments; live cephalopods.
The purposes of this Federal Act concern: avoiding and reducing the use and the exposure of animals in animal experiments; improving the conditions for the breeding, housing, care and use of animals in animal experiments; promoting alternative methods to animal testing.
The Federal Act defines the relevant terms, including: animal experiment; animal breeder, user and supplier; endangered animal species; lethal dose-50. It also specifies four different degrees of severity in animal experiments and provides for permitted animal testing purposes, guiding principles, permitted methods of killing and completion of animal testing. The Federal Act sets out in detail the cases in which animal testing is inadmissible, particularly concerning species and subspecies of apes and stray or feral animals.
The text consists of 45 articles divided into 7 Parts as follows: General provisions (1); Special provisions for certain species of wild animals (2); Requirements for breeders, suppliers and users, including issue of permits (3); Requirements for projects (4); Monitoring and Control by the competent authorities (5); Organization and cooperation in the field of animal experimentation, including cooperation with the European Commission (6); Final provisions (7).