Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 experiments licensed under the 1986 Act. The 1986 Act defined "regulated procedures" as animal experiments that could potentially cause "pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm", to "protected animals", which encompassed all living vertebrates other than humans, under the responsibility of humans. A 1993 amendment added a single invertebrate species, the common octopus ("Octopus vulgaris"), as a protected animal. The Act applied only to protected animals from halfway through their gestation or incubation periods (for mammals, birds and reptiles) or from when they became capable of independent feeding (for fish, amphibians and, the common octopuses). Primates, cats, dogs and horses had
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and replaced by EU Directive 2010/63/EU In 2002, a Government select committee inquiry described the Act as the "...tightest system of regulation in the world" in relation to the regulation of using animals for research. Prior to ASPA, the use of animals in the UK was regulated by the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, which enforced a licensing and inspection system for vivisection. Animal cruelty was previously regulated by the Protection of Animals Act 1911 (now largely repealed) and more recently by the Animal Welfare Act 2006, both of which outlaw the causing of "unnecessary suffering". Specific exemptions apply to