Experiments involving genetically engineered animals have nearly tripled in Germany in the past 10 years, driven by a burgeoning global industry that involves inventing and patenting genetically altered species for scientific research, says a new study commissioned by Germany's Green Party and conducted by the research group Testbiotech.

"The massive increase in animal testing in the genetics field is unacceptable," said Nicole Maisch, the Green Party's parliamentary spokesperson for the protection of animals and consumer policy, to the newspaper Der Westen.

"Particularly when the experiments' usefulness from a medical standpoint is extremely questionable, or when the trials have revealed themselves to be unsuccessful," Maisch said, "we must not allow any more animals to be tortured."

The study, which was released Wednesday and shared with Süddeutsche Zeitung and newspapers owned by Germany's Funke Mediengruppe, found that nearly 950,000 animals were subjected to experiments in Germany in 2013 alone, and a full third of those involved genetically modified animals.

The genomes of mice, rats, and fish are being tinkered with the most, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung, but rabbits and pigs are popular choices, too.