That was a staggering 194 per cent increase on the previous year, when 4.52 million animals were used.

Poultry made up the biggest group of animals used for scientific purposes in 2017-18, with more than 12 million, followed by almost half a million "other native mammals", which included flying foxes and bandicoots.

Turtles, cattle, kangaroos, rabbits, dogs, whales and dolphins, possums, pigs, cats, koalas, mice and wombats were also used.

Out of 154 projects last year, almost 70 per cent involved "conscious intervention (minor) without anaesthesia", 3.2 per cent involved animals being unconscious without recovery, while 1.9 per cent had death as the end point, not euthanasia.

"Death as an end point, not euthanasia" meant the death of the animal was a deliberate measure of the data collection, and could include toxicity testing or disease studies in which it was planned that animals would die.

"Unconscious without recovery" could involve teaching surgical techniques on live and anaesthetised animals which were not allowed to recover following the procedure, or animals euthanised for later scientific use, such as rats and toads for dissection.

There were four projects with approval to use animals that involved "surgery with recovery", but there were no reported animals used last year.

The complete breakdown of how many individual animals were involved in each project category was not provided.

More than half of the projects were environmental studies; one in four were for the "maintenance and improvement of animals or human health and welfare"; one in 10 for education; 3.2 per cent for "understanding of human or animal biology"; and 5.8 per cent for improving animal management or production.

Humane Research Australia chief executive Helen Marston said her organisation wanted animal research phased out, as some of the things animals were exposed to were "truly horrendous".

"Aside from the obvious cruelty to animals involved in using them as research tools, it's just not relevant to human medicine when you're taking data from one animal and using it to correlate to humans," she said.

"There are so many alternatives that are more human and more species-specific that we really need to move on to those methods of research.

"I do acknowledge a lot of research is environmental research and for the animals."

A Department of Agriculture and Fisheries spokesman said most of the projects considered were conducted to benefit animals.

"For example, many of the projects were wildlife surveys to detect wildlife or to study wildlife to better inform wildlife protection," he said.

"Removing this option would ultimately have negative impacts on animals."

The spokesman said the large spike in the number of animals used last year was mainly due to one large poultry project, involving more than 10 million birds.

The project investigated wild bird deterrents, as the increasing popularity of free-range chickens exposed poultry to diseases carried by other birds.

"Therefore, there is a need to develop and test non-lethal deterrents to keep wild birds away from poultry units," the spokesman said.

"The poultry were monitored for any reactions to the deterrents."

There were three wombats used in a project designed to study their behaviour. Two were trapped so collars could be applied, but they were considered unsuitable and released.

A third wombat was caught for relocation to a new colony but was considered unsuitable to be moved and was released where it was trapped.