All/General

Research tools for the measurement of pain and nociception

There are many ways in which pain in animals can be measured and these are based on a variety of phenomena that are related to either the perception of pain or alterations in physical or behavioural features of the animal...

Year Published: 2016Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Johnson, C. 2016. Research tools for the measurement of pain and nociception. Animals 6(11), 71.

Moving beyond the “Five Freedoms” by updating the “Five Provisions” and introducing aligned “Animal Welfare Aims”

Although the Five Freedoms paradigm has been very influential in shaping animal welfare thinking for the last two decades, it has two key disadvantages. First, the focus on “freedom” from a range of negative experiences and states has been misunderstood...

Year Published: 2016Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Mellor, D. 2016. Moving beyond the “Five Freedoms” by updating the “Five Provisions” and introducing aligned “Animal Welfare Aims”. Animals 6(10), 59.

Stressed out: providing laboratory animals with behavioral control to reduce the physiological effects of stress

Laboratory animals experience a large amount of environmental stress. An animal's environment can include both physiological and social stressors that may require an animal to adapt to maintain allostatic balance. For example, thermal stress can lead to changes in behavior,...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Environmental Enrichment, Husbandry & ManagementAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Gaskill, B. N., Garner, J. P. 2017. Stressed out: providing laboratory animals with behavioral control to reduce the physiological effects of stress. Lab Animal 46(4), 142-145.

The enrichment club

Regulatory requirements provide instructions on enrichment specifically for nonhuman primates, but we believe all animals can benefit from enrichment if it is structured for that species. Hired as the Director of Behavior Management and Environmental Enrichment at the Icahn School...

Year Published: 2016Topics: Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Johnson, C. H., Carter, K. 2016. The enrichment club. Lab Animal 45(9), 341.

Unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage

Many biomedical research studies use captive animals to model human health and disease. However, a surprising number of studies show that the biological systems of animals living in standard laboratory housing are abnormal. To make animal studies more relevant to...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Housing, Natural BehaviorAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Lahvis, G. 2017. Unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage. eLife 6, e27438.

Managing aged animals in zoos to promote positive welfare: A review and future directions

Improvements in veterinary care, nutrition, and husbandry of animals living in zoos have led to an increase in the longevity of these animals over the past 30 years. In this same time period, the focus of animal welfare science has...

Year Published: 2018Topics: Husbandry & ManagementAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Krebs, B., Marrin, D., Phelps, A. et al. 2018. Managing aged animals in zoos to promote positive welfare: A review and future directions. Animals 8(7), 116.

Naturalness and animal welfare

Naturalness is considered important for animals, and is one criterion for assessing how we care for them. However, it is a vague and ambiguous term, which needs definition and assessments suitable for scientific and ethical questions. This paper makes a...

Year Published: 2018Topics: Natural BehaviorAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Yeates, J. 2018. Naturalness and animal welfare. Animals 8(4), 53.

What the literature tells us about score sheet design

Score sheets are an essential tool of animal welfare. They allow transparent assessments to be made of animal health and behavior during animal experiments and they define interventions when deviations from normal status are detected. As such, score sheets help...

Year Published: 2016Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Bugnon, P., Heimann, M., Thallmair, M. 2016. What the literature tells us about score sheet design. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 414-417.

Humane Endpoints website huge success in Spain and the rest of the world

The Humane Endpoints website (https://www.humane-endpoints.info/) provides information and training modules on how to recognize humane endpoints in laboratory animals. This helps to prevent further distress in the animals by removing the animals from the experiment (e.g. euthanizing the animals) or...

Year Published: 2017Topics: Humane EndpointAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Kliphuis, S. 2017. Humane Endpoints website huge success in Spain and the rest of the world. Laboratory Animals 51(2), 218-219.

Report from the 2017 Annual SGV (Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association ) Meeting

The Scientific Committee of the Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Versuchstierkunde, SGV) reports on the Annual SGV Meeting held on 28 and 29 November 2017, at Technopark, Zürich, Switzerland. Feedback after the 2016 meeting and recent developments...

Year Published: 2018Topics: Euthanasia, Humane Endpoint, Husbandry & Management, Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: Deurinck, M., Schindler, S., Bugnon, P. et al. 2018. Report from the 2017 Annual SGV (Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association ) Meeting. Laboratory Animals 52(2), 211-213. [Meeting Report]