“…In agreement with the study of Biron and Benfey (Biron and Benfey, 1994), we demonstrate here that the typical increase of plasma cortisol, glucose and lactate in response to a handling challenge takes place rapidly in rainbow trout, with all three parameters showing an increase within the initial 2 min of handling. In the available studies, these factors usually returned to control levels in a few hours, although recovery times strongly depend on species, the kind of stressor and exposure time (Aluru and Vijayan, 2006;Arends et al, 1999;Biron and Benfey, 1994;Fast et al, 2008;Pickering et al, 1982;Small, 2004;Wilson et al, 1998). In this study, plasma lactate returned to control levels within 4 h of acute handling, whereas plasma cortisol and glucose returned to control levels 8 h after exposure.…”