Does the Animal Welfare Act Apply to Free-ranging Animals?

Abstract

Despite the long-standing role that institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs) have played in reviewing and approving studies at academic institutions, compliance with the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is not always complete for government natural resource agencies that use free-ranging animals in research and management studies. Even at universities, IACUCs face uncertainties about what activities are covered and about how to judge proposed research on free-ranging animals. One reason for much of the confusion is the AWA vaguely worded exemption for "field studies." In particular, fish are problematic because of the AWA exclusion of poikilothermic animals. However, most university IACUCs review studies on all animals, and the Interagency Research Animal Committee (IRAC) has published the "IRAC Principles," which extend coverage to all vertebrates used by federal researchers. Despite this extended coverage, many scientists working on wild animals continue to view compliance with the AWA with little enthusiasm. IACUCs, IACUC veterinarians, wildlife veterinarians, and fish and wildlife biologists must learn to work together to comply with the law and to protect the privilege of using free-ranging animals in research.

Advancing the surgical implantation of electronic tags in fish: a gap analysis and research agenda based on a review of trends in intracoelomic tagging effects studies

“…Did tagged fish experience tagging-related mortality? More recently, the growing interest in fish welfare (Mulcahy 2003a) and the need to maintain the welfare status of fish involved in research, including those implanted with electronic tags, has promoted even greater scrutiny of surgical procedures on a range of taxa (Wilson and McMahon 2006). From a research perspective one wants to ensure that the surgical procedures and techniques produce negligible impacts on the fish and that they recover from surgery in a timely manner such that their welfare status is maintained and that their behaviour and fate is similar to untagged conspecifics.…”

Ethical issues faced by field primatologists: asking the relevant questions

“…Animal care evaluation forms originally developed out of concerns for research on laboratory animals and are designed to assess adherence to the Animal Welfare Act in the U.S., and to the CCAC (Canadian Council for Animal Care) Guidelines in Canada and to the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in the U.K.; as well as for compliance with the Three R's (see below). Currently, almost all U.S. and Canadian researchers working with animals, captive or wild, are required to obtain approval of their research from animal care committees before they can receive grant funds or publish their work [Mulcahy, 2003]. Perhaps it is no wonder that researchers completing these forms before heading off for field research in host countries often say they feel like ''square pegs being shoved into round holes.''…”

Training considerations for the intracoelomic implantation of electronic tags in fish with a summary of common surgical errors

“…However, because most fish telemetry and biologging research is not performed by veterinarians and occurs under field conditions, it has been difficult to develop guidelines that are useful and appropriate for fisheries scientists (Mulcahy 2003a, b). Many of the existing documents have been written by veterinarians (e.g., Stoskopf 1993a, b;Harms and Lewbart 2000;Mulcahy 2003a). These sources provide important veterinary rigor, but that rigor is not always transferable to wild fish in field environments (Stoskopf 2003).…”

“…Professional fisheries societies, including the American Fisheries Society (AFS), American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists (AIFRB), the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH), and the Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI), have developed guidelines intended to improve the welfare of fish used in research (ASIH et al 1987(ASIH et al , 1988FSBI 2002;AFS et al 2004). These general guidelines include sections on surgical implantation of electronic tags, but, as Mulcahy (2003a) noted, there is very little detailed or standardized information concerning the development of guidelines for training and regulation of fish surgery. This paucity of information is particularly surprising, considering documented cases of negative consequences arising from surgery on fish (see Bridger and Booth 2003;Mulcahy 2003b;Welch et al 2007) and the presence of information from studies having empirically tested fish surgical techniques (see reviews by Jepsen et al 2002;Mulcahy 2003b;Wagner and Cooke 2005).…”