The Animal Welfare Act and the Conduct and Publishing of Wildlife Research in the United States

Abstract

In the US, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and its enabling regulations (AWAR) cover all warm-blooded animals used for research, testing, experimentation, or exhibition. The only exceptions, made in the enabling regulations, are for two genera of rodents and for birds, bred specifically for research (meaning even those exceptions do not apply to wild birds and wild rodents of those genera) and for farm and agricultural animals. Research using animals covered by the AWA and AWAR must be reviewed and approved by an Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) properly constituted according to AWA and AWAR. A review of Instructions to Authors and policy statements offered by 106 journals classified by their content as containing articles that were oriented largely toward disease, ecology, or general, showed that disease-oriented journals originating in the United States and those produced by professional societies and government agencies have a higher explicit requirement for ACUC review than do disease-oriented journals produced outside the United States or those produced commercially. Journals with a general orientation that are produced outside the United States or commercially had much higher rates of requiring explicit statements for ACUC review than generally-oriented journals produced in the United States or those produced by professional societies and government agencies. Ecology journals had low rates of explicit statements for ACUC review regardless of geographic origins or sources.

Differentiating research from management in welfare review of wildlife activities

“…Research using wildlife has been interpreted to require review by an IACUC per the AWA (Peck and Simmonds 1995; R. Gibbens, USDA, personal communication). Some wildlife agencies have been registered as research facilities with USDA, or collaborated with other entities that are USDA registered research facilities, and have for decades followed established programs to conduct IACUC review of research; however, uncertainty remains in the applicability of the AWA to wildlife activities (Mulcahy 2003, 2017; Paul et al 2015; Sikes et al 2019). Mulcahy (2017) suggests there are 3 reasons why wildlife agencies may not fully comply with requirements of the AWA: 1) the agency states that it does not conduct research but conducts only management, which is not covered under the AWA; 2) lack of enforcement allows for self‐exemption; and 3) to avoid the perceived burden of compliance.…”

“…We defined wildlife research as projects conducted by personnel that use animals with an a priori intent to address objectives using a scientific study design to test hypotheses, techniques, or treatments; improve understanding of a system; or generate peer‐reviewed scientific publications. Although some scientific journals that report wildlife‐related activities allow other animal‐welfare standards (e.g., adherence to taxon‐specific guidelines) and may not require documentation of IACUC review, our model includes review to facilitate compliance with submission requirements of many journals (Mulcahy 2017, Sikes et al 2019). As per the AWA, research projects also include activities that use animals for teaching; for example, to train personnel on scientific approaches or techniques used in wildlife research.…”

RORβ suppresses the stemness of gastric cancer cells by downregulating the activity of the Wnt signaling pathway

“…Nude mouse xenograft model. All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) and complied with the Animal Welfare Act (20). BALB/c nude mice (30 females; 4 weeks old; body mass 17-20 g) were purchased from Shanghai Laboratory Animal Center.…”

Buccal swabs for amphibian genomics

“…Genetic sampling must compromise between gathering DNA of sufficient quantity and quality, while limiting the invasiveness of procedures. Least-intrusive sampling is necessary for the conservation of endangered wildlife and animal welfare, both in term of moral commitment and as a pre-requisite for ethical approval of research (Zemanova, 2019(Zemanova, , 2020, which are now mandatory for scientific publishing (Mulcahy, 2017). As laboratory techniques improved, conservation biologists have thus turned towards alternative DNA sources that reduce the disturbance on animals, such as buccal, cloacal and skin swabs, along with hairs, feathers, exuviae and environmental DNA (reviewed by Carroll et al, 2018).…”

“…Herpetologists now face a paradox. Implementing genomic approaches, such as RADsequencing (RAD-seq) and sequence-capture, is more DNA-demanding, but at the same time, ethical committees are enforcing increasingly strict policies when issuing sampling permits, which can be frustrating for researchers (Mulcahy, 2017;Lefort et al, 2022). Favoring buccal swabs would appear timely, hence whether they are also suitable for genomic analyses becomes a burning question.…”