The article presents and discusses the issues of the use of free-living invertebrates to assess the ecological status of freshwater environments with different methods of biological monitoring. Invertebrates are excluded from ethical consideration in the...
Traditional health monitoring methods consisted of Soiled Bedding Sentinels (SBS (i.e. animals exposed to dirty bedding from colony animals)), which require the euthanasia of SBS. Numerous studies have demonstrated that SBS may not accurately represent...
Currently, metabolic cages (MC) are the only way to achieve serial sampling of urine and feces in rodents. However, the use of this caging creates a dramatic change from an animal’s usual microenvironment. Here we...
Environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques have emerged as a cost-effective and non-invasive strategy for monitoring the distribution of endangered aquatic species. Despite their numerous advantages, operational uncertainty at each step of the process represents a significant...
Welfare considerations and regulations for invertebrates have lagged behind those for vertebrates, despite invertebrates comprising more than 95% of earth’s species. Humans interact with and use aquatic invertebrates for exhibition in zoos and aquaria, as...
The ocean sunfish (mola; Mola mola) is the heaviest bony fish in the world. This slow-moving fish often is injured by fishing boats that use drift gillnets attributing to its listing as Vulnerable by the...
Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...
Zebrafish is a valuable model for neuroscience research, but the housing conditions to which it is exposed daily may be impairing its welfare status. The use of environmental enrichment and the refinement of methodology for...
Multiple methods are used to collect blood from mice; these methods have different effects on animal welfare. This study compared blood collection from facial, chin, and saphenous locations with regard to various parameters, including the...
In the last decades, wildlife diseases and the health status of animal populations have gained increasing attention from the scientific community as part of a One Health framework. Furthermore, the need for non-invasive sampling methods...