Refining Housing, Husbandry and Care for Animals Used in Studies Involving Biotelemetry.

Penny Hawkins

doi:10.3390/ani4020361

Abstract

Simple SummaryBiotelemetry, the remote detection and measurement of an animal function or activity, is widely used in animal research. Biotelemetry devices transmit physiological or behavioural data and may be surgically implanted into animals, or externally attached. This can help to reduce animal numbers and improve welfare, e.g., if animals can be group housed and move freely instead of being tethered to a recording device. However, biotelemetry can also cause pain and distress to animals due to surgery, attachment, single housing and long term laboratory housing. This article explains how welfare and science can be improved by avoiding or minimising these harms.Biotelemetry can contribute towards reducing animal numbers and suffering in disciplines including physiology, pharmacology and behavioural research. However, the technique can also cause harm to animals, making biotelemetry a ‘refinement that needs refining’. Current welfare issues relating to the housing and husbandry of animals used in biotelemetry studies are single vs. group housing, provision of environmental enrichment, long term laboratory housing and use of telemetered data to help assess welfare. Animals may be singly housed because more than one device transmits on the same wavelength; due to concerns regarding damage to surgical sites; because they are wearing exteriorised jackets; or if monitoring systems can only record from individually housed animals. Much of this can be overcome by thoughtful experimental design and surgery refinements. Similarly, if biotelemetry studies preclude certain enrichment items, husbandry refinement protocols can be adapted to permit some environmental stimulation. Nevertheless, long-term laboratory housing raises welfare concerns and maximum durations should be defined. Telemetered data can be used to help assess welfare, helping to determine endpoints and refine future studies. The above measures will help to improve data quality as well as welfare, because experimental confounds due to physiological and psychological stress will be minimised.

Highlights

The ethical decision-making process for research projects or procedures involving animals rests on a harm-benefit assessment, in which the likely harms are ‘weighed’ against the potential benefits of the project
A good harm-benefit assessment involves setting out the potential harms to animals throughout their lives, including scientific procedures and their after effects, and other aspects that may cause suffering such as early ‘weaning’, transport, husbandry restrictions and some killing techniques. This approach identifies opportunities to implement refinement, one of the Three Rs (Replacement of animal experiments with humane alternatives, Reduction of animal numbers to the minimum needed for statistical significance, and Refinement of animal husbandry and procedures to reduce suffering and improve welfare)
This paper provides an update on some of the topics addressed in the Joint Working Group on Refinement (JWGR) on housing, husbandry and care for animals involved in biotelemetry studies

Summary

Introduction

The ethical decision-making process for research projects or procedures involving animals rests on a harm-benefit assessment, in which the likely harms (pain, suffering or distress experienced by animals) are ‘weighed’ against the potential benefits of the project. A good harm-benefit assessment involves setting out the potential harms to animals throughout their lives, including scientific procedures and their after effects, and other aspects that may cause suffering such as early ‘weaning’, transport, husbandry restrictions (e.g., singly housing social animals) and some killing techniques. This paper provides an update on some of the topics addressed in the JWGR on housing, husbandry and care for animals involved in biotelemetry studies It does not address device attachment or implantation, but assumes that these will be fully refined in accordance with legal requirements to minimise suffering by employing effective pain management [7] and current good practice approaches to surgery such as the Laboratory Animal Science Association (LASA) asepsis guidelines [8]. Some instrumented animals are reused and housed long term, which is addressed in Section 2.3, while Section 2.4 provides examples of how available telemetered data can be used for an additional purpose: to help reduce suffering and improve welfare

Group Housing

Providing Environmental Enrichment

Long Term Housing in the Laboratory and Reuse

Using Telemetered Physiological or Behavioural Data to Help Assess Wellbeing

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