Abstract
Wild animals are used for research and management purposes in Sweden and throughout the world. Animals are often subjected to similar procedures and risks of compromised welfare from capture, anesthesia, handling, sampling, marking, and sometimes selective removal. The interpretation of the protection of animals used for scientific purposes in Sweden is based on the EU Directive 2010/63/EU. The purpose of animal use, irrespective if the animal is suffering or not, decides the classification as a research animal, according to Swedish legislation. In Sweden, like in several other European countries, the legislation differs between research and management. Whereas, animal research is generally well-defined and covered in the legislation, wildlife management is not. The protection of wild animals differs depending on the procedure they are subjected to, and how they are classified. In contrast to wildlife management activities, research projects have to implement the 3Rs and must undergo ethical reviews and official animal welfare controls. It is often difficult to define the dividing line between the two categories, e.g., when marking for identification purposes. This gray area creates uncertainty and problems beyond animal welfare, e.g., in Sweden, information that has been collected during management without ethical approval should not be published. The legislation therefore needs to be harmonized. To ensure consistent ethical and welfare assessments for wild animals at the hands of humans, and for the benefit of science and management, we suggest that both research and management procedures are assessed by one single Animal Ethics Committee with expertise in the 3Rs, animal welfare, wildlife population health and One Health. We emphasize the need for increased and improved official animal welfare control, facilitated by compatible legislation and a similar ethical authorization process for all wild animal procedures.
Highlights
Since the world’s first animal protection legislation was established in England in 1822, several countries have implemented protection of animals as a part of the national legal framework
Unclear and sometimes conflicting legal requirements and policies complicate the definition of a dividing line between wild animal research and management in Sweden, like in several other European countries [7]
It is difficult to determine into which category—research or management— an animal belongs, and if an ethical review of the animal procedure is needed
Summary
Since the world’s first animal protection legislation was established in England in 1822, several countries have implemented protection of animals as a part of the national legal framework. Even if the primary cause is identification, it is very likely that such a procedure may cause effects that are at least as negative to animal welfare as the insertion of a needle, i.e., stress, fear, and pain Such a procedure may not be defined as the least invasive method for identification [4], and would be scrutinized from a 3Rperspective if classified as a regulated procedure requiring an ethical assessment and permission from the competent authority. In contrast to laboratory settings, it is not always feasible to monitor animals released back to the wild [20] This may have implications on a larger scale; short- and long-term effects of capture, handling and identification, relocation, selective removal, and unintentional disease transmission, may affect wildlife populations, environmental health and biodiversity, domestic animals and humans, i.e., One Health [5, 30, 31]
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