Abstract
Research in ecology and wildlife biology remains crucial for increasing our knowledge and improving species management and conservation in the midst of the current biodiversity crisis. However, obtaining information on population status often involves invasive sampling of a certain number of individual animals. Marking and sampling practices include taking blood and tissue samples, toe-clipping of amphibians and rodents, or using implants and radio-transmitters – techniques that can negatively affect the animal. Wildlife research may then result in a fundamental conflict between individual animal welfare and the welfare of the population or ecosystem, which could be significantly reduced if non-invasive research practices were more broadly implemented. Implementation of non-invasive methods could be guided by the so-called 3Rs principles for animal research (replace, reduce, refine), which were proposed by Russell and Burch 60 years ago and have become a part of many animal protection legislations worldwide. However, the process of incorporating the 3Rs principles into wildlife research has been unfortunately rather slow and their importance overlooked. In order to help alleviate this situation, here I provide an overview of the most common practices in wildlife research, discuss their potential impact on animal welfare, and present available non-invasive alternatives.
Highlights
BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research
Research in ecology and wildlife biology remains crucial for increasing our knowledge and improving species management and conservation in the midst of the current biodiversity crisis
Wildlife research may result in a fundamental conflict between individual animal welfare and the welfare of the population or ecosystem, which could be significantly reduced if non-invasive research practices were more broadly implemented
Summary
I derived my synthesis based on published journal articles and books. I searched for relevant literature on the Web of Science and Google Scholar until March 2019 and used references cited in the papers I found. Potential impact of commonly used methods in wildlife research on animal welfare Capturing, trapping and experiments in captivity. Considered harmless by some authors (Grafe et al 2011, Ginnan et al 2014), toe-clipping can, result in reduced survival rate (McCarthy and Parris 2004, Olivera-Tlahuel et al 2017). It has negative effect on locomotor performance and endurance (Schmidt and Schwarzkopf 2010) as well as the clinging performance of pad-bearing lizards, which was documented in the Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis (Bloch and Irschick 2005). Several cases of mortality caused by implanted radio-transmitters have been reported in European lynx Lynx lynx (Lechenne et al 2012), Harlequin ducks Histrionicus histrionicus (Mulcahy and Esler 1999) and American badgers Taxidea taxus (Quinn et al 2010)
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