Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Marques Maia, C., Volpato, G. L., Braithwaite, V. A. 2022. A psychological aversive condition does not change individual zebrafish preference for background color or artificial plant enrichments. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 25(4), 427-438.

Information on fish preference for environmental conditions can be a useful tool to offer them what they want, an important requirement for welfare purposes. Giving that such an approach deals with psychological states of the...

Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where...

Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under...

Fife-Cook, I., Franks, B. 2021. Koi (Cyprinus rubrofuscus) seek out tactile interaction with humans: General patterns and individual differences. Animals 11(3), 706.

The study of human–animal interactions has provided insights into the welfare of many species. To date, however, research has largely focused on human relationships with captive mammals, with relatively little exploration of interactions between humans...

Kumar, V., Buragohain, S., Deka, P. J. et al. 2021. Non-invasive reproductive hormone monitoring in the endangered pygmy hog (Porcula salvania). Animals 11(5), 1324.

The pygmy hog (Porcula salvania), until recently was classified as a critically endangered suid facing the threat of extinction due to habitat degradation. Efforts are being made to protect the pygmy hog from extinction and...

Dalmau, A., Sánchez-Matamoros, A., Molina, J. M. et al. 2021. Intramuscular vs. intradermic needle-free vaccination in piglets: Relevance for animal welfare based on an aversion learning test and vocalizations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 715260.

The aim of the present study was to compare intramuscular injection with a needle and intradermic needle-free vaccinations against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in piglets at 28 days old by studying behavioral and...

Kidd, P., Rose, P. 2021. Influences of rearing environment on behaviour and welfare of captive Chilean flamingos: A case study on foster-reared and parent-reared birds. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 2(2), 174–206.

Behaviour signals the internal states that relate to an individual’s welfare and its development is influenced by the early social environment that an animal experiences. Husbandry practices can alter this early social environment, for example...

Reese, L., Baumgartner, K., von Fersen, L. et al. 2020. Feather corticosterone measurements of greater flamingos living under different forms of flight restraint. Animals 10(4), 605.

Deflighting zoo birds is a practice that receives increasing criticism due to its presumed incompatibility with animal welfare. To our knowledge, this is the first approach to address this problem in a scientific way. To...

Fujinami, Y., Semba, Y. 2020. Non-lethal assessment of reproductive stage for female blue sharks Prionace glauca using sex steroid hormones. Journal of Fish Biology 96(6), 1501–1504.

Plasma concentrations of progesterone (P4) and 17β‐oestradiol (E2) in juvenile, pre‐ovulatory, early, mid‐ or late pregnancy stages of female blue sharks Prionace glauca were analysed. Concentrations of P4 were significantly higher in pregnant than in...

Brown, M. E., Torkelson, M. R., Olsen, G. H. et al. 2020. Comparison of fecal glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations in hand‐ versus parent‐reared whooping cranes (Grus americana). Zoo Biology 39(4), 276–280.

Endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana ) have been produced in captivity for reintroduction programs since the 1980s, using techniques such as artificial insemination, multiple clutching, and captive‐rearing to speed recovery efforts. Chicks are often hand‐reared...

Bartley, J. 2019. Darwin’s fishes?: Keeping Malawi cichlids. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(3), 199-202.

This poster will provide information on the cichlids, including their dietary and husbandry requirements and the breeding of these animals.

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

Green, T. J., Wolfenden, D. C. C., Sneddon, L. U. 2018. An investigation on the impact of substrate type, temperature, and iodine on moon jellyfish production. Zoo Biology 37(6), 434-439.

Jellyfish are a popular public aquarium species, however, their collection from natural populations is undesirable due to impact on species abundance and bycatch. Thus, a sustainable supply of jellyfish bred in-house would be highly desirable...