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. 
Dalmau, A., Moles, X., Pallisera, J. 2020. Animal welfare assessment protocol for does, bucks, and kit rabbits reared for production. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 445.

Rabbits are the third species in terms of number of animals reared for meat production in the world. However, in comparison to other species, very few studies have focused on their welfare. The aim of...

Finch, K., Sach, F., Fitzpatrick, M. et al. 2020. Longitudinal improvements in zoo-housed elephant welfare: A case study at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. Animals 10(11), 2029.

Over the last two decades, criticisms were raised regarding the welfare experienced by elephants in European and North American zoos. Concerns regarding the welfare of zoo-housed elephants in the UK and Europe were consolidated in...

Kahnau, P., Habedank, A., Diederich, K. et al. 2020. Behavioral methods for severity assessment. Animals 10(7), 1136.

It has become mandatory for the application for allowance of animal experimentation to rate the severity of the experimental procedures. In order to minimize suffering related to animal experimentation it is therefore crucial to develop...

Miller, L. J., Vicino, G. A., Sheftel, J. et al. 2020. Behavioral diversity as a potential indicator of positive animal welfare. Animals 10(7), 1211.

Modern day zoos and aquariums continuously assess the welfare of their animals and use evidence to make informed management decisions. Historically, many of the indicators of animal welfare used to assess the collection are negative...

Mogil, J. S., Pang, D. S. J., Silva Dutra, G. G. et al. 2020. The development and use of facial grimace scales for pain measurement in animals. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 116, 480-496.

The measurement of pain in animals is surprisingly complex, and remains a critical issue in veterinary care and biomedical research. Based on the known utility of pain measurement via facial expression in verbal and especially...

Meagher, R. K. 2019. Is boredom an animal welfare concern? Animal Welfare 28(1), 21-32.

Boredom, while often casually attributed to non-human animals by both laypeople and scientists, has received little empirical study in this context. It is sometimes dismissed by others as anthropomorphic or a trivial concern in comparison...

Bateson, M., Poirier, C. 2019. Can biomarkers of biological age be used to assess cumulative lifetime experience? Animal Welfare 28(1), 41-56.

Objective methods for assessing the cumulative lifetime experience of non-human animals would be valuable. We develop the hypothesis that biological age is a common currency that integrates the overall quality of an animal's lifetime experience...

Ellis, T., Rimmer, G. S. E., Parker, S.-J. et al. 2019. In-tank underwater cameras can refine monitoring of laboratory fish. Animal Welfare 28(2), 191-203.

Laboratory animals need to be monitored to check the status of their health and welfare. Routine checks of laboratory fish are limited to visual observations of physical appearance and behaviour, but for species held in...

Rault, J.-L. 2019. Be kind to others: Prosocial behaviours and their implications for animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 210, 113-123.

Social interactions are central to the health and psychological well-being of domestic animals. Until now, research has overwhelmingly focused on negative social behaviours such as aggression or the lack of social interactions such as social...

Howell, C. P., Cheyne, S. M. 2019. Complexities of using wild versus captive activity budget comparisons for assessing captive primate welfare. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 78-96.

Activity budget comparisons between groups or individuals in the wild and those in captivity are commonly used to determine the range of wild-type behaviors that nonhuman animals in captivity perform. These comparisons are conducted with...

Arechavala-Lopez, P., Saraiva, J. L. 2019. Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes. Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 132 pages.

This open access book is a printed edition of the Special Issue on Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes that was published in the journal Fishes. The PDF is free for download.

Fife-Cook, I., Franks, B. 2019. Positive welfare for fishes: Rationale and areas for future study. Fishes 4(2), 31.

Traditional animal welfare paradigms have focused on maintaining physical health and mitigating negative impacts to wellbeing. Recently, however, the field has increasingly recognized the importance of positive welfare (i.e., mental and physical states that exceed...

Saraiva, J. L., Arechavala-Lopez, P., Castanheira, M. F. et al. 2019. A global assessment of welfare in farmed fishes: The FishEthoBase. Fishes 4(2), 30.

Fish welfare is an essential issue that needs to be tackled by the aquaculture industry. In order to address it, studies have been limited to a small number of species and the information is generally...

Axiak Flammer, S., Eskes, C., Kohler, I. et al. 2019. Alternatives to carbon dioxide—Taking responsibility for humanely ending the life of animals. Animals 9(8), 482.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is commonly used to kill rodents. However, a large body of research has now established that CO2 is aversive to them. A multidisciplinary symposium organized by the Swiss Federal Food Safety and...

Watters, J. V., Krebs, B. L. 2019. Assessing and enhancing the welfare of animals with equivocal and reliable cues. Animals 9(9), 680.

The actions of human caretakers strongly influence animals living under human care. Here, we consider how intentional and unintentional signals provided by caretakers can inform our assessment of animals' well-being as well as help to...

Lawrence, A. B., Vigors, B., Sandøe, P. 2019. What is so positive about positive animal welfare?—A critical review of the literature. Animals 9(10), 783.

It is claimed that positive animal welfare (PAW) developed over the last decade in reaction to animal welfare focusing too much on avoiding negatives. However, it remains unclear what PAW adds to the animal welfare...

Hawkins, P., Bertelsen, T. 2019. 3Rs-related and objective indicators to help assess the culture of care. Animals 9(11), 969.

Within animal research and testing, the need for an effective Culture of Care is widely recognized and described in terms of an establishment-wide commitment to improving the implementation of the 3Rs, animal welfare, scientific quality...

McLennan, K. M., Miller, A. L., Dalla Costa, E. et al. 2019. Conceptual and methodological issues relating to pain assessment in mammals: The development and utilisation of pain facial expression scales. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 217, 1-15.

Effective management of pain is critical to the improvement of animal welfare. For this to happen, pain must be recognised and assessed in a variety of contexts. Pain is a complex phenomenon, making reliable, valid...

Williams, E., Carter, A., Hall, C. et al. 2019. Exploring the relationship between personality and social interactions in zoo-housed elephants: Incorporation of keeper expertise. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 221, 104876.

Individual animal personalities affect experiences of zoo environments, and thus potentially welfare. Incorporating keeper knowledge of animal personality in a reliable way has great value in optimising welfare in zoo-housed animals. Assessment of animal personality...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Lovell-Badge, R. et al. 2019. Report of the 2018 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 81-91.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Working Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 25 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and...

Chatigny, F. 2019. The controversy on fish pain: A veterinarian’s perspective. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(4), 400-410.

Fish welfare is still a relatively new field. As such, regulations and protocols to ensure fish welfare are currently limited and vary considerably in different jurisdictions. This is in part because of the ongoing controversy...

Balansard, I., Cleverley, L., Cutler, K. L. et al. 2019. Revised recommendations for health monitoring of non-human primate colonies (2018): FELASA Working Group Report. Laboratory Animals 53(5), 429–446.

The genetic and biological similarity between non-human primates and humans has ensured the continued use of primates in biomedical research where other species cannot be used. Health-monitoring programmes for non-human primates provide an approach to...

Yon, L., Williams, E., Harvey, N. D. et al. 2019. Development of a behavioural welfare assessment tool for routine use with captive elephants. PLOS ONE 14(2), e0210783.

There has been much concern in recent years about the welfare of elephants in zoos across North America and Europe. While some previous studies have assessed captive elephant welfare at a particular point in time...

Egelkamp, C. L., Ross, S. R. 2019. A review of zoo-based cognitive research using touchscreen interfaces. Zoo Biology 38(2), 220-235.

In the past few decades, there has been an increase in the number of zoo-based touchscreen studies of animal cognition around the world. Such studies have contributed to the field of comparative cognition despite the...

Broom, D. M., Johnson, K. G. 2019. Stress and Animal Welfare: Key Issues in the Biology of Humans and Other Animals (2nd ed). Springer, Berlin, Germany.

This is the Second Edition of a well-received book that reflects a fresh, integrated coverage of the concepts and scientific measurement of stress and welfare of animals including humans. This book explains the basic biological...