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. 
Golledge, H., Richardson, C. (Eds.) 2024. The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals (9th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 1040 p.

The latest edition of the seminal reference on the care and management of laboratory and research animals. The newly revised ninth edition of The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Peruga, M., Kawala, B., Sarul, M. et al. 2023. Are currently selected laboratory animals useful in the research of how female hormones influence orthodontic biomechanics? Animals 13(4), 629.

Animal testing was and remains the only method of introducing a certain treatment and medical procedure on humans. On the other hand, animals have their rights resulting from applicable legal acts, including Directive 2010/63/EU and...

Schneidewind, S. J., Meemken, D., Langforth, S. 2023. Measures and penalties for animal welfare violations at german abattoirs: A compilation of current recommendations and practices. Animals 13(18), 2916.

Protecting animal welfare during preslaughter handling and slaughter is an important ethical concern with growing importance to consumers. However, animal welfare violations in abattoirs remain a serious problem, and the enforcement of relevant laws and...

Rossi, A. P., dos Santos, C. R. C., Maia, C. M. et al. 2023. Rescued cats prefer to scratch fabrics commonly used to cover upholstered furniture. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 26(3), 313–324.

Preference responses of cats for scratching fabrics commonly used on furniture were evaluated during four consecutive days in three Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that rescue companion animals. Cats were grouped and their choices were registered at...

Scott, L., Florkiewicz, B. N. 2023. Feline faces: Unraveling the social function of domestic cat facial signals. Behavioural Processes 213, 104959.

Lately, there has been a growing interest in studying domestic cat facial signals, but most of this research has centered on signals produced during human-cat interactions or pain. The available research on intraspecific facial signaling...

Vaz, J., McElligott, A. G., Narayan, E. 2022. Linking the roles of personality and stress physiology for managing the welfare of captive big cats. Animal Welfare 31(1), 99-111.

Animal welfare is important for the humane treatment of animals under our care. Zoos and rescue centres manage various charismatic animals, such as big cats, with limited resources. It is therefore essential for caretakers to...

Popper, A. N., Sisneros, J. A. 2022. The sound world of zebrafish: A critical review of hearing assessment. Zebrafish 19(2), 37-48.

Zebrafish, like all fish species, use sound to learn about their environment. Thus, human-generated (anthropogenic) sound added to the environment has the potential to disrupt the detection of biologically relevant sounds, alter behavior, impact fitness...

Chappell, J., Thorpe, S. K. S. 2022.The role of great ape behavioral ecology in One Health: Implications for captive welfare and re‐habilitation success. American Journal of Primatology 84(4-5), e23328.

Behavior is the interface through which animals interact with their environments, and therefore has potentially cascading impacts on the health of individuals, populations, their habitats, and the humans that share them. Evolution has shaped the...

Eisenbeiser, S., Serbe-Kamp, É., Gage, G. J. et al. 2022. Gills just want to have fun: Can fish play games, just like us? Animals 12(13), 1684.

It is common to observe play in dogs, cats, and birds, but have we been ignoring play in one of the most common house pets of all… fish? Aquarium fish are often used as meditative...

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...

Henning, J., Fernandez, E., Nielsen, T. et al. 2022. Play and welfare in domestic cats: Current knowledge and future directions. Animal Welfare 31(4), 407–421.

Play and welfare have long been linked within animal research literature, with play considered as both a potential indicator and promoter of welfare. An indicator due to observations that play is exhibited most frequently in...

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...

Coleman, K., Shapiro, S. J. (Eds.). 2021. Behavioral Biology of Laboratory Animals (1st ed). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

This 30-chapter volume informs students and professionals about the behavioral biology of animals commonly housed in laboratory and other captive settings. Each species evolved under specific environmental conditions, resulting in unique behavioral patterns, many of...

Sørensen, D., Cloutier, S., Gaskill, B. (Eds.). 2021. Animal-centric Care and Management - Enhancing Refinement in Biomedical Research. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

The concept of the 3Rs (Refinement, Reduction and Replacement) has been used as a framework for improving the welfare of laboratory animals for the last half century. By establishing an animal-centric view on housing and...

Wilson-Welder, J. H., Frank, A. T. 2021. Use of food enrichment for medication delivery in large groups of sheep. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(3) (May/June), 40-43.

In a 2018 AALAS webinar on Sheep and Goat Analgesia, Dr. Susie Vogel, a small ruminant expert, introduced the concept of getting sheep and goats to willingly take medication by putting it in a tasty...

Travnik, I. C., Sant'Anna, A. C. 2021. Do you see the same cat that I see? Relationships between Qualitative Behaviour Assessment and indicators traditionally used to assess temperament in domestic cats. Animal Welfare 30(2), 211-223.

This study into the behaviour of domestic cats (Feliscatus) aimed to assess the relationship between behavioural expressions obtained via the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) and quantitative outcomes of temperament tests. Four behavioural tests were used...

Gajdoš Kmecová, N., Pet'ková, B., Kottferová, J. et al. 2021. Are these cats playing? A closer look at social play in cats and proposal for a psychobiological approach and standard terminology. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 712310.

Play in domestic cats has been largely studied using a contextual approach, i.e., with a focus on what the cat is playing with, such as an object, itself or another cat. Such classification may be...

Ross, S. R., Leinwand, J. G. 2020. A review of research in primate sanctuaries. Biology Letters 16(4), 1620200033.

While non-human primate studies have long been conducted in laboratories, and more recently at zoological parks, sanctuaries are increasingly considered a viable setting for research. Accredited sanctuaries in non-range countries house thousands of primates formerly...

Aleström, P., D’Angelo, L., Midtlyng, P. J. et al. 2020. Zebrafish: Housing and husbandry recommendations. Laboratory Animals 54(3), 213–224.

This article provides recommendations for the care of laboratory zebrafish (Danio rerio) as part of the further implementation of Annex A to the European Convention on the protection of vertebrate animals used for experimental and...

Reinhardt, V. (ed.) 2020. It’s Okay to Cry - Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum [LAREF], Volume V. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

This is the 5th volume of selected discussions that took place on the electronic Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum between February 2016 and December 2019. The forum was created in October 2002; it allows...

Neff, E.P. 2020. Where the wild zebrafish are. Lab Animal 49(11), 305–309.

Journeying into the field to study a model organism in its natural habitats. “Seeing them in the wild and seeing what kind of substrates they are on has really helped inform that for us, and...

Shelton, D. S., Shelton, S. G., Daniel, D. K. et al. 2020. Collective behavior in wild zebrafish. Zebrafish 17(4), 243-252.

Anthropogenic change is expected to alter environments at alarming rates. To predict the impact of modified environments on social behavior, we must study the relationship between environmental features and collective behavior in a genetically tractable...

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...