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. 
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...

Ausderau, K. K., Colman, R. J., Kabakov, S. et al. 2023. Evaluating depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in non-human primates. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1006065.

Depression and anxiety are some of the most prevalent and debilitating mental health conditions in humans. They can present on their own or as co-morbidities with other disorders. Like humans, non-human primates (NHPs) can develop...

Howell-Stephens, J., Potratz, E. J., Brown, J. S. et al. 2023. Integrating measures of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites and giving-up densitites to assess adrenocortical activity and well-being in zoo-housed three-banded armadillos. Animals 13(12), 1975.

To monitor adrenocortical activity in zoo-housed species, we propose using physiological and behavioral indicators that are non-invasive and practical to implement. We explore this model in the southern three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus; armadillo), which is...

Neal Webb, S., Schapiro, S. 2023. Locomotion as a measure of well-being in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animals 13(5), 803.

Locomotion in non-human primates, including walking, climbing, and brachiating among other types of movement (but not pacing), is a species-typical behavior that varies with age, social housing conditions, and environmental factors (e.g., season, food availability...

Whitham, J. C., Hall, K., Lauderdale, L. K. et al. 2023. Integrating reference intervals into chimpanzee welfare research. Animals 13(4), 639.

Animal welfare researchers are committed to developing novel approaches to enhance the quality of life of chimpanzees living in professional care. To systematically monitor physical, mental, and emotional states, welfare scientists highlight the importance of...

Edes, A. N., Brown, J. L., Edwards, K. L. 2023. Evaluating individual biomarkers for predicting health risks in zoo-housed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). American Journal of Primatology 85(3), e23457.

Although biomarkers are often used for predicting morbidity and mortality in humans, similar data are lacking in our closest relatives. This study analyzed 16 biomarkers in zoo-housed chimpanzees and bonobos from serum samples collected during...

Beer, H. N., Karr, L. K., Shrader, T. C. et al. 2023. Allostatic load index effectively measures chronic stress status in zoo-housed giraffes. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(3), 623–636.

For giraffes, few standardized methods exist for quantifying chronic stress. Allostatic load index is quantified from a panel of multi-system stress biomarkers to estimate cumulative stress. Our objective was to determine whether a panel of...

Campbell-Ward, M. 2023. Quality-of-life assessments in zoo animals: Not just for the aged and charismatic. Animals 13(21), 3394

Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic...

Fultz, A., Lewis, R., Kelly, L. et al. 2023. Behavioral welfare research for the management of sanctuary chimpanzees (pan troglodytes). Animals 13(16), 2595.

Chimp Haven is a sanctuary for chimpanzees retired from biomedical research, rescued from the pet trade, or re-homed after other organizations could no longer care for them. To provide optimal care for over 300 chimpanzees...

Littlewood, K. E., Heslop, M. V., Cobb, M. L. 2023. The agency domain and behavioral interactions: Assessing positive animal welfare using the Five Domains Model. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.
Rose, P. 2023. Identifying essential elements of good giraffe welfare—Can we use knowledge of a species’ fundamental needs to develop welfare-focussed husbandry? Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(3), 549–566.

Measurement of zoo animal welfare states enables improvement to husbandry and management to be evidence-based and implemented according to species’ needs. Theoretical welfare concepts are often discussed, and whilst it is helpful to ensure wide...

Schütz, A. K., Krause, E. T., Fischer, M. et al. 2022. Computer vision for detection of body posture and behavior of red foxes. Animals 12(3), 233.

The behavior of animals is related to their health and welfare status. The latter plays a particular role in animal experiments, where continuous monitoring is essential for animal welfare. In this study, we focus on...

Hopper, L. M., Lake, B. R., Leinwand, J. G. et al. 2022. Assessing chimpanzees’ fluency of movement: Applications for monitoring health and welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 250, 105612.

With age, primates’ activity levels and ease of movement may decline and changes in locomotory behaviour may reflect changes in health. Thus, developing quick and reliable measures of movement has important applications for measuring recovery...

Knaebe, B., Weiss, C. C., Zimmermann, J. et al. 2022. The promise of behavioral tracking systems for advancing primate animal welfare. Animals 12(13), 1648.

Recent years have witnessed major advances in the ability of computerized systems to track the positions of animals as they move through large and unconstrained environments. These systems have so far been a great boon...

Paterson, E. A., Turner, P. V. 2022. Challenges with assessing and treating pain in research primates: A focused survey and literature review. Animals 12(17), 2304.

Research primates may undergo surgical procedures making effective pain management essential to ensure good animal welfare and unbiased scientific data. Adequate pain mitigation is dependent on whether veterinarians, technicians, researchers, and caregivers can recognize and...

Free, D., Justice, W. S. M., Smith, S. J. et al. 2022. An approach to assessing zoo animal welfare in a rarely studied species, the common cusimanse Crossarchus obscurus. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 3(3), 420–441.

Objective welfare assessments play a fundamental role in ensuring that positive welfare is achieved and maintained for animals in captivity. The Animal Welfare Assessment Grid (AWAG), a welfare assessment tool, has been validated for use...

Menchetti, L., Zappaterra, M., Costa, L. N. et al. 2021. Application of a protocol to assess camel welfare: Scoring system of collected measures, aggregated assessment indices, and criteria to classify a pen. Animals 11(2), 494.

This study aimed to apply a protocol for assessing camel welfare, to develop a scoring system for the welfare measures, to produce overall assessment indices, and to classify the animal units (i.e., pens) according to...

Padalino, B., Menchetti, L. 2021. The first protocol for assessing welfare of camels. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 631876.

The aim of this study was to develop and describe a protocol for assessing welfare in camels reared in intensive or semi-intensive systems. A literature review was conducted searching for scientific papers on assessment of...

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...

Clavadetscher, I., Bond, M., Martin, L. et al. 2021. Development of an image-based body condition score for giraffes Giraffa camelopardalis and a comparison of zoo-housed and free-ranging individuals. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research, 9(3), 170-185.

Historically, giraffes (Giraffa spp.) in zoos are known to have a high prevalence of deaths associated with serous fat atrophy, which has been linked to the impression that as browsers, they are more difficult to...

Yatkin, E., Kulmala, N., Saukkonen, A. et al. 2021. A real-time health notification system aimed at enhancing the interaction between animal care staff and researchers promotes animal welfare. Laboratory Animals 55(3), 281-289.

Regardless of the microbiological status of an animal facility, research animals may experience health problems, leading to pain, suffering and distress. Simple and efficient tools are needed to collect data systematically, allowing researchers to react...

Hall, K., Bryant, J., Staley, M. et al. 2021. Behavioural diversity as a potential welfare indicator for professionally managed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Exploring variations in calculating diversity using species-specific behaviours. Animal Welfare 30(4), 381-392.

Behavioural diversity may serve as a positive indicator of animal welfare that can be applied in long-term monitoring schemes in managed settings (eg zoos, laboratories, farms). Behavioural diversity is often higher when animals live in...

Travain, T., Valsecchi, P. 2021. Infrared thermography in the study of animals’ emotional responses: A critical review. Animals 11(9), 2510.

Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the...

Diana, A., Salas, M., Pereboom, Z. et al. 2021. A systematic review of the use of technology to monitor welfare in zoo animals: Is there space for improvement? Animals 11(11), 3048.

A top priority of modern zoos is to ensure good animal welfare (AW), thus, efforts towards improving AW monitoring are increasing. Welfare assessments are performed through more traditional approaches by employing direct observations and time-consuming...

Ross, S. R., Lake, B. R., Fultz, A. et al. 2021. An evaluation of thermal imaging as a welfare monitoring tool for captive chimpanzees. Primates 62(6), 919-927.

Among the growing list of novel tools with which to assess animal welfare is the use of thermal (infrared) imaging. The technology has already been utilized to identify emotional arousal in several nonhuman primate species...