Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada.
PLoS Biol. 2019 Apr 11;17(4):e3000193. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000193. eCollection 2019 Apr.
Despite abundant focus on responsible care of laboratory animals, we argue that inattention to the maltreatment of wildlife constitutes an ethical blind spot in contemporary animal research. We begin by reviewing significant shortcomings in legal and institutional oversight, arguing for the relatively rapid and transformational potential of editorial oversight at journals in preventing harm to vertebrates studied in the field and outside the direct supervision of institutions. Straightforward changes to animal care policies in journals, which our analysis of 206 journals suggests are either absent (34%), weak, incoherent, or neglected by researchers, could provide a practical, effective, and rapidly imposed safeguard against unnecessary suffering. The Animals in Research: Reporting On Wildlife (ARROW) guidelines we propose here, coupled with strong enforcement, could result in significant changes to how animals involved in wildlife research are treated. The research process would also benefit. Sound science requires animal subjects to be physically, physiologically, and behaviorally unharmed. Accordingly, publication of methods that contravenes animal welfare principles risks perpetuating inhumane approaches and bad science.
尽管人们非常关注实验室动物的负责任护理，但我们认为，对野生动物虐待的忽视是当代动物研究中的一个道德盲点。我们首先回顾了法律和制度监督方面的重大缺陷，认为期刊编辑监督在防止野外研究和机构直接监督之外的脊椎动物受到伤害方面具有相对快速和变革性的潜力。我们对 206 种期刊进行了分析，发现期刊中的动物护理政策要么不存在（34%），要么薄弱、不连贯或被研究人员忽视，如果对这些政策进行简单的修改，可能会为防止不必要的痛苦提供一种切实、有效且能迅速实施的保障。我们在这里提出的动物研究：野生动物报告（ARROW）准则，如果得到强有力的执行，可能会导致对涉及野生动物研究的动物的处理方式发生重大变化。研究过程也将受益。健全的科学要求动物实验对象在身体、生理和行为上不受伤害。因此，发布违反动物福利原则的方法可能会使不人道的方法和不良科学永久存在。
