Flueck-Giraud Mathilde, Schmidt-Posthaus Heike, Bergadano Alessandra, Adrian-Kalchhauser Irene
Institute for Fish and Wildlife Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Experimental Animal Centre, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Lab Anim. 2025 Apr;59(2):226-241. doi: 10.1177/00236772241271013. Epub 2024 Dec 12.
Fish are increasingly used as experimental animals across research fields. Currently, around a quarter of all experimental animals used are fish. Less than 20% of these are standard model species. Welfare assessments for experimental fish are in their infancy compared with those for rodents. This can be attributed to the diversity of species used, the relative recency of fish as the go-to model for research, and challenges to assess welfare in non-vocal underwater species. The lack of guidelines and tools presents a challenge for researchers (particularly, for newcomers), for ethics committees and for implementing refinement measures. Here, we present an adaptable, user-friendly score sheet for fish based on MS Excel. The parameters are based on a literature review, have been validated by expert interviews and evaluated by a fish pathologist. The tool allows scoring of individual fish as well as groups, calculates summary scores and visualizes trends. We provide the underlying literature, give use examples and provide instructions on the adaptation and use of the score sheet. We hope that this tool will empower researchers to include welfare assessment in their routines, foster discussions on fish welfare parameters among scientists, facilitate interactions with ethics committees and, most importantly, enable the refinement of fish experiments.
鱼类在各个研究领域越来越多地被用作实验动物。目前，所有使用的实验动物中约有四分之一是鱼类。其中不到20%是标准模式物种。与啮齿动物相比，实验鱼类的福利评估尚处于起步阶段。这可归因于所使用物种的多样性、鱼类作为首选研究模式相对较新，以及评估非发声水下物种福利的挑战。缺乏指导方针和工具给研究人员（尤其是新手）、伦理委员会以及实施优化措施带来了挑战。在此，我们基于MS Excel为鱼类提供了一种适应性强、用户友好的评分表。这些参数基于文献综述，已经通过专家访谈进行了验证，并由鱼类病理学家进行了评估。该工具允许对单个鱼类以及群体进行评分，计算总分并直观显示趋势。我们提供了相关文献、使用示例，并提供了评分表的改编和使用说明。我们希望这个工具能使研究人员在日常工作中纳入福利评估，促进科学家之间关于鱼类福利参数的讨论，便于与伦理委员会互动，最重要的是，实现鱼类实验的优化。
