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Münster (upm/ch).
A mouse lemur<address>© Melanie Dammhahn</address>
A mouse lemur living in Madagascar carries a transmitter that enables researchers to collect information about the animal's movement behaviour via telemetry.
© Melanie Dammhahn

“The debate on animal testing is anything but nuanced”

Behavioural biologists talk about long drawn-out approval procedures and the public perception of animal research

In a current publication, Professors Helene Richter and Melanie Dammhahn from the University of Münster – along with their colleagues Sylvia Kaiser (University of Münster) and Barbara Caspers (University of Bielefeld) – call for a more nuanced view to be taken of animal research. In this interview with Christina Hoppenbrock, animal welfare specialist Prof. Helene Richter and behavioural ecologist Prof. Melanie Dammhahn outline the problems which researchers face, explain why experiments on animals are necessary, and describe what a more nuanced assessment of research with and on animals could look like.

 

Prof. Helene Richter is Professor of Behavioural Biology and Animal Welfare at the Institute of Neuro- and Behavioural Biology at the University of Münster. The focuses of her research include improving approaches to animal experiments and to conditions in which animals are kept, as well as welfare diagnostics in animals used for testing.<address>© private</address>
Prof. Helene Richter is Professor of Behavioural Biology and Animal Welfare at the Institute of Neuro- and Behavioural Biology at the University of Münster. The focuses of her research include improving approaches to animal experiments and to conditions in which animals are kept, as well as welfare diagnostics in animals used for testing.
© private
In your article you write that it is becoming increasingly difficult to conduct research on living animals. What does that mean?

Helene Richter: The legal requirements are becoming stricter, which means that it is becoming more difficult for us to keep animals – to be precise, vertebrates – and carry out experiments with or on them. We are experiencing more resistance from the authorities, and the number of queries from them is on the rise. Approval procedures are lasting longer. The Animal Welfare Act provides leeway for interpretation, and this leeway is increasingly becoming narrower. Nowadays, for little things that we want to do differently, we even have to submit an application for a corresponding amendment to be authorised – for example, if we want to use different toys or habitat accessories for our mice.

You call for a nuanced view of animal testing …

Richter: Right. The public and political debate on animal testing is anything but nuanced. The term ‘animal testing’ is associated with biomedical research and with animal experiments for the benefit of humans. But there are also other animal experiments which are carried out for other purposes. When I give my lecture on bioethics and I ask the students what they associate with animal testing, I never hear anyone describe an animal experiment in the sense of behavioural biology – although a major proportion of the animals held for testing are used in behavioural biology and animal welfare research. Our knowledge about animals’ emotional experiences and their cognitive abilities is based on animal experiments in the field of behavioural biology. Without this knowledge we wouldn’t be able to think about animal welfare.

Melanie Dammhahn: This is also true for research in the field of behavioural ecology. Without this, for example, nothing would be known about which routes migratory birds choose, or how animals react to climate change. This research, too, is related to animal experiments – for example, by equipping the animals with transmitters or data loggers. The research results are the foundation for any evidence-based protection of species and nature.

In behavioural biology, why are animal experiments actually conducted in laboratories? Animals can be observed in the wild, or not?

Dammhahn: The good thing about laboratory experiments is that we can create maximum controlled conditions and look at individual parameters in detail and vary them. This means that laboratory experiments are always very important as far as causal relationships are concerned. Outdoor experiments, on the other hand, always have a much greater ecological importance because we can quantify the consequences of animals’ fitness regarding the effects on their survival and reproductive success when they are in their natural surroundings. In behavioural research we therefore combine experiments in the lab and outdoors.

Prof. Melanie Dammhahn is likewise Professor of Behavioural Biology at the Institute of Neuro- and Behavioural Biology. The focus of her research is in the area of behavioural ecology. Among other things, she is examining the influence of human-driven environmental changes on various small mammals.<address>© Michael Bernkopf - Vetmeduni</address>
Prof. Melanie Dammhahn is likewise Professor of Behavioural Biology at the Institute of Neuro- and Behavioural Biology. The focus of her research is in the area of behavioural ecology. Among other things, she is examining the influence of human-driven environmental changes on various small mammals.
© Michael Bernkopf - Vetmeduni
When do we talk about animal testing in connection with outdoor experiments?

Dammhahn: My team is doing research on small mammals, for example fieldmice, which we catch in live traps. The animal experiment begins the moment someone takes the animal out of the trap. It might be to determine its body weight or to take a hair sample or to insert a microchip under its skin, as is done with cats or dogs.

Richter: If you provide your cat with a chip, that is not animal testing. However, the same procedure in a scientific context is defined as animal testing. The German Animal Welfare Act defines animal experiments as an intervention or treatment for experimental purposes which might result in pain, suffering or harm for the animal. This offers a certain leeway in interpreting the law, and the word ‘might’ used to be interpreted differently from today. The view today is: if it cannot be ruled out that an animal has a moment of fear in a behavioural test, then it is an animal experiment. In my opinion, the question should be whether such a moment of fear impairs the animal’s well-being so much that it becomes an animal welfare issue.

Coming back to the public debate, what bothers you about it?

Richter: What really bothers me is the ‘replacement debate’, which calls for substitutes for animal experiments. It’s an unthinking, all-or-nothing discussion because there are many animal experiments for which there is no substitute, for legal reasons alone. Substitution precisely in behavioural biology is unthinkable because the whole discipline depends on working with animals.

Dammhahn: The general demand to reduce the number of animals used as far as possible is problematic. We experience the consequences: we have to carry out studies with quantities of random samples that are smaller than what we consider proper on the basis of our statistical expertise. Nowadays, the consequence of this is that any meaningful scientific statement loses some of its force.

How could the situation be improved?

Dammhahn: We would like to see differentiation in approval procedures, with ethical considerations looking more closely at whether experiments really do cause suffering, harm or pain. Our aim is not to change any laws, but to avoid such protracted procedures.

Richter: And that should happen independently of the discipline involved. In biomedicine or veterinary medicine, too, testing involving low stress levels should be evaluated differently from any testing which is much more stressful for the animal.

Dammhahn: Also, the approval procedures could be shortened if everyone involved sat down together to clarify any questions directly. Unfortunately, this is not currently provided for in the case of applications relating to animal testing; instead, there are long drawn-out exchanges of correspondence.

And what about the general public?

Richter: It’s up to us to underline why our research is important. Speaking on behalf of behavioural biology, we have to make the significance of these experiments clear and, at the same time, show quite transparently what happens to the animals. What kind of stress is involved? What comparable examples of stress are there in pets? Doing this would make the topic more tangible.

This article is from the University newspaper wissen|leben No. 1, 29 January 2025.

 

 

Animal experiments at the University of Münster:

Animal experiments are carried out at the University of Münster – on mice, rats, guinea pigs and zebra fish, among others. In line with its “Guidelines for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Research and Teaching”, which were drawn up by the Coordination Committee for Animal Testing in Research, the University promotes fact-based discussion and transparent information for the public on the use of animals in scientific research and teaching. The Coordination Committee for Animal Testing in Research was set up by the Rectorate of Münster University in 2013. The Committee includes scientists and researchers from the fields of the Natural Sciences, Medicine and Ethics, as well as animal welfare officers and students’ representatives.

 

Literature:

S. Helene Richter, Barbara A. Caspers, Melanie Dammhahn, Sylvia Kaiser (2024): Animal research revisited – the case of behavioural studies. TREE; DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2024.11.014. The publication was produced as part of the Transregio Collaborative Research Centre “Niche Choice, Niche Conformance, Niche Construction (NC3)”

Further information