CephsInAction-meets-EC

Following the publication of the ‘Guidelines for the Care and Welfare of Cephalopods in Research’ (Laboratory Animals 2015, 49: 1-90), 

the COST Action FA1301 activated an internal review of the currently available information to develop, through a consensus approach, a better description of the species-specific requirements for the care and accommodation of animals.

A series of meetings (Berlin, January 2016; Brussels, June 2016; Edinburgh, September 2016) provided a for a for in-depth discussion and allowed COST FA1301 members to compare the most accurate published works and the available knowledge, best-practice and related information in order to provide a technical summary aimed to better refine the information included in the ‘Guidelines’ to achieve a species-specific detail, at least for those mostly utilized.

The current edition of the Directive 2010/63/EU does not include any specific recommendation for minimal requirements in Annex III (Care and Accommodation) and Annex IV (Humane killing) for cephalopods. This text is available for other ‘laboratory animal’ species, but has never been proposed and included for cephalopods.

The COST Action FA1301 collected the challenge to propose to the European Commission, and to Member States, an accompanying text and a table aimed to serve as species-specific guidance and represent the mandate minima, i.e. the minimum that should be warrant for caring individuals belonging to the given species for the purposes of scientific research.

The mandate minima are the basic requirements that each country should uniform and refer to for any establishment where animals are utilized for scientific research.

It warrants standardization and uniformity among EU countries and different laboratories.

We understand that this also represent a legal binding, but are conscious that it will provide enormous advantages.

After further discussion the meeting in Galway ‘CephsInAction: what next? (NUI Galway, Ireland, September 2017) served to reach consensus on the content of these tables and to define a mandate minima.

This meeting (Brussels, 18 September 2017) is a face-to-face meeting with two representatives of the EU Commission for the implementation of Directive in EU countries.

The outcome of this meeting will result in the official submission of CephsInAction recommendations for recommendation for minimal requirements in Annex III (Care and Accommodation) and Annex IV (Humane killing) for cephalopods.

This is a very significant achievement of our scientific community. The content represents the information provided by our colleagues over the last years. The plan is also to publish this table as appendix in a separate short paper in Laboratory Animals, where the Guidelines have been already published. In addition, we aim to publish of Frontiers a short perspective on the impact of Directive on cephalopod research.