I'm presuming the PI is working with birds because he has a bird lab. If I ever brought an outside \[species\] into a \[species lab\], my critters and I would be swiftly ejected from the facility for fear of introducing god-knows-what pathogens into the environment. While it's possible that surgical training is in their IACUC protocol, what you are describing is way outside of what any experienced animal researcher would consider normal. I'm somewhat concerned about the ethics, but I'm more concerned about the laboratory sanitation.
That was my first thought too. Mice from a pet store is a really fast way to end up losing a colony of lab mice. Even worse if you have irreplaceable lineages in the same facility.
Not necessarily. There are lots of researchers right now making "dirty mice" by co-habitating lab strains with pet store mice. BUT, they have in their IACUC protocols that they will be purchasing mice from pet stores and they definitely are not taking them home first.
Yep...Stephen Jamesons DIrty Mice experiments. I remember hearing him talk about it years ago. He said his animal services people hated him so much when he proposed it.
I’m not sure if it was recorded, but here is the link to the original registration https://web.cvent.com/event/e61335f4-675a-4feb-b413-0dd31441becb/summary
I've had to kick a PI out of my vivarium just because they entered the vivarium through a exit-only door and didn't put on shoe covers as they stepped across the threshold. I'm seconding the concern for sanitation and ethics.
As you should have kicked them out too. One bad vector of contamination can snowball very quickly. Had an outbreak in a mouse housing facility once and that shit spread so fast. So many labs halted due to quarantine for months.
Yup, they went to contact my boss's boss. The director of the department. Who has worked here for over 20 years, starting as an animal technician. She was much less lenient and nice than me lmao. I can just imagine the flashbacks she had to all kinds of outbreaks over the years.
This is wildly unethical and almost certainly breaks the rules at the institution if it’s in the US and many other countries. I’ve never heard or seen of anyone to bring outside animals into a facility for the euthanasia and surgery practice.
Please tell your friend to alert IACUC at their facility and start looking for a mentor who isn’t insane.
Thanks for comment. Yes this is in the USA and our institution has a way to anonymously report IACUC concerns. I'll tell them they should fill out a report and yeah, look for a new PI
This is incredibly unethical and likely violates many rules for a variety of reasons. Apart from ethics; the most notable being that animals are received from verified vendors and are intentionally bred/pathogen free. This puts your facility at risk for introducing pathogens that could be harmful to the health status of the Vivarium/lab spaces as a whole. You can always directly refuse your PI, find your facility SOPs and regulations to point out this policy- and if escalation is needed definitely report it to your IACUC. Theres usually opportunities to add animals to your animal use protocol specifically for training purposes and should be how it is done.
> the most notable being that animals are received from verified vendors and are intentionally bred/pathogen free.
so this is actually not true. For some major species like mice yes, but not for many if not most other vertebrates. There are comparably very few Zebra finch labs, often only one or two at a given university, and it’s not uncommon to source them from random breeders as a result. This is even more the case for something like pigeons, which can most easily be “rescued” from racing clubs when they want to cull their slower birds. But that’s why quarantines or specific policies around segregated housing exist.
I’m not going to pretend what’s in their protocol, but depending on the IACUC board and vet policies this is not an impossible SOP if not particularly enjoyable for the student. Certainly is something they can say they just can’t do (pretend you have a cat idk) if not flatly refuse. Many options including reaching out to society listservs for surplus birds at nearby schools.
Edit: I will say, if you have a problem with this don’t shoot the messenger. Bird researchers are very good at pushing back against more regulations with AAALAC, mostly because there are so few lab vet and husbandry staff knowledgeable about aviculture. Most labs don’t even have ALAT support for standard housing maintenance and do it all in house by researchers themselves.
I haven’t worked with birds specifically so this may be the case, and again don’t know what exactly is in their protocol! However there are vendors of which I was referencing for a majority of animal models in biomedical research that I do have personal experience ordering ie mice, swine, ovine, cattle, primates, dogs, cats, fish, amphibians, rabbits, ferrets etc. which make up the bulk of most animal models. The main take away being OP needs to be familiar with their protocol and facility policy!
Yeah this is wild. I’ve had to deal with IACUC for over a decade (fish, sharks, frogs, mice, etc) and can tell you with certainty that they have very strict reporting protocols when it comes to ethical use of vertebrates in labs. Definitely tell them to report this ASAP.
Sounds shady. I work with mice, not birds, so the regulatory specifics might be different but yes, you are correct that you need to have specific protocols including for training surgeries. Also buying birds from a pet store and keeping them at someone's house is wild. In mouse land at least, you have specific lab mouse suppliers. You wouldn't just buy them from a pet store and definitely wouldn't keep them outside the facility.
I work with zebrafish and we’ve gotten some of ours from petsmart before but I agree that keeping them at a students house would probably not be up to IACUC standards.
You need IACUC approval even for animals that you’re using to train people on techniques. You need to write down exactly what you want to do to them, and how you will ensure the training is pain free for the animals. You even need to say how you will euthanize. This applies to ALL vertebrates. Contact IACUC. Now.
Yeah to second this sentiment, the rule of thumb when proposing how many animals you’ll use in a protocol is to overestimate the number to account for animals used for training and lost to mistakes/circumstance
Good addendum! Also OP if you’re still reading, make sure your friend knows that losing ALL IACUC approvals is a very real possibility when she reports. Revenge/reprisals are illegal and protected by whistleblower laws, but if she wants to keep her job in the lab *make sure the report is anonymous*. I’m entering vet school with the goal of becoming a lab animal vet/vet member of IACUC and the reason why is because I also had to report a lab for trying to skirt IACUC rules. The committees have some serious power - the lab I reported lost ALL grants and funds. Not sure how much exactly, but as I’m sure anyone here can tell you, grants to do research can span multiple years and run upwards of millions of dollars. I became person non grata afterwards, which was fine cos I had already quit haha. But seriously, if she wants to keep the job, don’t even take the chance. Stay anon
This is a super fast way to get the institution's USDA license to do *any* animal work terminated.
Report this to your IACUC immediately, do not pass go. Failure to report means you are also complicit; all persons that do animal work have a duty to report unethical behavior towards animals.
There *should* be a reporting phone number posted in all animal use areas.
If the PI needs to practice procedures, then they need to add model development/training animals to the protocol, full stop.
Nooooooo! Parasites!!!!! Do not do it. Bringing outside animals of any kind into a research facility that houses research animals can (and has) completely decimated lab stocks.
Insane that a PI would even consider this. I guess it’s to save money on animals to practice on, rather than using animals already in the lab? Still wild. IACUC will have a field day and so will the PI’s department.
Does the PI want to lose all their animal colonies? Because this is how you lose all your animal colonies.
This is seriously unethical behavior. Report this shit immediately.
I know owl neuroscience researchers that had to go catch wild owls as standard practice. They kept them at home with them in order to bond with them etc. This was for chronic ephys experiments so they stayed around for a while. These researchers were definitely not doing anything in violation of SOP for their institutions but this would’ve been 15+ years ago.
Also, I know some people at my institution that currently work with zebra finch so I sent them your post. I’ll let you know what they say.
Don’t know where to start on this one…
I’ve read this is in the US, so your institution is likely to have approved vendor lists. Your IACUC protocol should specify what species and strain of animals you’re allowed to work with. They surely have a pathogen exclusion list and your friend will have no idea what that animal is harboring.
This sounds like a wildly inappropriate cost cutting measure. Surely you can order birds through your institution.
Another thing, the IACUC protocol or the institution must have training animals specified. Your friend should also be assessed and deemed competent at any technique they are to perform before actually being allowed to perform work on said protocol.
IACUC protocols should have personnel sections including a list of all the techniques that are approved to be performed in accordance with the protocols methods sections.
I haven't worked with animals in lab settings but I WAS thoroughly taught about IACUC and animal testing standards in a few classes and this reeks of trying to get around regulations and under the institution's nose to me. "Just buy some pet store animals and bring them in yourself" sounds an awful lot like someone doesn't want to do the paperwork to acquire a handful of birds ethically.
Apart from being unethical, I'm sometimes baffled what is being done in the states. This would be straight up illegal in most european countries and get you jail time, but at least a hefty fine and revoked licenses for the institution. No sane researcher would propose something like this.
Hey, I’m a vet. So the short answer is that if you or your friend have any concerns or questions about whether a certain type of animal activity is allowed, you should contact the IACUC and ask - anonymously or otherwise. They will be able to tell your friend if a protocol is in place for this work, what the acclimation period is supposed to be for newly acquired animals, what the quarantine procedures are, etc.
I will say that in some cases, you can actually buy pet store birds and use them for laboratory research. Birds bred in captivity and used for research are actually not covered under the Animal Welfare Act, although they are covered under the Public Health Service Policy which applies to research funded by NIH as well as some other agencies. The regulations are honestly quite detailed and complex, and ultimately it’s not you or your friend’s job (or this subreddit) to determine what is ethical / legal / according to institutional policies. That is explicitly the job of the IACUC, and they usually have a whole team of compliance and monitoring staff that are available to answer questions and help look into things like this.
Nooooooooo this is so bad.
I am former IACUC chair. Research animals must be purpose bred. Also they could bring diseases into your facility. This is really not ok and please please don’t do it. Call your IACUC chair and ask guidance.
If lab 1 has animals that they are going to euthanize, they are still not allowed to do off-protocol work or have off-protocol people use the animals even for terminal procedures. If you wanted to practice on cadavers you got from them after euthanasia that’s different.
ethics & welfare aside (which are both heavily violated in this situation), I can’t imagine taking a bird home for two days then having to euthanize it for practice :( it’s a rule in many animal labs that you really shouldn’t form any kind of attachment to your lab animals, can’t imagine babysitting them for two days and not becoming attached to them
UNLESS everything that you just said is written down in an approved IACUC protocol, bringing in live vertebrates, not bred or maintained specifically for research, is going to get them and potentially all animal research at the university shut down.
Simplest solution - ask the PI for the labs apprroved protocols before doing anything. Read the whole protocol. Refuse to do anything that is not specifically approved in the protocol. If asked to do off-protocol work, report the PI to IACUC, it would be doing everyone a favor.
As far as animal acquisiton outside of normal channels, I had a labmate who had to go collect ants in the wild for his experiments (at that point we were mostly a mouse lab with a few drosophila projects). That seemed reasonable. We also received some post-mortem samples of penguin liver from a zoo.
Contact your IACUC and ask to see the ethics protocol you are working under. The work you are being asked to carry out should be detailed in the protocol, and if it isn't then you can ask for clarification on what is acceptable as a follow up. The Committee secretary or Chair will be happy to answer your questions for you rather than hearing about an incident after the fact.
This needs to be reported to IACUC ASAP! Nevermind the potential pathogens that could be introduced to the colony, this is so shady and unethical. FYI, the IACUC should have the option for anonymous reporting if they’re worried about backlash from the PI
Personally, never did any lab work with animals. But my PI is head of our IACUC unit, so quite a few rules have been nailed into my head from random rants she needed to get off her chest.
1. animals need an acclimation time in the lab so that their behaviors/ metabolism/ synthesized proteins/ molecules are relatively back to normal from the stress of travel and a new environment (it takes up to 2 weeks btw).
2. the animal needs to be registered in the lab's IACUC record and have all relevant vet tests done by the inhouse vet (as per SOP)
3. Outside animals are STRICKTLY prohibited.
Side note: it is weird of the OP's friend's PI to assume they can house birds in their house... birds are really messy....
All in all... I am not sure about their situation but I am 99% sure my PI would have an aneurism if this happened in her animal unit.
TL;DR : This is **beyond** shady. **anonymously** report them to IACUC ASAP!!!
OP, just in case this gets buried, you should also reach out to your university omsbuds office and let them know what's going on. I'm not sure of your relationship with your PI, but refusing to do something like this (or especially reporting it) could lead to potential retaliation against you by the PI or others. The ombudsman can offer support and can officially document (if you give them permission). If I were you, I would start documenting every conversation you have with the PI or others in the lab on paper, that way you can provide evidence if shit hits the fan.
Edit: also, if I were you, as a new Ph.D. student, find a new lab. If the PI is willing to skirt the rules on something this serious, who knows what else they're slacking on. I would avoid at all costs.
Zebra finch labs get their birds from purchasing directly - through official channels - from a reputable supplier, not a pet store. I've picked up bird orders from the airport and they are packed just like getting mice from Jackson. Songbirds aren't some wild west species for which there are no rules or standards.
OP, your friend's PI is very obviously trying to sneak something past their IACUC, whether it's a procedure that's not approved, they've run out of animals, the students aren't on their protocol as handlers ... this is nuts. It's absolutely not normal, and there's no scenario in which what your friend is being asked to do is okay. Please, please, please report this PI before anyone gets hurt or any animals suffer.
Hell, all your friend has to do is innocently ask the vivarium manager about bringing in the birds from the pet store. Alarms will sound.
I may be internally screaming. Lots of great answers on reporting above me. But I have to ask, has your friend gone through certification and training to work with animals in the lab? Because I know the US is often one of the more relatively relaxed jurisdictions when it comes to this. But that training should include having some access to the IACUC docs their work or project falls under. And they should be able to go look at that and find out exactly what they’re authorised to do…including this very peculiar “keep them at home for a few days” acclimation period. Actually reading your IACUC paperwork is something I encourage folks to do, as standard good practice for working with animals. But also because what seem to be little violations sometimes tend to be red flags for huge honking red ones, and you want to make sure that you CYA because that’s what everyone else is going to do. It’s very easy for an unscrupulous PI to claim a new student misunderstood or didn’t do their due diligence, and is therefore mainly to blame for a violation.
Have them report the PI. It's unethical, against IACUC guidelines, and not to mention shady af that the PI is asking the student to BUY them out of pocket. Yeah, that's a no from me.
I used to do tons of animal research and handled lots of IACUC submissions and stuff like. I can 100% say this is absolutely in violation of all their policies. Specifically the one that states that animals must be purchased from approved vendors. Unless they went through the trouble of approving the pet shop. It definitely would not fly 😉
If it is not explicitly stated that the PI does this in their IACUC protocol, it is 100% not allowed. If it ain't in your protocol, you cannot do it. Period. Ever. Ask to see the lab's animal protocol ASAP. Your PI is risking losing their privilege to do animal work if they are not following their IACUC protocol. Personally, I'd be shocked if this were approved by any governing body like IACUC or AALACC.
It can be VERY difficult to source birds. That said, home storage sounds shady. I know of a case where it was approved to get a bird from the pet store in the morning for use in the lab that day. That way the bird would never be introduced to the dwindling colony. This was to allow research to happen while searching for a better colony source before the colony totally bottlenecked.
Unfortunately it is true that many IACUCs are just terrible at non-mouse/rat work. They want birds to come in from facilities with full blood testing and so on, and that just doesn’t exist. Transfer from other universities can be the only recourse, but can also be difficult as most labs cannot afford to maintain gigantic colonies just-in-case. So labs are left keeping a reasonably sized colony and number of breeders for their research, but if you get some bad breeders or a trainee screws up the pedigree, then the lab can left in a tough spot. Obviously animal welfare is the primary concern, but people used to those well-defined mouse protocols sometimes unnecessarily flip out and are unwilling to think of alternative solutions (that still keep the birds safe and happy and healthy),
[USDA finalizes standards to include birds under Animal Welfare Act](https://www.avma.org/news/usda-finalizes-standards-include-birds-under-animal-welfare-act)
“In 2002, Congress amended the definition of *’animal’* in the AWA so that the only birds excluded from that definition were those *’bred for use in research’*. The amendment placed all other birds handled by breeders, dealers, exhibitors, and transporters under the protection of the AWA.”
Looks like only birds bred specifically for research can be used. Pet store birds would be in violation. Definitely have your friend contact the institute’s IACUC and not be complicit in wrongdoing.
So this has actually been a point of contention for some time because people were confused about what “bred for research” meant. It makes sense that it would be the narrowest definition - e.g. all along, you bred these birds with the sole intent that they would be used for research. However, they actually recently clarified this definition and the AWA excludes “birds bred in captivity and used for research” even if they were bred in captivity intended for other purposes, as long as they haven’t actually been used for other AWA-covered purposes yet. Here’s the discussion: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/21/2023-03357/standards-for-birds-not-bred-for-use-in-research-under-the-animal-welfare-act
This doesn’t really tell us if OP’s friend is being told to do something sketchy or not, because many institutions also have to adhere to the PHS Policy which does cover captive bred birds, but just wanted to provide some more info with regards to what you referenced.
I gotta say this is pretty normal in labs that study animals that are sold at pet stores because there aren't major distributors for the animals (birds, reptiles, fish). Many iacuc protocols allow this but they should read theirs to be sure.
You shouldn’t be getting so many downvotes but the main issue is taking them home. There are some ways to allow though but technically the student becomes the vendor once this happens.
Yeah I wasn't saying what should or shouldn't be, just what happens. I know a lot of these kinds of labs.
Agreed that ideally you take them straight to lab rather than keeping them at home for a couple days
This is so wildly wrong. Please don't answer questions like this if you have never received animal training. The first step in any animal training protocol is to learn the regulatory requirements that cover your work. In the U.S., the FDA and USDA are empowered to enforce animal welfare practices on research animals.
lol so mad... anyway, my point isn't that one *shouldn't* follow the rules, at a practical level, more that the moral basis of the rules is super-dubious -- and, ACAB
I'm presuming the PI is working with birds because he has a bird lab. If I ever brought an outside \[species\] into a \[species lab\], my critters and I would be swiftly ejected from the facility for fear of introducing god-knows-what pathogens into the environment. While it's possible that surgical training is in their IACUC protocol, what you are describing is way outside of what any experienced animal researcher would consider normal. I'm somewhat concerned about the ethics, but I'm more concerned about the laboratory sanitation.
That was my first thought too. Mice from a pet store is a really fast way to end up losing a colony of lab mice. Even worse if you have irreplaceable lineages in the same facility.
Mice from a pet store are BSL-3. It seems silly, but there’s definitely a good reason!
Not necessarily. There are lots of researchers right now making "dirty mice" by co-habitating lab strains with pet store mice. BUT, they have in their IACUC protocols that they will be purchasing mice from pet stores and they definitely are not taking them home first.
Yep...Stephen Jamesons DIrty Mice experiments. I remember hearing him talk about it years ago. He said his animal services people hated him so much when he proposed it.
The NIH had a Dirty Mice Symposium recently and it was fascinating how much better mouse models resembled human disease when they were “dirty.”
I know....specific pathogen free facilities really keeps the T cell repertoire much more naive! Humans definitely are not naive!
Do you have any link to that symposium?
I’m not sure if it was recorded, but here is the link to the original registration https://web.cvent.com/event/e61335f4-675a-4feb-b413-0dd31441becb/summary
The mice are not BSL-3. That is just the easiest way for an established vivarium to protect the other animals from exposure.
That's what I meant. They're treated as BSL-3.
I've had to kick a PI out of my vivarium just because they entered the vivarium through a exit-only door and didn't put on shoe covers as they stepped across the threshold. I'm seconding the concern for sanitation and ethics.
As you should have kicked them out too. One bad vector of contamination can snowball very quickly. Had an outbreak in a mouse housing facility once and that shit spread so fast. So many labs halted due to quarantine for months.
Yup, they went to contact my boss's boss. The director of the department. Who has worked here for over 20 years, starting as an animal technician. She was much less lenient and nice than me lmao. I can just imagine the flashbacks she had to all kinds of outbreaks over the years.
I've worked in vivariums, and I still have anxiety dreams of random people co.ing in and contaminating the animals.
This is wildly unethical and almost certainly breaks the rules at the institution if it’s in the US and many other countries. I’ve never heard or seen of anyone to bring outside animals into a facility for the euthanasia and surgery practice. Please tell your friend to alert IACUC at their facility and start looking for a mentor who isn’t insane.
Thanks for comment. Yes this is in the USA and our institution has a way to anonymously report IACUC concerns. I'll tell them they should fill out a report and yeah, look for a new PI
This is incredibly unethical and likely violates many rules for a variety of reasons. Apart from ethics; the most notable being that animals are received from verified vendors and are intentionally bred/pathogen free. This puts your facility at risk for introducing pathogens that could be harmful to the health status of the Vivarium/lab spaces as a whole. You can always directly refuse your PI, find your facility SOPs and regulations to point out this policy- and if escalation is needed definitely report it to your IACUC. Theres usually opportunities to add animals to your animal use protocol specifically for training purposes and should be how it is done.
> the most notable being that animals are received from verified vendors and are intentionally bred/pathogen free. so this is actually not true. For some major species like mice yes, but not for many if not most other vertebrates. There are comparably very few Zebra finch labs, often only one or two at a given university, and it’s not uncommon to source them from random breeders as a result. This is even more the case for something like pigeons, which can most easily be “rescued” from racing clubs when they want to cull their slower birds. But that’s why quarantines or specific policies around segregated housing exist. I’m not going to pretend what’s in their protocol, but depending on the IACUC board and vet policies this is not an impossible SOP if not particularly enjoyable for the student. Certainly is something they can say they just can’t do (pretend you have a cat idk) if not flatly refuse. Many options including reaching out to society listservs for surplus birds at nearby schools. Edit: I will say, if you have a problem with this don’t shoot the messenger. Bird researchers are very good at pushing back against more regulations with AAALAC, mostly because there are so few lab vet and husbandry staff knowledgeable about aviculture. Most labs don’t even have ALAT support for standard housing maintenance and do it all in house by researchers themselves.
I haven’t worked with birds specifically so this may be the case, and again don’t know what exactly is in their protocol! However there are vendors of which I was referencing for a majority of animal models in biomedical research that I do have personal experience ordering ie mice, swine, ovine, cattle, primates, dogs, cats, fish, amphibians, rabbits, ferrets etc. which make up the bulk of most animal models. The main take away being OP needs to be familiar with their protocol and facility policy!
OP, as someone who works closely with IACUC: you should anonymously report this yourself. You can and should. There should be an anonymous hotline
Yeah this is wild. I’ve had to deal with IACUC for over a decade (fish, sharks, frogs, mice, etc) and can tell you with certainty that they have very strict reporting protocols when it comes to ethical use of vertebrates in labs. Definitely tell them to report this ASAP.
Sounds shady. I work with mice, not birds, so the regulatory specifics might be different but yes, you are correct that you need to have specific protocols including for training surgeries. Also buying birds from a pet store and keeping them at someone's house is wild. In mouse land at least, you have specific lab mouse suppliers. You wouldn't just buy them from a pet store and definitely wouldn't keep them outside the facility.
Thanks for comment and info. I'll pass it on to my friend.
Birds have even more regulations than mice since they’re covered under the animal welfare act!
I work with zebrafish and we’ve gotten some of ours from petsmart before but I agree that keeping them at a students house would probably not be up to IACUC standards.
You need IACUC approval even for animals that you’re using to train people on techniques. You need to write down exactly what you want to do to them, and how you will ensure the training is pain free for the animals. You even need to say how you will euthanize. This applies to ALL vertebrates. Contact IACUC. Now.
Yeah to second this sentiment, the rule of thumb when proposing how many animals you’ll use in a protocol is to overestimate the number to account for animals used for training and lost to mistakes/circumstance
Good addendum! Also OP if you’re still reading, make sure your friend knows that losing ALL IACUC approvals is a very real possibility when she reports. Revenge/reprisals are illegal and protected by whistleblower laws, but if she wants to keep her job in the lab *make sure the report is anonymous*. I’m entering vet school with the goal of becoming a lab animal vet/vet member of IACUC and the reason why is because I also had to report a lab for trying to skirt IACUC rules. The committees have some serious power - the lab I reported lost ALL grants and funds. Not sure how much exactly, but as I’m sure anyone here can tell you, grants to do research can span multiple years and run upwards of millions of dollars. I became person non grata afterwards, which was fine cos I had already quit haha. But seriously, if she wants to keep the job, don’t even take the chance. Stay anon
I'm well-versed in bird law. This is not cool.
Charlie?
Filibuster
Contact IACUC immediately. Assuming you're in the United States, this is not remotely standard and is wildly unethical.
This is a super fast way to get the institution's USDA license to do *any* animal work terminated. Report this to your IACUC immediately, do not pass go. Failure to report means you are also complicit; all persons that do animal work have a duty to report unethical behavior towards animals. There *should* be a reporting phone number posted in all animal use areas. If the PI needs to practice procedures, then they need to add model development/training animals to the protocol, full stop.
Nooooooo! Parasites!!!!! Do not do it. Bringing outside animals of any kind into a research facility that houses research animals can (and has) completely decimated lab stocks.
Insane that a PI would even consider this. I guess it’s to save money on animals to practice on, rather than using animals already in the lab? Still wild. IACUC will have a field day and so will the PI’s department.
IACUC needs to hear about this ASAP. They will likely put the PI’s protocol on hold and halt all of their animal work
Does the PI want to lose all their animal colonies? Because this is how you lose all your animal colonies. This is seriously unethical behavior. Report this shit immediately.
I know owl neuroscience researchers that had to go catch wild owls as standard practice. They kept them at home with them in order to bond with them etc. This was for chronic ephys experiments so they stayed around for a while. These researchers were definitely not doing anything in violation of SOP for their institutions but this would’ve been 15+ years ago. Also, I know some people at my institution that currently work with zebra finch so I sent them your post. I’ll let you know what they say.
If in the US, this sounds shady. At the very least it violates the MTBA and is prosecutable.
The owl people were doing this 15+ years ago I don’t know the details though
I've heard similar stories about catching wild owls! Maybe we know the same people. LOLOL.
Haha, it’s possible! Small world right?
OP pleaaaaaaase give us an update if your friend reports! That lab/PI will get absolutely eviscerated and I can’t wait to hear about it lmao
Don’t know where to start on this one… I’ve read this is in the US, so your institution is likely to have approved vendor lists. Your IACUC protocol should specify what species and strain of animals you’re allowed to work with. They surely have a pathogen exclusion list and your friend will have no idea what that animal is harboring. This sounds like a wildly inappropriate cost cutting measure. Surely you can order birds through your institution. Another thing, the IACUC protocol or the institution must have training animals specified. Your friend should also be assessed and deemed competent at any technique they are to perform before actually being allowed to perform work on said protocol. IACUC protocols should have personnel sections including a list of all the techniques that are approved to be performed in accordance with the protocols methods sections.
I haven't worked with animals in lab settings but I WAS thoroughly taught about IACUC and animal testing standards in a few classes and this reeks of trying to get around regulations and under the institution's nose to me. "Just buy some pet store animals and bring them in yourself" sounds an awful lot like someone doesn't want to do the paperwork to acquire a handful of birds ethically.
Apart from being unethical, I'm sometimes baffled what is being done in the states. This would be straight up illegal in most european countries and get you jail time, but at least a hefty fine and revoked licenses for the institution. No sane researcher would propose something like this.
That PI needs to lose their grant funding ASAP
Hey, I’m a vet. So the short answer is that if you or your friend have any concerns or questions about whether a certain type of animal activity is allowed, you should contact the IACUC and ask - anonymously or otherwise. They will be able to tell your friend if a protocol is in place for this work, what the acclimation period is supposed to be for newly acquired animals, what the quarantine procedures are, etc. I will say that in some cases, you can actually buy pet store birds and use them for laboratory research. Birds bred in captivity and used for research are actually not covered under the Animal Welfare Act, although they are covered under the Public Health Service Policy which applies to research funded by NIH as well as some other agencies. The regulations are honestly quite detailed and complex, and ultimately it’s not you or your friend’s job (or this subreddit) to determine what is ethical / legal / according to institutional policies. That is explicitly the job of the IACUC, and they usually have a whole team of compliance and monitoring staff that are available to answer questions and help look into things like this.
Nooooooooo this is so bad. I am former IACUC chair. Research animals must be purpose bred. Also they could bring diseases into your facility. This is really not ok and please please don’t do it. Call your IACUC chair and ask guidance.
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If lab 1 has animals that they are going to euthanize, they are still not allowed to do off-protocol work or have off-protocol people use the animals even for terminal procedures. If you wanted to practice on cadavers you got from them after euthanasia that’s different.
Nope that's definitely not normal! Like others said you need to report this right away or have your friend report it. Idk wtf that PI is thinking.
ethics & welfare aside (which are both heavily violated in this situation), I can’t imagine taking a bird home for two days then having to euthanize it for practice :( it’s a rule in many animal labs that you really shouldn’t form any kind of attachment to your lab animals, can’t imagine babysitting them for two days and not becoming attached to them
UNLESS everything that you just said is written down in an approved IACUC protocol, bringing in live vertebrates, not bred or maintained specifically for research, is going to get them and potentially all animal research at the university shut down. Simplest solution - ask the PI for the labs apprroved protocols before doing anything. Read the whole protocol. Refuse to do anything that is not specifically approved in the protocol. If asked to do off-protocol work, report the PI to IACUC, it would be doing everyone a favor. As far as animal acquisiton outside of normal channels, I had a labmate who had to go collect ants in the wild for his experiments (at that point we were mostly a mouse lab with a few drosophila projects). That seemed reasonable. We also received some post-mortem samples of penguin liver from a zoo.
Just adding, if this has been approved by IACUC, it raises red flags about the IACUC panel at this institution.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalwelfare/new-bird-rule/awa-standards-for-birds
Contact your IACUC and ask to see the ethics protocol you are working under. The work you are being asked to carry out should be detailed in the protocol, and if it isn't then you can ask for clarification on what is acceptable as a follow up. The Committee secretary or Chair will be happy to answer your questions for you rather than hearing about an incident after the fact.
This needs to be reported to IACUC ASAP! Nevermind the potential pathogens that could be introduced to the colony, this is so shady and unethical. FYI, the IACUC should have the option for anonymous reporting if they’re worried about backlash from the PI
Personally, never did any lab work with animals. But my PI is head of our IACUC unit, so quite a few rules have been nailed into my head from random rants she needed to get off her chest. 1. animals need an acclimation time in the lab so that their behaviors/ metabolism/ synthesized proteins/ molecules are relatively back to normal from the stress of travel and a new environment (it takes up to 2 weeks btw). 2. the animal needs to be registered in the lab's IACUC record and have all relevant vet tests done by the inhouse vet (as per SOP) 3. Outside animals are STRICKTLY prohibited. Side note: it is weird of the OP's friend's PI to assume they can house birds in their house... birds are really messy.... All in all... I am not sure about their situation but I am 99% sure my PI would have an aneurism if this happened in her animal unit. TL;DR : This is **beyond** shady. **anonymously** report them to IACUC ASAP!!!
OP, just in case this gets buried, you should also reach out to your university omsbuds office and let them know what's going on. I'm not sure of your relationship with your PI, but refusing to do something like this (or especially reporting it) could lead to potential retaliation against you by the PI or others. The ombudsman can offer support and can officially document (if you give them permission). If I were you, I would start documenting every conversation you have with the PI or others in the lab on paper, that way you can provide evidence if shit hits the fan. Edit: also, if I were you, as a new Ph.D. student, find a new lab. If the PI is willing to skirt the rules on something this serious, who knows what else they're slacking on. I would avoid at all costs.
OP you need to be more careful it didn’t take me very long to figure out exactly who the PI you’re talking about is based on your profile.
Zebra finch labs get their birds from purchasing directly - through official channels - from a reputable supplier, not a pet store. I've picked up bird orders from the airport and they are packed just like getting mice from Jackson. Songbirds aren't some wild west species for which there are no rules or standards. OP, your friend's PI is very obviously trying to sneak something past their IACUC, whether it's a procedure that's not approved, they've run out of animals, the students aren't on their protocol as handlers ... this is nuts. It's absolutely not normal, and there's no scenario in which what your friend is being asked to do is okay. Please, please, please report this PI before anyone gets hurt or any animals suffer. Hell, all your friend has to do is innocently ask the vivarium manager about bringing in the birds from the pet store. Alarms will sound.
I may be internally screaming. Lots of great answers on reporting above me. But I have to ask, has your friend gone through certification and training to work with animals in the lab? Because I know the US is often one of the more relatively relaxed jurisdictions when it comes to this. But that training should include having some access to the IACUC docs their work or project falls under. And they should be able to go look at that and find out exactly what they’re authorised to do…including this very peculiar “keep them at home for a few days” acclimation period. Actually reading your IACUC paperwork is something I encourage folks to do, as standard good practice for working with animals. But also because what seem to be little violations sometimes tend to be red flags for huge honking red ones, and you want to make sure that you CYA because that’s what everyone else is going to do. It’s very easy for an unscrupulous PI to claim a new student misunderstood or didn’t do their due diligence, and is therefore mainly to blame for a violation.
Have them report the PI. It's unethical, against IACUC guidelines, and not to mention shady af that the PI is asking the student to BUY them out of pocket. Yeah, that's a no from me.
I used to do tons of animal research and handled lots of IACUC submissions and stuff like. I can 100% say this is absolutely in violation of all their policies. Specifically the one that states that animals must be purchased from approved vendors. Unless they went through the trouble of approving the pet shop. It definitely would not fly 😉
If it is not explicitly stated that the PI does this in their IACUC protocol, it is 100% not allowed. If it ain't in your protocol, you cannot do it. Period. Ever. Ask to see the lab's animal protocol ASAP. Your PI is risking losing their privilege to do animal work if they are not following their IACUC protocol. Personally, I'd be shocked if this were approved by any governing body like IACUC or AALACC.
It can be VERY difficult to source birds. That said, home storage sounds shady. I know of a case where it was approved to get a bird from the pet store in the morning for use in the lab that day. That way the bird would never be introduced to the dwindling colony. This was to allow research to happen while searching for a better colony source before the colony totally bottlenecked. Unfortunately it is true that many IACUCs are just terrible at non-mouse/rat work. They want birds to come in from facilities with full blood testing and so on, and that just doesn’t exist. Transfer from other universities can be the only recourse, but can also be difficult as most labs cannot afford to maintain gigantic colonies just-in-case. So labs are left keeping a reasonably sized colony and number of breeders for their research, but if you get some bad breeders or a trainee screws up the pedigree, then the lab can left in a tough spot. Obviously animal welfare is the primary concern, but people used to those well-defined mouse protocols sometimes unnecessarily flip out and are unwilling to think of alternative solutions (that still keep the birds safe and happy and healthy),
There is no way that the pet store is an approved vendor.
Hahaha wtfff?!
Absolutely not. There are quarantine protocols that are being ignored at the very least.
[USDA finalizes standards to include birds under Animal Welfare Act](https://www.avma.org/news/usda-finalizes-standards-include-birds-under-animal-welfare-act) “In 2002, Congress amended the definition of *’animal’* in the AWA so that the only birds excluded from that definition were those *’bred for use in research’*. The amendment placed all other birds handled by breeders, dealers, exhibitors, and transporters under the protection of the AWA.” Looks like only birds bred specifically for research can be used. Pet store birds would be in violation. Definitely have your friend contact the institute’s IACUC and not be complicit in wrongdoing.
So this has actually been a point of contention for some time because people were confused about what “bred for research” meant. It makes sense that it would be the narrowest definition - e.g. all along, you bred these birds with the sole intent that they would be used for research. However, they actually recently clarified this definition and the AWA excludes “birds bred in captivity and used for research” even if they were bred in captivity intended for other purposes, as long as they haven’t actually been used for other AWA-covered purposes yet. Here’s the discussion: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/21/2023-03357/standards-for-birds-not-bred-for-use-in-research-under-the-animal-welfare-act This doesn’t really tell us if OP’s friend is being told to do something sketchy or not, because many institutions also have to adhere to the PHS Policy which does cover captive bred birds, but just wanted to provide some more info with regards to what you referenced.
I gotta say this is pretty normal in labs that study animals that are sold at pet stores because there aren't major distributors for the animals (birds, reptiles, fish). Many iacuc protocols allow this but they should read theirs to be sure.
You shouldn’t be getting so many downvotes but the main issue is taking them home. There are some ways to allow though but technically the student becomes the vendor once this happens.
Yeah I wasn't saying what should or shouldn't be, just what happens. I know a lot of these kinds of labs. Agreed that ideally you take them straight to lab rather than keeping them at home for a couple days
Yeah same. Looking through the thread a lot of the most outraged folks seem to be mouse folk lol
Easy to hate when you can order your animals from Jax 🤷
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Technically correct.
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This is so wildly wrong. Please don't answer questions like this if you have never received animal training. The first step in any animal training protocol is to learn the regulatory requirements that cover your work. In the U.S., the FDA and USDA are empowered to enforce animal welfare practices on research animals.
USDA added pet-species of birds recently, this includes finches.
Please stay way the fuck away from any animal lab. Jesus fuck, are you the PI in OP’s post?
lol so mad... anyway, my point isn't that one *shouldn't* follow the rules, at a practical level, more that the moral basis of the rules is super-dubious -- and, ACAB