Progress in assessing animal welfare in relation to new legislation: Opportunities for behavioural researchers

• Laws and guidelines on animal care and use require suffering to be minimised.
• To achieve this, good recognition and assessment of pain and distress are essential.
• Behavioural researchers can help to make welfare assessment more effective.
• The paper explains how and suggests some action points.

Recent revisions to international legislation and guidelines on the care and use of animals in research and testing emphasise the importance of minimising suffering and improving welfare. Achieving this requires effective systems for recognising, recording, analysing and assessing animal behaviour, in order to identify relevant indicators of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm so that any suffering can be rapidly recognised and ameliorated. Behavioural researchers can assist by disseminating information on developments in techniques and approaches for recognising, observing, monitoring, analysing and interpreting behaviour, both within their own facilities and more widely. They can also help to facilitate better welfare assessment by continuing to develop systems for measuring behaviours – including indicators of positive welfare – while also ensuring that harms within behavioural research are minimised.