Behavioural responses of juvenile Steller sea lions to abdominal surgery: Developing an assessment of post-operative pain

Assessment of visceral pain associated with metritis in dairy cows

“…Back arch has also been reported as a pain response following abdominal surgery in sea lions (Walker et al, 2009) and rats (Roughan and Flecknell, 2001). The latter authors have advocated including back arch into a scoring system for abdominal pain.…”

In cold blood: evidence of Pacific sleeper shark (Somniosus pacificus) predation on Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in the Gulf of Alaska

“…Previously published control studies with animals monitored during temporary captivity (21-71 d) and tracked for a mean postrelease period of 86 d (SD 55; range: 10-242 d; n=35) for implanted animals and of 76 d (SD 54;n=30) for nonimplanted animals-with all animals having conventional satellite transmitters externally attached after their release (Wildlife Computers SDRT-16 and SPLASH-5 tags)-confirmed that 1) implant surgery results in mild to moderate wound healing responses and temporary elevation of white cell counts and haptoglobin concentrations, with full physiological recovery within 45 d following surgery; 2) tags and surgery result in zero mortality to 45 d; 3) postrelease foraging and ranging behavior does not differ between implanted and nonimplanted animals or between temporarily captive and free-ranging animals; and 4) the cumulative survival of animals over the ages of 14-60 months was 0.415 (95% confidence intervals [CI]=0.26-0.63), compared with 0.413 (95% CI=0.27-0.55) for mark-resight studies based on hot iron branding conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, providing no evidence of any effects of LHX tags or implant surgery on survival to the age of 5 years (Mellish et al, 2006(Mellish et al, , 2007Thomton et al, 2008;Petrauskas et al, 2008;Walker et al, 2009;Horning and Mellish, 2012).…”

Best practice recommendations for the use of fully implanted telemetry devices in pinnipeds

“…Peak changes occurred for days 1-3 after surgery, and changes diminished but remained above pre-surgical levels at days 10-12. The proportion of time spent in locomotion decreased for days 1-3, but was at pre-surgery levels for days 10-12 [61]. Surgical wounds appeared 2 Defined here as a non-nociceptive allostatic load potentially affecting wellbeing (e.g., dyspepsia-including nausea and dysmotility, tachycardia, hypoor hypertension, hypo-or hyperthermia, hyperventilation).…”

“…Examples of possible short-term effects may include discomfort and pain, as well as reduced appetence, mobility or vigilance. Assessments may include physiology (temperature, stress hormones, blood metabolites), behavior and movement (posture, resting), and changes in food intake, and could take advantage of data from the FITs (e.g., body core temperatures, data from accelerometers) (e.g., [53,[59][60][61][62]). b) Medium-term effects ranging from days to months These effects are critical in determining possible impacts on data.…”

“…Subsequently, two tags per animal were used to increase and estimate data return probability. For initial deployments animals were held in extended captivity up to eight weeks after surgery prior to release to allow comprehensive assessments of postoperative effects including physiological changes [56][57][58][59], stress response [60], as well as behavioral indicators of pain [61,62]. Following release, all animals were tracked via externally attached satellite telemetry transmitters for periods ranging from one week to four months [57,63].…”