Defining piscine endpoints: Towards score sheets for assessment of clinical signs in fish research

Abstract

The seminar ‘Severity and humane endpoints in fish research’ organized by the University of Bergen, the Industrial and Aquatic Laboratory, together with Fondazione Guido Bernadini, took place on 4 October 2019 in Bergen, Norway. The seminar was followed by a workshop, ‘Establishing score sheets and defining endpoints in fish experiments’, held on 28 January 2020, also in Bergen. The purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness about fish ethics together with severity classification and humane endpoints in fish studies, using examples from farmed fish, mainly salmonids and lumpfish. The overall aim of the workshop was to better define humane endpoints in fish experiments, as well as to discuss suggestions for development and use of score sheets for assessing clinical signs related to endpoints. Endpoints for fish should not only be based on what we know about fish diseases and the lesions they induce but should also take into consideration knowledge about fish species and life stage, fish anatomy, physiology and the general state and behaviour of the fish. For this reason, to reinforce that endpoints should come from the animal’s perspective and needs, we renamed humane endpoints for fish to piscine endpoints. This paper reports the main messages from the workshop sessions including advice on development and use of score sheets.