Monitoring after animal ethics approval

Members of the Animal Ethics Committee (AEC) pay regular visits to animal facilities and principal investigators (PIs) to monitor animal management practices and to ensure compliance with the conditions of the approval and the terms of the Code of Ethical Conduct.

Please note that these post-approval visits are a requirement under the Animal Welfare Act 1999. A scheduled visit by either the animal welfare officer or by members of the AEC does not imply any breach of conditions by the researchers.

During these visits, the members of the AEC will pay attention to animal care and welfare, record maintenance and the use of appropriate techniques, equipment and facilities.

The monitoring activities of the AEC are broadly classified into three categories:

• Facility visits – These are structured visits to animal facilities to check animal management practices and compliance with Standard Operating Procedures.
• Welfare reviews – These visits focus more on individual procedures or components of an approval, rather than the whole protocol. Welfare reviews are based on conditions imposed by the AEC, usually involving the monitoring of new procedures or models, or manipulations with high animal welfare impact.
• Ethical reviews – These are routine visits to Responsible Investigators to review compliance with their current protocols and the progress of the research project, taking all aspects of the approval into account. The AEC aims to visit every PI at least once during the approval period. These visits also offer an opportunity for PIs to ask questions and to provide feedback to the AEC.

If you have any animal welfare questions or concerns, contact the animal welfare officer.

Animal welfare officer (AWO)
Email: awo@auckland.ac.nz