The transport of laboratory animals between facilities is a significant welfare event that causes stress and can affect research validity, yet receives less attention than housing welfare.
Transport is a welfare event that occurs outside normal facility protocols and often receives insufficient attention. Animals that are stressed, injured, or physiologically altered by transport may produce different experimental results from unstressed animals — creating both a welfare and scientific validity issue. The refinements that reduce transport stress — familiar bedding, appropriate grouping, minimized novelty — are low-cost and have clear benefits. Institutional programs that apply the 3Rs to transport as rigorously as to procedures and housing close an important welfare gap. Breeding facilities and research institutions that coordinate to minimize transport stress demonstrate genuine commitment to comprehensive animal welfare.