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Cull, release or bring them home: Coronavirus crisis forces hard decisions for labs with animals
As universities scale back operations and scientists observe stay-at-home orders, many are struggling to protect their research and the animals that power it.
The eggs were close to hatching, but Vivian Páez wasn’t sure they would survive. She and her husband Brian Bock, both herpetologists, were incubating nearly 100 temperature-sensitive turtle eggs in their lab at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. Bock studies the critically endangered Magdalena river turtle (Podocnemis lewyana), and Páez studies the red-footed tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonarius), which is considered vulnerable. By 17 March, they realized that a lockdown due to COVID-19 was imminent.