Many animal facilities have experienced problems caused by excessive noise or vibrations, and what happened at Great Eastern University will sound familiar to many readers. While planning for the construction of a new building, the school’s architects and engineers informed the vivarium leadership that there would be noise and vibrations caused by some necessary blasting, but they intended to cover the blasting sites with very heavy synthetic blankets to lessen the impact on other school areas, including the vivarium. The director of the vivarium, Dr. Ken Manning, thanked them for their concern and requested they install appropriate equipment in the vivarium to monitor vibration and noise and thereby allow a comparison with pertinent studies reported in the biomedical literature. This was agreed to by the engineers and Manning proceeded to inform animal-using investigators of the school’s plans. Some of the investigators who had mouse breeding colonies were apprehensive, but they felt they had no choice but to curtail some of their breeding and take a wait-and-see approach.
Soon after the blasting started it became obvious that the vibrations and noise exceeded levels considered to be ‘safe’ for mouse breeding and certain other studies. Manning brought this to the attention of the IACUC and the construction team, but he was told by the latter that nothing could be done to alleviate the problem. Manning asked why recording equipment had been installed if no remedies were available, but he only received sympathy without any help. The IACUC chairman went to the Institutional Official and informed her that animals were being stressed and research was being compromised, because about one in three breeding colonies was reported to be experiencing a dramatically decreased number of pups per litter along with increased cannibalization. And, he added, this was negatively affecting the budgets of the researchers. Yet, he received only sympathy and a suggestion to work the problem out with the investigators and the construction team.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution