Possibilities to improve life quality of laboratory cats by enrichment-strategies - a survey

Although cats have a minor role as laboratory ani-mals, they are still used in biomedical research and for clinical research on species-specific diseases. Keeping cats in animal research facilities is associat-ed with specific challenges. According to the principle of Refinement anchored in animal experimentation law, the cats' physiological and ethological needs must be satisfied as far as possible. Appropriate enrichment strategies must be adopted that provide the cats with a complex housing environment and allow them to en-gage in a wide range of natural behaviours. Suitable measures to enrich the environment and positive in-teractions with people promote the cats' quality of life, facilitate their handling in animal experiments, improve research results and increase the cats' chances of be-ing housed in private care after their experimental use. Enrichment strategies should be planned as an overall concept, based on scientific knowledge on the behav-ioural needs of the species, adapted to the preferences of the individual animals and subject to monitoring. To support the work of the persons and committees ap-pointed to improve the well-being of laboratory animals - in particular, the designated veterinarians, the persons responsible for animal welfare, and the Animal Welfare Bodies - we provide an overview of enrichment strat-egies for laboratory cats that are recommended in the scientific literature.