Tracking of Approval and Approved Animal Numbers
All use of vertebrate animals at NC State requires prior approval of a protocol application by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). All animals must be accounted for in the protocol application, including all neonates (e.g., preweaning animals euthanized to standardize litter size or to cull unwanted genotypes or sex; animals that are expected to die as a result of a harmful genotype). Accounting for the use of larval-stage animals (i.e. tadpoles, fish) is also required. You are not required to account for the use of prenatal, prehatch or embryonic animals.
Regulations and Policy
In accordance with federal regulations and university policy, the protocol application requires the principal investigator (PI) to provide a rationale for the number(s) of animals to be used. It is implicit from these requirements that there be an institutional mechanism to ensure the animal use is approved and the number of animals used is consistent with information in the IACUC-approved protocol.
Unit Requirements
Each animal resource unit must have written procedures in place for monitoring and documenting animal use. Procedures must include methods to ensure animal use is covered by an active IACUC-approved protocol and that the numbers of animals used do not substantially exceed those approved in the protocol. Animal resource units also should have procedures that allow for the retrieval of animal-use numbers, by category of use, for completion of the USDA Annual Report or other annual accounting (e.g., AAALAC reporting).