Animal Care Services (ACS) monitors actual animal use and compares with animal numbers approved on an Animal Use Protocol (AUP) in an ongoing tracking system. Animal purchase orders from Principal Investigators/Instructors (PIs) are checked by ACS staff to confirm that the PI has approval for a sufficient number of animals to cover the purchase order. ACS keeps count of used animals and subtracts these from the remaining number of approved animals on the AUP. PIs can see a summary of their approved and used numbers in the Animal Tracking section of the online AUP system.
Animal use must be reported to ACS directly from PIs at the completion of a study. The PI must report purchased animals, donated animals, animals procured from private sources, and animals used in wildlife or field studies. In addition to information obtained from PIs, research facilities submit regular reports to ACS of the numbers and species of animals used on all AUPs active at that location.
To comply with the Ontario Animals for Research Act, and to meet the CCAC requirements that institutions submit their experimental Animal Use Data, ACS compiles and reports animal use numbers based on information provided by all PIs at the conclusion of each calendar year. The data contains information on animal numbers, species, purpose of use, and category of invasiveness. CCAC’s annual statistics provide information on the use of animals in science to the Canadian public to promote transparency and accountability.