In 1961, the Committee on Animal Care of the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies (CFBS) prepared a one-page placard outlining "Guiding Principles for the Care of Experimental Animals". These principles were quickly approved by most national scientific associations and, despite their brevity, addressed essentially the same basic principles of animal care embodied in this 2nd Edition of Volume 1 of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) Guide to the Care and Use of Experimental Animals.

The hundreds of pages of information contained in the current two volumes of the Guide represent steps in the evolution of efforts by the CCAC to provide the means by which the use of animals in research, teaching and testing in Canada can be performed in accord with basic principles of humane treatment.

This edition of Volume 1 of the Guide is only one example of the many CCAC directed activities that owe their existence and success to the tremendous generosity and good will of these Canadians. Their broad participation in animal welfare is one of the most important, and least recognized, merits of the non-legislated, participatory, peer review system employed in Canada.


I. Responsability for the care ande use of experimental animals
II. Laboratory animal facilities
III. The environment
IV. Farm animal facilities and environment
V. Laboratory animal care
VI. Social and behavioral requirements of experimental animals
VII. Special practices
VIII. Occupational health and safety
IX. Standards for experimental animal surgery
X. Control of animal pain in research, teaching and testing
XI. Anesthesia
XII. Euthanasia
XIII. The use of animals in psychology
XIV. Guidelines for the use of animals in neuroscience research
Appendices