Source of Animal Tissue Used in Research

Your research project seeks to isolate substantial quantities of a substance that occurs in trace amounts in the glands of codfish.  Your technician will collect fish entrails at a local wharf, where fishermen’s catch is cleaned for market.  Do the usual guidelines for animal subjects apply?  Suppose it were chickens at a poultry ranch?  Cows or pigs at a slaughter house?

K5R says:  The usual guidelines for animal subjects do not apply to tissue from fish, pigs, cows or chickens procured at slaughter plants or at the fish market.  If live animals were used, then Laboratory Animal Services (LAS) or US Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines would apply to their maintenance.  Typically, however, a specific protocol for obtaining such tissues would have to be presented to--and approved by--a biohazard committee at a university prior to submitting a proposal for, or initiating, such studies.