This refers to the report that the Animal Welfare Act requires registered animal labs send to APHIS every year, giving totals of animals being held and experimented on. Almost all entities use APHIS form 7023 for this purpose.
Types of animals that are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act, such as fish, frogs, and lab mice, are not reported. Of the species that are covered, every individual animal under the control of the facility for any part of the year is supposed to be included.
Animals are reported by species: dogs, cats, Guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, non-human primates, sheep, pigs, and "other animals" (if there are any animals in this catch-all category, they must then be listed separately by species).
Within each species, the numbers are further broken down by how badly the animals were treated. Those who are being held for future "teaching, testing, experiments, research, or surgery" are listed in Column B. Those who were used for these purposes, but in ways that supposedly didn't cause pain or distress, are listed in Column C.
Then the really rough stuff starts. Column D is used when "experiments, teaching, research, surgery, or tests were conducted involving accompanying pain or distress to the animals and for which appropriate anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing drugs were used."
Finally, the inhumane Column E lists the animals who were subjected to unrelieved pain and distress. That is, they underwent procedures that caused them ongoing pain, stress, and/or fear but they weren't given any relief.
The annual report also contains assurance statements that the facility treated animals properly and obeyed the AWA, that principal investigators considered alternatives to animals, and that the attending vet has a high level of authority.
Besides the main body of the report, there are two possible attachments:
If a facility's IACUC used its power to override the Animal Welfare Act and regulations, these exceptions must be noted and explained in an attachment called AWA Exceptions.
If the facility performed any Column E experiments on covered species, these must be explained and justified in a separate attachment.
The numbers in APHIS annual reports are self-reported by each facility and should be taken with a grain of salt. The USDA Inspector General has performed two audits demonstrating that more than half of facilities underreport the numbers of animals they're holding.
Blank APHIS form 7023:
