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Cull, release or bring them home: Coronavirus crisis forces hard decisions for labs with animals

As universities scale back operations and scientists observe stay-at-home orders, many are struggling to protect their research and the animals that power it.
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  1. Julian Nowogrodzki

    1. Julian Nowogrodzki is a journalist in the Boston area of Massachusetts. Follow them @AnnaNowo

The eggs were close to hatching, but Vivian Páez wasn’t sure they would survive. She and her husband Brian Bock, both herpetologists, were incubating nearly 100 temperature-sensitive turtle eggs in their lab at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. Bock studies the critically endangered Magdalena river turtle (Podocnemis lewyana), and Páez studies the red-footed tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonarius), which is considered vulnerable. By 17 March, they realized that a lockdown due to COVID-19 was imminent.

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Nature 580, 19 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00964-y

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