COLLECTION AND STORAGE OF VERTEBRATE SAMPLES

This chapter outlines guidelines to obtain, hold, transport, process, and archive samples from vertebrates. There are legal, logistic, and technical issues that need to be considered. Timely recognition and planning can make the difference between successful research and a wasted effort. State and federal agencies are responsible for issuing various permits regulating the capture, holding, and sampling procedures that pertain to most free-ranging wild or feral animals. Most institutions receiving federal grants also have internally constituted animal care advisory committees, which screen research proposals that include the use of vertebrates. The chapter also discusses museum collections. Museums and individual laboratories vary in their ability to protect collections from light, insects, high humidity, molds, damage to labels, and the ravages of temperature fluctuations. Curators are enlisting the aid of chemists to help them evaluate the biological changes their materials undergo over time. Museums vary also in their policies regarding access to materials for biological studies at the DNA or protein level. © 1993, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.