Anaesthetics and welfare for cuttlefish.

I’ve tried anaesthetising an octopus once and boy did that guy jump out of the water! It worked finally, after holding the lid down and shut and reducing the amount of air space above the induction water. There’s really not been much work done on chemotherapeutants in invertebrates. These researchers are pioneering this field. Good on them!

Aquaculture
Volume 371, Number 1 (December 2012)
	The use of different anaesthetics as welfare promoters during short-term human manipulation of European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) juveniles
	Authors:	Rui A. Gonçalves, Cláudia Aragão, Paulo A. Frias, António V. Sykes
	Author Affiliations:	no affiliations available
	Source:	Aquaculture, Volume 371, Number 1 (December 2012)
	Page Numbers:	130 – 135
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	Abstract:	Anaesthetics are frequently used to prevent injuries, stress and to promote welfare while handling animals. The efficiency of five anaesthetics for short-term handling of the European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) was tested in order to determine the best agent and its concentration. Ethanol (10.0, 20.0 and 30.0mL.L-1), clove oil (0.05, 0.15mL.L-1), hypothermia (8°C), magnesium chloride (hexahydrated; 20.0, 27.0g.L-1) and AQUI-S® (10.9µl.L-1) were the selected anaesthetics. This choice was preceded by a preliminary trial, with additional agents, where 2-phenoxyethanol (10, 15, 20, 30mL.L-1) and MS-222® (30, 40mg.L-1) were used. Due to the lack of reliable results from these two agents, they were discarded. Anaesthetic procedure was performed in 85 cuttlefish juveniles with a mean wet weight of 45.69±12.01g, on a 5L container, under hyper-oxygenated seawater (~200%), plus the dose of a given anaesthetic agent. After achieving induction, cuttlefish were handled for 180s, which consisted in a weighing procedure according to a developed CCMAR protocol. Recovery from anaesthesia was performed in a tank with flow-through hyper-oxygenated water. All these procedures were video recorded and used to, a posteriori, obtain the time frames of induction, handling and recovery, as well as for the behaviour analysis during each stage.
	Citation:	Rui A. Gonçalves, Cláudia Aragão, Paulo A. Frias, António V. Sykes . The use of different anaesthetics as welfare promoters during short-term human manipulation of European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) juveniles. Aquaculture, Volume 371, Number 1 (December 2012), pp. 130-135, <http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=45BD80F1D33779B72D59&gt;
	URL:	http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=45BD80F1D33779B72D59