Important points for using vitality in survival and mortality predictions

  • Choose reflex actions that are consistently present in unstressed animals.
  • Clearly define what is meant by present, impaired, and absent for reflex actions and injuries (see Meeremans et al. 2017)
  • Standardize testing for reflex impairment and injury.
  • Clearly identify relevant stressors in the fishery that will be evaluated using vitality impairment and include them in stressor experiments. 
  • Design stressor experiments that will result in vitality impairment and delayed mortality ranging from 0 to 100%, to produce a complete relationship.
  • Minimize stress for animals in captive observation or tagging methods for observing delayed mortality.
  • Vitality impairment or delayed mortality for control animals indicates that holding conditions are stressful and should be improved.

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