Corrections for Animals & Veterinary

review

The CAB Direct Animals & Veterinary section covers pet health, dairy and beef production, animal behaviour and entomology. Articles deal with subjects such as preventive veterinary checks, pet obesity, kidney disease in cats and dog lifespan research. Livestock articles cover dairy cow welfare and breeds, beef systems, sheep vaccination programmes, poultry systems, and antimicrobials and heat stress in livestock. Other articles deal with animal play and cognition, wild horse behaviour, bees and wasps, varroa and other mites, insect communication and insect decline. An overview of the section is available at /animals/.

Content in this section is general information and is not veterinary advice for an individual animal. The corrections process deals with what a published article says; questions about the health or treatment of a specific animal belong with a veterinary surgeon who can examine it.

Readers can report a possible factual error, a misquoted figure or dose, an incorrect species or scientific name, a wrong source reference, an outdated statement or an interpretation that goes further than the cited evidence. Possible errors are reported through /corrections/. A report starts a check of the issue but does not by itself establish that the article needs to change, and no response or correction timeframe is set out on this page.

What to report

Figures about animals depend on the species, the population studied and how an outcome was defined, so a correct number can still be reported in a misleading way. Typical issues worth reporting include:

• Disease figures where incidence and prevalence are confused, the period or country is wrong, or a figure from a referral clinic, a single farm or one surveillance programme is presented as applying to all animals of that species.
• Species identification errors, such as confusing bees with wasps or hoverflies, naming the wrong mite species, using an outdated scientific name, or attributing a trait to the wrong breed.
• Doses used in a cited study, or withdrawal periods quoted from a regulation or official guideline, that do not match that source, including the wrong unit, species, route or period.
• Lifespan and longevity figures where a median, a mean and a maximum are mixed up, or where results for one breed, size group or study population are presented as general.
• Production and welfare data for cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry given on the wrong basis, for example milk yield per day, per lactation or per year, or stocking density (animals per stall or per unit of area) confused with space allowance (area per animal).
• Vaccination programmes and disease names described inaccurately, for example the clostridial diseases a vaccine is stated to cover, or a product's authorisation status given for the wrong country or year.
• Antimicrobial use or resistance figures with the wrong unit, year, country or species group, or national sales data presented as use on individual farms.
• Behaviour and cognition findings generalised beyond the study, for example results from a small sample, one species or captive animals applied to other species or to animals in the wild.
• Insect decline and pollinator data where biomass, abundance and species richness are confused, or where the region, period or sampling method differs from the source.
• Source problems: a citation that does not support the wording, a source that has been corrected, withdrawn or superseded, a broken reference, or a wrong author, institution or date.

Where an article mentions a dose, it is reported as part of the design of the study cited, not as an instruction for treating an animal, and articles do not set out treatment protocols. A correction request can point out that a dose has been misquoted from its source, but the corrections process does not produce treatment recommendations for any animal.

What to include in a correction request

A report is easier to check when it identifies the exact text and the evidence behind the suggested change. Where possible, include the following:

• The URL of the article.
• The sentence, figure, table cell, species name or source reference that may be wrong, quoted as it appears.
• What appears to be incorrect and, if known, the correct value, name or wording.
• A source that supports the change, with its date or edition and the table or page where the information appears.
• For figures, the species, population, unit, period and country used in that source.

Details about your own animals, clients or farm are not needed to check a published article and are best left out of a report.

Useful details by topic

The table below shows details that often decide whether an animal health, production or insect figure has been reported correctly.

How reported issues are reviewed

Each report is first matched to the claim it concerns and to the source the article relies on, and the wording is checked against that source. Where an article reports a figure taken from a review or summary, the check goes back to the original study or dataset where it can be traced. Correction checks may involve the Animals & Veterinary author whose stated coverage matches the topic of the report.

Figures, doses and terminology

For numerical claims, the check covers the value and the information needed to read it: species, population, unit, period, country and how the outcome was defined. For doses and withdrawal periods, the only question is whether the article reproduces its source accurately and with its context; the check does not assess what any animal should be given. Species and breed names are checked against the cited source and, where a scientific name has changed, against current taxonomic usage.

Species, scope and interpretation

Where a report questions how a study has been read, the wording is compared with the species, setting, sample size, duration and stated limitations of the study cited. This matters for subjects such as animal cognition and play, where results from a few animals or a single species are easily overextended, and for insect decline, where conclusions depend on the region, period and measure used. The check also covers whether a source has since been corrected, withdrawn or replaced. The general approach to weighing evidence is described at /how-we-rate-evidence/.

Not every report leads to a change. If an article already reflects the cited evidence accurately, it may remain as published. Where the evidence itself is contested, the outcome may be clearer wording about scope and uncertainty rather than a different figure.

How confirmed corrections are handled

When an error is confirmed, the affected element is corrected: a figure, unit, dose as quoted from its source, species or breed name, term, source reference or sentence. Corrections are dated and remain visible in the article. Where a source has been revised, for example an updated surveillance report, the article can be brought into line with the newer source, and the figure is given with its source and date. This page does not set a fixed deadline for completing a correction.

Animals & Veterinary authors

Articles in the Animals & Veterinary section are written by the five authors listed below. All hold the role of author; no separate reviewer or editor roles are listed for this section, and the authors' articles do not replace advice from a veterinary surgeon. Each article names its author with a stated role.

Topic coverage

Stated coverage shows which subjects each author writes about, which can help when a report concerns a particular area. Some areas overlap, for example pollinators. Full profiles, including credentials, are linked from each name.

• Imogen Farrant: companion animal health, preventive care, diet and welfare.
• Rhys Penwarden: dairy and beef production, herd health, feeding, fertility and livestock welfare.
• Lena Okonjo: animal behaviour, insects and entomology, pollinators and pest insects.
• Gethin Morrow: sheep vaccination programmes and clostridial diseases, antimicrobials in livestock, heat stress in livestock, poultry and pig systems, and preventive herd health.
• Rowan Siu: bees and wasps, varroa mites and other mites, insect communication through pheromones, sound and vibration, insect decline datasets and pollinators.

Related editorial information

The rules used to prepare and check articles are set out at /editorial-policy/, and the approach to weighing evidence at /how-we-rate-evidence/. Author profiles are listed at /authors/. Background on the wider project is available at /about/, and the section overview at /animals/.

Contact

Possible errors in Animals & Veterinary articles can be reported through /corrections/. For general editorial questions, use /contacts/.