An Animal Welfare Risk Assessment Process for Zoos

Abstract

Simple SummaryTo retain social license to operate, achieving and maintaining high standards of animal welfare need to be institutional priorities for zoos. In order to be confident in the delivery of high standards of animal welfare, a holistic evidence-based approach to welfare assessment is required. This should include a combination of institutional-level assessments, individual animal monitoring tools, and applied research targeted at advancing our understanding of species needs and preferences in zoos. Progress has certainly been made in the zoo sector in development of research programs and individual animal welfare monitoring tools. Comparatively less focus has been applied to institutional-level assessment processes. This paper aims to fill this gap and presents an outline of a welfare risk assessment process developed and trialed at three zoos over a three year period and discussion of the potential value it offers, as well as the limitations of its use.AbstractThere is a growing interest and need for zoos to develop and implement welfare assessment tools that are practical to use and provide meaningful results that can inform management decisions. This paper presents a process that was developed to support this type of evidence-based management in zoo animal welfare. The process is configured to facilitate institutional risk assessment, using an adapted version of the Five Domains Model for animal welfare assessment. It is designed to systematically analyse information gathered from zoo personnel in order to highlight areas of welfare risk, as well as areas that are performing well and areas requiring further investigation. A trial was conducted on three zoos over three years. Results of the trial suggest the process developed is practical and effective in identifying areas of welfare risk in a wide range of species in a zoo setting. It represents a further step towards achieving high-level animal welfare in zoos by integrating animal welfare as an institutional priority. The more zoos that employ such strategies, the greater the ability of the sector to advance the welfare of the animals in their care.

“Feelings and Fitness” Not “Feelings or Fitness”–The Raison d'être of Conservation Welfare, Which Aligns Conservation and Animal Welfare Objectives

“…More detailed evaluations of wild animal behavior are generally undertaken to understand features of the social and ecological interactions of animals, as well as the impacts of human interventions or changes to the ecosystem on fitness and ecosystem function, rather than to understand their welfare state per se [e.g., ( 2 , 9 , 34 , 107 – 112 )]. Notable exceptions are the detailed studies of behavior often undertaken in the zoo context for the explicit purpose of assessing welfare state [e.g., ( 113 – 116 )] and systematic evaluations of wild behavior to improve the efficacy of strategies to control invasive species [e.g., reviewed by ( 117 – 119 )].…”

A Ten-Stage Protocol for Assessing the Welfare of Individual Non-Captive Wild Animals: Free-Roaming Horses (Equus Ferus Caballus) as an Example

“…Methods for assessing welfare have been well developed for a range of captive animals [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], including for wild species [24][25][26][27][28]. Although a need to develop methodologies for assessing the welfare of free-roaming wildlife has been highlighted [1], to date, such assessments have been largely restricted to impacts of non-lethal or lethal control of unwanted species, such as rodents, possums, rabbits, kangaroos, camels, badgers, and horses [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47].…”

Assessing Animal Welfare in Animal-Visitor Interactions in Zoos and Other Facilities. A Pilot Study Involving Giraffes

“…The basis of the six-step protocol consists in a multifaceted welfare assessment approach, which starts with an investigation of the actual welfare situation of the animals in regards to the effects of the interaction. Welfare can be investigated in different ways and using different parameters [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In this study, we chose to include the behaviour of the animals, in the form of changes in behaviour between situations in which the animals were taking part in interactions versus when they were not, as a welfare indicator.…”

“…Rational treatment of the concept of risk is broad, diversified, and applicable to a multiplicity of references. Currently, the methodologies used in the fields and in the scientific disciplines that determine the risk assessments are developed at different rates and follow different paths [ 11 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. In relation to animal welfare, the European Food and Safety Agency (EFSA) [ 23 ] developed an innovative and standardised methodology for its evaluation with a gradual approach, designed to be applied to all animal species and all factors affecting animals.…”