Differing animal welfare conceptions and what they mean for the future of zoos and aquariums, insights from an animal welfare audit

Abstract

Animal welfare is a growing public concern that has the potential to undermine the social license of zoos and aquariums. The lack of consensus on how animal welfare is defined across such a diverse sector combined with and a widespread belief that commercial priorities such as entertaining visitors conflicts with animal welfare, hinders efforts to effectively address this fundamental issue for the sector. Data derived from an audit of habitats across a major North American wildlife attraction revealed that holistic animal welfare assessments undertaken by animal carers embracing three principal constructs of animal welfare, correlated strongly with visitor perceptions of animal happiness. Visitor assessments of animal happiness also correlated with animal carer assessments of social, behavioural and locomotor opportunities and inversely with the prevalence of stereotypic behaviours, supporting the proposition that folk conceptions of animal welfare are more accurate than may have previously been considered to be the case. However, the holistic animal welfare assessment inversely correlated with assessments of a habitat's capacity to safeguard welfare as determined by the facility's veterinary staff, supporting the proposition that tensions exist between physical and psychological components of captive animal welfare provisioning. This further underlines the importance of clarity on how animal welfare is conceived when developing institutional animal welfare strategies. Finally, the data also showed that both holistic animal welfare assessments and visitor perceptions of animal happiness strongly correlated with the level of enjoyment experienced by visitors, challenging the belief that animal welfare competes with the commercial priorities of zoos and aquariums. The audit supports the case that maintaining high animal welfare is a commercial imperative as well as a moral obligation for zoos and aquariums and underlines the necessity to utilize conceptions of animal welfare that acknowledge the centrality of the affective states of animals in maintaining those standards.

A perspective on ungulate management and welfare assessment across the traditional zoo to large landscape spectrum

“…There is also strong consensus that welfare assessments should include resource (i.e., input)‐ and animal‐based (i.e., output) metrics (NASEM, 2020; Sherwen et al, 2018), with some individuals and regulatory authorities advocating a shift towards mostly or exclusively considering animal‐based metrics (e.g., EFSA, 2012; Gonyou, 1993). This shift is consistent with other calls for animal welfare management to shift focus to animal feelings (e.g., Veasey, 2022). Finally, documenting and tracking of assessments is an essential element.…”

“…Welfare assessments that consider different approaches to welfare (e.g. biological functioning, natural behaviors, affective states ;Fraser, 2008;Hemsworth et al, 2015), both positive and negative experiences, both resource-based inputs (e.g., nutritionally balanced diets, appropriate social groupings, and professional veterinary care) and animal-based outputs (e.g., expression of behavior indicating positive states like play, bonding behaviors, minimal, or no experience of pain; Veasey, 2017), represent current thinking in animal welfare science (NASEM, 2020), though it has been argued that outputs (Gonyou, 1993), and affective states (Duncan, 2004;Petersen & Ryberg, 2014;Veasey, 2017Veasey, , 2022 are perhaps most relevant since they measure how the animal is faring in the environment provided and/or its subjective experience (but see Robbins et al, 2018). The Five Domains model (Mellor, 2017) of animal welfare is currently one of the most widely referenced models of animal welfare and has been adopted by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (Mellor et al, 2015) and suggested by the AZA as an approach for assessing animal welfare.…”

“…There is debate over the extent to which we attempt to actively safeguard the physical welfare of animals versus allowing them more freedoms and behavioral opportunities that pose risks. Veasey (2017Veasey ( , 2022 argues that when we attempt to eliminate risks to physical health and welfare (e.g., physical hazards, pathogens, interactions with conspecifics, or heterospecifics), we are compromising psychological welfare. He compares 'intensive' environments (e.g., typical zoo exhibits) to 'extensive' environments (e.g., larger habitats).…”

Exploration of cultural norms and behavioural beliefs about zoo animal behaviour, welfare, ethics and husbandry practices in a sample of the international zoo community

“…The similarities and difference in beliefs and perceptions of truth presented in this paper form a useful basis for future cooperation and learning, and may go some way to explaining the similarities and differences in zoo husbandry and conservation activities around the world. Increasingly, cooperation and educational activities to support good zoo animal welfare are being developed (e.g., de Mori et al, 2019;Kagan et al, 2015;Walraven & Duffy, 2017) but as demonstrated in this paper, differences in perceptions and standards of zoo animal welfare exist (Veasey, 2022;Ward et al, 2020) and in order for education to be effective, it is important that it is relevant to the pre-existing beliefs of the target audience (Brown, 2009;Stringer et al, 2011Stringer et al, , 2018.…”

Pain Research and Treatment: Policy Implications

“…Animal welfare in commercial and entertainment sectors is often viewed within the contexts of profitability, feasibility, and ethics, with the understanding that welfare considerations may differ between those taking care of the animals and those being entertained by the animals (Veasey, 2022). Understanding pain in animals is important for ethical reasons, and animal welfare policy implementation can aid in instilling public trust in science as well as protecting animals in commercial and entertainment sectors.…”