The Anchoring Model as a Tool to Improve Visitors’ Perceptions of Zoos

Sampaio, Marilian Boachá; Schiel, Nicola; Souto, Antonio

doi:10.1080/08927936.2021.1898220

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Changes to policy that regulate zoo operations nationally and internationally is placing animal welfare as a key consideration when captive wild species are managed by humans. Healthy animals, performing species appropriate behaviors are more likely to have a positive influence on zoo visitors ( Miller, 2012 ; Godinez et al, 2013 ; Sampaio et al, 2021 ) and this is supportive of the zoo’s key educational and engagement outputs. As different zoo-housed species elicit different emotional responses in visitors, and such emotional responses can be overwhelmingly positive ( Myers et al, 2004 ), any perception of animal welfare is important for developing positive emotional states in zoo visitors.…”

Section: Benefits To Humans and Animalsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Expanding the role of the future zoo: Wellbeing should become the fifth aim for modern zoos

Rose

Riley

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Zoos and aquariums have an enormous global reach and hence an ability to craft meaningful conservation action for threatened species, implement educational strategies to encourage human engagement, development and behavior change, and conduct scientific research to enhance the husbandry, roles and impacts of the living collection. The recreational role of the zoo is also vast- people enjoy visiting the zoo and this is often a shared experience amongst family and friends. Evaluating how the zoo influences this “captive audience” and extending its reach to include a compassionate approach to animals and people can further enhance the mission, value, and relevance of their work. The modern zoo’s current aims—Conservation, Education, Research and Recreation—provide useful foundations for the activities that zoos conduct at a local and national level. However, to improve sustainability of their actions and outcomes, we feel that Wellbeing should become the fifth aim of the modern zoo for the future- both from an animal perspective (ensuring that populations are managed according to prevailing behavioral needs) and from a human perspective (enhancing access to nature, promoting planetary friendly behavior changes and ways of living, and advancing the wellbeing of the zoo’s workforce). This paper provides discussion and review of how Wellbeing is already a substantial part of what zoos work on as well as posing the idea of altering the Recreation aim of the zoo to one of Engagement, which potentially is more measurable and therefore can allow zoo researchers and managers further options for the collection of evidence on the local and global reach of their zoo’s aims. Education, Engagement, Conservation, Research and Wellbeing provide a more complete picture of the roles of the modern zoo for the animals (both in situ and ex situ), human visitors and workforce, and to society more widely.

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Section: Benefits To Humans and Animalsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Expanding the role of the future zoo: Wellbeing should become the fifth aim for modern zoos

Rose

Riley

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…The effect that an anchor can have on members of the public when used in food animal welfare campaigns has not been explored. However, Sampaio et al (2021) argued that anchoring can be an effective tool to improve animal welfare in zoos by releasing videos of zoos with high animal welfare standards to the public, hence evoking negative reactions and requests for change from people when visiting zoos with lower standards. We also encourage future work to investigate whether knowledge of another animal industry translated to greater acceptance of current management practices in dairy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public attitudes toward different management scenarios for “surplus” dairy calves

Ritter

Hötzel

Keyserlingk

2022

Journal of Dairy Science

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As awareness grows, some traditional management practices used by the dairy industry will be questioned by members of the public. Therefore, to maintain its social license to operate, the industry needs to account for public perspectives when developing future directions. Our aims were to assess attitudes of members of the public toward the management of surplus calves not needed for milk production on dairy farms, and to assess how specific calf management practices might influence these attitudes. A mixed-methods questionnaire was developed and distributed online in the United States and in Canada. After reading an introductory paragraph stating that surplus calves are generally used for meat production, participants were randomly allocated into groups and read 1 of 4 scenarios that described different surplus calf management practices in more detail. The scenarios followed a 2 × 2 factorial design, and the factors that differed were the calf's age at slaughter (≤2 wk vs. ≥12 mo), and whether the calf was separated from the cow at birth or sometime later. Data representative of key census demographics from 998 participants were analyzed. Quantitative data analysis included descriptive statistics, nonparametric tests, generalized partial credit models, and linear regression models. For qualitative data, we used reliability thematic analysis. Overall, participants were slightly positive in their attitudes toward the introductory paragraph, and participants in the groups in which the calf was slaughtered after 12 mo of age often specifically linked their acceptance of the practice to the fact that the calves' lives had a purpose (i.e., contributing meaningfully to the beef supply). In contrast, only 3% of the participants regarded a slaughter age of <1 mo as appropriate. Participants in the groups in which calves were slaughtered within 2 wk after birth had more negative attitudes, and these attitudes declined even further when the calf was separated from the cow soon after birth. Besides the 2 main factors (age at slaughter and cow-calf separation), information on pasture access, the healthiness of the meat from the calves, and the exact age of slaughter were also considered important by participants to make a more informed decision about their view on surplus calf management. Overall, our results indicate that failure by the dairy industry to provide assurances that excess dairy calves have a reasonable length of life and that this life has purpose (i.e., contributes to the beef supply chain) places the industry at odds with public values. Also, as awareness grows, the practice of early cow-calf separation will be increasingly questioned by the public; failure to begin discussions on this topic will increase the risk that future decisions about this topic will be made in the absence of the farmer.

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“…In turn, positive emotional experiences and satisfaction were pivotal factors in the decision making of zoo visitors when considering revisiting [147], and emotional experience may also impact conservation learning [148]. In contrast, negative perceptions of welfare were reported to reduce the likelihood of visiting [2,9,56,67,106,[149][150][151][152], and donating to conservation efforts [2,88,103,153]. Yet, the qualitative data presented in several of the reviewed studies suggest that negative perceptions of welfare may not always impact visit likelihood.…”

Section: Welfare Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does perception of zoo animal welfare influence public attitudes, experiences, and behavioural intentions? A mixed-methods systematic review

Phillips,

Maréchal,

Ventura

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The public expects zoos to provide high standards of animal care. Failing to meet public expectations can have detrimental impacts on public experiences and behaviour, which in turn can compromise zoos’ organisational goals relative to conservation and public education. Despite increased research interest in understanding how the public perceives animal welfare in zoo settings, to date the factors that influence such perceptions are still unclear. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a mixed methods systematic review using a PRISMA approach to identify the factors that influence public perceptions of zoo animal welfare and the potential ramifications of these perceptions on public attitudes, experiences, and behaviours. A total of 115 peer reviewed journal articles were analysed: 43 provided qualitative data for thematic synthesis and 85 reported quantitative data for content analysis. Three main groupings were identified that impacted public perception of animal welfare in zoos: human, animal, and environmental factors. Within the human factors, ethical justifications, direct interactions, and inappropriate visitor behaviours were important. For the animal factors, animals’ behaviour, apparent health status, and the suitability of certain taxa for captivity were found to be key. Finally, several aspects of the environment -- conditions of the facility, the exhibit, and welfare-related educational material --were influential. Overall, negative perceptions of animal welfare resulted in negative visitor attitudes towards zoos, detrimentally impacted experiences, and lowered likelihood to visit zoos and engagement in conservation efforts. The articles in this review provided valuable insights into the factors affecting public perception of zoo animal welfare; however, future research may benefit from a more structured approach to increase comparability and validity of results across studies. We conclude by proposing seven recommendations to increase the robustness and validity of future research in this area.

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The Anchoring Model as a Tool to Improve Visitors’ Perceptions of Zoos

Cited by 8 publications

References 73 publications

Expanding the role of the future zoo: Wellbeing should become the fifth aim for modern zoos

Expanding the role of the future zoo: Wellbeing should become the fifth aim for modern zoos

Public attitudes toward different management scenarios for “surplus” dairy calves

How does perception of zoo animal welfare influence public attitudes, experiences, and behavioural intentions? A mixed-methods systematic review

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