An exploratory study of British Millennials’ attitudes to the use of live animals in events

Marinova, Elena; Fox, Dorothy

doi:10.4324/9781003145677-11

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…To diminish this ambiguity, which has been identified as a source of public concern and skepticism in respect of animal based attractions (Marinova & Fox, 2019), it is likely useful to consider animal welfare through the lens of happiness (see Broom, 2007; Veasey 2017; Webb et al, 2019). Many will claim that to do so is anthropomorphic, counterproductive, and even dangerous (see J. D. Rose, 2007; Tannenbaum, 2002) and while there are of course legitimate concerns in assuming that which makes a human happy is the same as that which makes an animal happy, it does not follow that happiness is unique to humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While improvements in animal welfare provisioning over the last half‐century within most accredited ‘western' zoos, and likely many more besides would be hard to dispute (see Kitchener & MacDonald, 2002; Finch et al, 2020; Tidière et al, 2016), these improvements have likely at best, kept pace with a growing awareness of, and concern for animal welfare among the general populace (see Marinova & Fox, 2019; Robbins et al, 2018; L. E. Webb et al, 2019). Furthermore, it is also likely that zoos and aquariums have made more fundamental improvements in the provisioning of physical wellbeing than they have in delivering psychological wellbeing (Veasey, 2017) with most species now living longer in zoos than they would in the wild (see Tidière et al, 2016), but with stereotypies and other abnormal behaviours still being routine for many species (see Clubb & Mason, 2003, 2007; Mason & Veasey, 2009a, 2009b, 2010; Swaisgood & Shepherdson, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the increased awareness of and sympathy for the welfare and conservation of wild animals around the world (see Marinova & Fox, 2019; Robbins et al, 2018; Webb et al, 2019), wild animal populations have nonetheless collapsed with one million species now facing extinction (United Nations, 2021). While captive breeding has reportedly played a role more than half of the cases where extinction has been prevented for birds and mammals (Bolam et al, 2020), concerns about the welfare of wild animals in captivity jeopardises the social license of zoos and aquariums, threatening this increasingly important conservation tool (Clubb & Mason, 2003, 2007; Mellor et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rose & Parsons, 2019; Wolfensohn et al, 2018). However, arguably the biggest constraint on the systematic advancement in animal welfare provisioning across the sector is the lack of a universal conception of animal welfare (see Fraser, 2008a; Hewson, 2003; Marinova & Fox, 2019; Robbins et al, 2018; Veasey, 2017) and a tendency instead, to establish priorities focused more on how animal welfare is measured rather than how animals experience it (Veasey, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Veasey

2022

Zoo Biology

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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.

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