GAPs in the study of zoo and wild animal welfare

Abstract

To investigate the science of animal welfare for zoo and wild animals in the period from 1966 to 2007, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of abstracts downloaded from The Web of Science((c)) database using the keyword combination "Animal welfare, Zoo* and wild" in the topic field. In total we downloaded 1,125 abstracts, which were classified into the following categories: year of publication; environment of the study (e.g., zoo) or theoretical; area of knowledge (e.g., conservation in situ); number of experimental animals used; species; addresses of authors; taxonomic classification; publication language; journal name; number of citations received. Since 1990, there has been a rapid increase in the number of articles published in this area of animal welfare. One worrying result was that published articles were predominately of a theoretical nature (58.65%, N=563). Most of the articles were published by authors either in Europe (47.43%, N=480) or North America (37.65%, N=381) and written in English (87.71%, N=971). The majority of experimental studies were conducted with mammals (75.92%, N=391), and had small sample sizes (N=7 for zoo-based studies). In terms of impact factor (IF), the journals in this study had a median factor equivalent to that for the area of biological sciences (median IF=1.013). Little knowledge cross-over from farm animal welfare was found (only four articles) in this study. In conclusion, zoo and wild animal welfare as a science may benefit from a greater interaction with farm animal welfare.

Relationship between behavior, adrenal activity, and environment in zoo‐housed western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

“…Although significant progress has been made over the past decade to empirically investigate the validity, reliability, and feasibility of different welfare assessment methods in zoos, more research is encouraged [e.g. Goulart et al, ; Hill and Broom, ; Watters and Wielebnowski, ].…”

Mating system, feeding type andex situconservation effort determine life expectancy in captive ruminants

“…Important questions arise from the call for 'highest standards of animal welfare' in zoos: how can we measure welfare, and how can husbandry success be improved [4]? Even though an increasing number of articles have been published in this field, most articles are theoretical [5]. Behavioural patterns (occurrence of stereotypies), metabolic parameters (blood and faecal corticosteroid concentrations), health status (prevalence and incidence of diseases) and life-history data (breeding success, life expectancy (LE)) were discussed as feasible indicators of wellbeing in zoos [6,7].…”

The use of animal‐based measures to assess animal welfare in the EU – state of art of the last 10 years of activities and analysis of the gaps. Preparatory work

“…animal species; animal categories; scenarios; etc.) considered in the data-sets of Scientific literature, EU-funded projects and QAS for the sheets named "General concept of ABMs" (referring to the use of the general ABMs terms) and for the sheets named "Specific ABMs" (referring to the use of specific ABMs) (Schetini de Azevedo et al, 2007;Anderson et al, 2008;Goulart et al, 2009;).…”

“…Appropriate statistical tests (e.g. a chi square test or Fisher's exact test), when feasible, were applied in order to identify possible differences in the distribution of items among the different "General concepts of ABMs" (Schetini de Azevedo et al, 2007;Anderson et al, 2008;Goulart et al, 2009) Frequencies of the terms used as synonyms of general ABMs one (e.g. Animal Based or Animal-Based (AB), Animal Related or Animal-Related (AR) Welfare Outcome (WO), Outcome Based or Outcome-Based (OB)) were investigated.…”

“…Additionally, the comparison among the general terms (AB, AR, WO, OB) regarding the total citations was performed using non-parametric tests. This approach considered only the "General concept of ABMs" sheet for the scientific literature data-set (Schetini de Azevedo et al, 2007;Anderson et al, 2008;Goulart et al, 2009).…”