The Role of Preventative Medicine Programs in Animal Welfare and Wellbeing in Zoological Institutions

Abstract

The overarching goal of a preventative medicine program is to minimize the chances of health problems developing and to maximize the chances of detecting health problems early, in a manner that best benefits the animals and the organization. The traditional paradigms of animal welfare, stemming from the five freedoms and being progressively fleshed out to five domains, the 24/7 approach and so forth do not apply perfectly to zoological collections and less so to animals undergoing veterinary treatments. The physiology and behaviour of animals undergoing veterinary treatments, including therapeutic, quarantine and preventative medicine, are derailed from their normal states and their choices and comfort are de facto limited. A paradigm separating animal wellbeing from animal welfare is necessary to instil clarity of thought and to guide actions in regard to the welfare of animals under human care. Using such a model, preventative medicine programs emerge as a cornerstone of zoo and aquarium animal welfare, all the more if it incorporates modern veterinary and husbandry techniques, including operant conditioning.

Health and Welfare Benefits of Computerized Cognitive Enrichment in California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) at the US Navy Marine Mammal Program

“…EVE sessions have also been used as a means to reinforce valuable husbandry-related behaviors, such as voluntary venipuncture (i.e., blood draw). Preventative medicine programs with professionally managed animals have been important for continued progress in the veterinary field, with operant conditioning predicted to play a large role in the future advancements in the care of animals [30]. The successfulness of such a program largely depends on regular sample collections, and the voluntarily participation of trained animals results in safer and less stressful experiences [22,30].…”

“…Preventative medicine programs with professionally managed animals have been important for continued progress in the veterinary field, with operant conditioning predicted to play a large role in the future advancements in the care of animals [30]. The successfulness of such a program largely depends on regular sample collections, and the voluntarily participation of trained animals results in safer and less stressful experiences [22,30]. Husbandry training has resulted in improved life expectancy for several marine mammal species in professional care, including California sea lions [83].…”

“…Such training allows for safer outcomes in various species (e.g., [25][26][27][28]), and the large size of many marine mammal species has encouraged the incorporation of such training to minimize animal stress and injury from restraint (e.g., [20,22,29]). Through positive reinforcement training, such behaviors can become a stress-free and reliable means of collecting important information [22] that forms the cornerstone of successful preventative medical programs for animals [30]. Most marine mammal welfare research has centered on dolphins, exemplified by the development of the C-Well welfare assessment [31] and the multi-institutional Cetacean Welfare Study [24,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”

A Reexamination of the Relationship between Training Practices and Welfare in the Management of Ambassador Animals

“…A variety of definitions have been developed for animal welfare, all of which concern animals’ physical, emotional, and overall state of mind and health [ 23 ]. Alternatively, some definitions distinguish between wellbeing—what the animal is experiencing and how it is responding to external stimuli—and welfare, which focuses on the external management in place to achieve wellbeing [ 24 ]. While acknowledging these potential differences, we use the term welfare with the understanding that the focus is on achieving optimal animal wellbeing in whatever manner is defined for a specific individual of a certain species in a given setting.…”