Welfare, husbandry and veterinary care of wild animals in captivity: changes in attitudes, progress in knowledge and techniques

Kirkwood, James

doi:10.1111/j.1748-1090.2003.tb02072.x

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Greenwood et al [ 16 ] found that ZIs “ may not be fully cognisant of the special needs of all species ”. This is not surprising, since there is a lack of biological and field data for many species held in zoos [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. This makes it difficult to assess their basic welfare standards, let alone special needs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Assessment of Animal Welfare in British Zoos by Government-Appointed Inspectors

Draper

2012

Animals

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Simple SummarySince 1984, British zoos have been required to meet the animal welfare standards set out under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. Zoos are regularly assessed by government-appointed inspectors, who report on animal welfare standards in each zoo. This is the first analysis of those reports from a representative sample of British zoos. We highlight a number of concerns about the inspection process itself, and identify areas where changes would lead to improvements in both the inspection process and our ability to monitor animal welfare standards in zoos.AbstractWe analysed the reports of government-appointed inspectors from 192 zoos between 2005–2008 to provide the first review of how animal welfare was assessed in British zoos since the enactment of the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. We examined the effects of whether or not a veterinarian was included in the inspection team, type of inspection, licence status of the zoo and membership of a zoo association on the inspectors’ assessments of animal welfare standards in five areas that approximate to the Five Freedoms. At least 11% of full licence inspections did not comply with the legal requirement for two inspectors. The inspectors’ reports were unclear as to how animal welfare was assessed, whether all animals or only a sub-sample had been inspected, and were based predominantly on welfare inputs rather than outcomes. Of 9,024 animal welfare assessments across the 192 zoos, 7,511 (83%) were graded as meeting the standards, 782 (9%) as substandard and the rest were not graded. Of the 192 zoos, 47 (24%) were assessed as meeting all the animal welfare standards. Membership of a zoo association was not associated with a higher overall assessment of animal welfare standards, and specialist collections such as Farm Parks and Other Bird collections performed least well. We recommend a number of changes to the inspection process that should lead to greater clarity in the assessment of animal welfare in British zoos.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Assessment of Animal Welfare in British Zoos by Government-Appointed Inspectors

Draper

2012

Animals

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“…Of course, behavior alone does not always give us a comprehensive insight into an animal’s welfare state—for example, an animal may be behaving normally but may be physically unhealthy and thus its welfare may be compromised, but despite this potential limitation, an animal’s behavior often gives us important information about how that animal feels. Whilst traditionally zoos have focused on prioritizing the health of their animals, there is a recognition that health is not synonymous with welfare and that what matters to the animal is how it feels [ 48 ].…”

Section: Zoo Animal Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Behaviour-Based Husbandry—A Holistic Approach to the Management of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviors

Bacon

2018

Animals

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Simple SummaryThis paper outlines some of the barriers to implementing improved zoo animal welfare in practice, and proposes a new strategy for the development of behavioral husbandry routines focused on the management and mitigation of abnormal repetitive behaviors. Focusing on enhancing zoo animal welfare by integrating aspects of ecology, ethology and clinical animal behavior into a practical and comprehensive approach to behavior-based husbandry.AbstractThe field of zoo animal welfare science has developed significantly over recent years. However despite this progress in terms of scientific research, globally, zoo animals still face many welfare challenges. Recently, animal welfare frameworks such as the five domains or five needs have been developed and suggested to improve the welfare of zoo animals, but without practical guidance, such tools may remain abstract from the daily experience of zoo animals. Similarly specific practical strategies such as those for enrichment development exist, but their lack of holistic integration with other aspects of animal husbandry and behavioral medicine means that overall, good zoo animal welfare may still be lacking. This paper outlines some of the barriers to implementing improved zoo animal welfare in practice, and proposes a new strategy for the development of behavioral husbandry routines focused on the management and mitigation of abnormal repetitive behaviors. Focusing on enhancing zoo animal welfare by integrating aspects of ecology, ethology and clinical animal behavior into a practical and comprehensive approach to behavior-based husbandry.

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“…Among these known difficulties, the requirements for physical health and behavioural anomalies (e.g. stereotypy) have received much attention (Kirkwood 2003). However, even if captive animals are healthy and show no behavioural anomalies, they may adapt genetically to their captive environment (for a review on adaptation in captive breeding programmes see Williams and Hoffman 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ex situ conservation genetics: a review of molecular studies on the genetic consequences of captive breeding programmes for endangered animal species

2011

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Captive breeding has become an important tool in species conservation programmes. Current management strategies for ex situ populations are based on theoretical models, which have mainly been tested in model species or assessed using studbook data. During recent years an increasing number of molecular genetic studies have been published on captive populations of several endangered species. However, a comprehensive analysis of these studies is still outstanding. Here, we present a review of the published literature on ex situ conservation genetics with a focus on molecular studies. We analysed 188 publications which either presented empirical studies using molecular markers (105), studbook analyses (26), theoretical work (38), or tested the genetic effects of management strategies using model species (19). The results show that inbreeding can be minimized by a thorough management of captive populations. There seems to be a minimum number of founders (15) and a minimum size of a captive population (100) necessary in order to minimize a loss of genetic diversity. Optimally, the founders should be unrelated and new founders should be integrated into the captive population successively. We recommend that genetic analyses should generally precede and accompany ex situ conservation projects in order to avoid inbreeding and outbreeding depression. Furthermore, many of the published studies do not provide all the relevant parameters (founder size, captive population size, H o , H e , inbreeding coefficients). We, therefore, propose that a general standard for the presentation of genetic studies should be established, which would allow integration of the data into a global database.

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Welfare, husbandry and veterinary care of wild animals in captivity: changes in attitudes, progress in knowledge and techniques

Cited by 19 publications

References 12 publications

The Assessment of Animal Welfare in British Zoos by Government-Appointed Inspectors

The Assessment of Animal Welfare in British Zoos by Government-Appointed Inspectors

Behaviour-Based Husbandry—A Holistic Approach to the Management of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviors

Ex situ conservation genetics: a review of molecular studies on the genetic consequences of captive breeding programmes for endangered animal species

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