Optimal Wellbeing of Ageing Wild Animals in Human Care
Many wild animals in human care live longer than their wild counterparts because of modern care and wellbeing programmes, leading to a growing demographic of ageing animals. This handbook is dedicated to their care. As an innovative expert publication, it integrates all aspects of professional care, including topics such as behaviour, ethics, environmental enrichment, training, […]
Serum cortisol concentrations associated with artificial insemination events in an African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
Elephants are among the most charismatic and controversial species in modern zoo collections. Advanced cognitive and emotional capabilities have been attributed to elephants. As a result, good zoo management includes monitoring and enhancing the well-being of individual animals. To this purpose, we have assessed the serum cortisol concentration (SCC) of an adult female African elephant […]
A bibliometric analysis of past and emergent trends in animal welfare science
A bibliometric analysis was undertaken to chart the development of animal welfare (AW) science as a whole, and of the individuals, organisations and countries that have had most academic impact to date. Publication data were collected from the Web of Science for the year range 1968–2017 and by-hand pre-processing of the data was undertaken to […]
Understanding the multiple conceptions of animal welfare
Academics working on animal welfare typically consider the animal’s affective state (eg the experience of pain), biological functioning (eg the presence of injuries), and sometimes naturalness (eg access to pasture), but it is unclear how these different factors are weighed in different cases. We argue that progress can be informed by systematically observing how ordinary […]
Play behaviour in nonhuman animals and the animal welfare issue
The mission of defining animal welfare indicators is methodologically difficult, limited, and possibly impossible. A promising alternative, however, to evaluate suitable environmental conditions is the assessment of play behaviour. In the present review, we summarise the general aspects of play behaviour in nonhuman animals and propose its use as a potential indicator of animal welfare. […]
Environmental enrichment: A GAP analysis
GAP analyses are tools used to inform us about the short-comings of a scientific area or necessities in social–economic problems. In the last 20 years, environmental enrichment as an area of scientific investigation has come of age; this can be clearly seen by the number of publications produced in this area. For example, a search […]
Animal-based welfare monitoring: using keeper ratings as an assessment tool
Abstract 10.1002/zoo.20281.abs Zoological institutions are in urgent need of identifying and implementing welfare assessment tools that allow for ongoing, quantitative monitoring of individual animal well-being. Although the American Zoological Association’s (AZA) Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) promotes the use of such tools in internal review processes, current approaches to institutional welfare assessment are resource-based and outline […]
GAPs in the study of zoo and wild animal welfare
Abstract 10.1002/zoo.20285.abs 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© database using the keyword combination “Animal welfare, Zoo* and wild” in the topic field. In total we downloaded 1,125 abstracts, which […]
The role of zoos in conservation and their responsibilities for the well-being of wild animals
Noninvasive assessment of adrenal activity associated with husbandry and behavioral factors in the North American clouded leopard population
Abstract 10.1002/zoo.10005.abs The North American clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) population is far from self-sustaining. Breeding success is poor and behavioral problems (i.e., fur-plucking, tail-chewing, excessive hiding or pacing, and intersexual aggression that results in mate killing) are common. This study was undertaken to investigate whether some of these problems may be indicators of chronic stress […]