A Guide to Managing Zoo Animal Welfare

Comprehensive reference detailing behavioural assessment techniques, behavioural approaches, and practical tools for animal welfare across different species.

A Guide to Managing Zoo Animal Welfare delivers a step-by-step guide to behavioural assessment approaches, techniques, and tools for animal welfare with an emphasis on animals living in zoos and aquaria. The authors develop a unique “balance-based” approach that can be used to assess and enhance the welfare of a diverse range of species. Backed by extensive scientific literature, this book also provides foundational context to help readers understand why the authors give these recommendations and guidelines.

This book is divided into three sections. Section I details background concepts and goals, discussing the animal mind through neuroscience, psychology, and behaviour, even questioning wild animal behaviour’s validity as a template for captive animal behaviour. Section II details the core behavioural Needs of animals: investigating, acquiring rewards, and exerting control. Section III explains how to practically assess if animals’ Needs are met and address deficiencies, covering topics like food, space, and social rewards, and methods to make environments dynamic.

A Guide to Managing Zoo Animal Welfare includes information on:

• Proximate and ultimate reasoning for the existence of each of the Needs
• Welfare benefits of meeting the Needs, including positive affect, maintaining homeostasis, passing on genes, and learning through reinforcement
• The highly variable personalities of individual animals and different animal species, as well as why personality is an important facet of animal welfare
• A guide for assessing animal welfare using the Three Needs model

Presenting highly unique insight and a novel approach, A Guide to Managing Zoo Animal Welfare is an essential learning resource for professional animal behaviourists in zoos and aquaria, researchers in animal behaviour and animal welfare, and students in veterinary sciences and zoology programmes of study.