The modern zoo has been associated with two major behavioral welfare advances: (a) the use of training to increase voluntary husbandry care, and (b) the implementation of environmental enrichment to promote naturalistic behaviors. Both practices have...
An emphasis on ensuring animal welfare is growing in zoo and aquarium associations around the globe. This has led to a focus on measures of welfare outcomes for individual animals. Observations and interpretations of behavior are the most widely used...
Animal ambassador encounters (AAE), where visitors come into close-contact with animals, are popular in zoos and are advocated as promoting connection to wild species. However, educational and animal-welfare implications are relatively unknown. We co...
Behavioural research in zoos is commonplace and is used in the diagnosis and treatment of potential husbandry and management challenges. Robust methods that allow valid data collection and analysis constitute an evidence-based approach to animal care...
Modern zoos and aquariums have evolved greatly since the end of the Second World War, to become centres of conservation excellence and scientific institutions for the study of animal behaviour, ecology, husbandry management. Whilst the impact of zoos...
Prolonged and repetitive COVID-19 facility closures have led to an abrupt cessation of visitors within UK and Irish zoos for variable periods since March 2020. This study sought to increase understanding of the impact of closures and reopenings on an...
In recent decades, zoos have been increasingly transformed into education centers with the goal of raising awareness about environmental issues and providing environmental education. Probably the simplest and most widespread environmental education p...
Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have a worldwide distribution in temperate and tropical waters and often inhabit estuarine environments, indicating their ability to maintain homeostasis in low salinity for limited periods of time. Epidermal...
Zoological institutions, which were once exclusively for entertainment, are now leaders of wildlife conservation. This centuries-long transition was punctuated by key milestones that reformed wild animal exploitation into a mission of protection. Mod...
In dolphinaria, dolphins and their trainers build relationships and bonds due to the nature, closeness and repeatability of their interactions, hence training sessions are deemed appropriate to evaluate dolphin welfare. Qualitative Behavioural Assess...
Animal welfare is a priority across accredited zoological institutions; however, historically, research has been prioritized for mammals. Bird-focused studies accounted for less than 10% of welfare research in zoos and aquariums over the last ten yea...
Epigenetics, specifically DNA methylation, allows for the estimation of animal age from blood or remotely sampled skin. This multi-tissue epigenetic age estimation clock uses 110 longitudinal samples from 34 Navy bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncat...
Visitor presence has been shown to affect the behavior of animals in zoos. However, studies to date have not included a wide range of taxonomic groupings, and thus, the effect is poorly understood for many species. Here, we compared the behavior of N...
To mitigate the effects of anthropogenic environmental impacts, conservation education (CE) aims to increase public awareness of biodiversity and encourage the uptake of pro-environmental behaviours (PEB). One way of achieving this goal is the use of...
Botanic gardens are increasingly important agents of plant research and conservation. A large number of botanic gardens have been established throughout the globe since the mid-20th century to pursue new socio-environmental missions. Others, with his...
Observational behavior research is an important activity for zoos and aquariums, often being conducted to provide insights into welfare and guide management decisions. This research relies on standardized protocols to ensure consistent data collectio...
Visitors to zoos can have positive, neutral, or negative relationships with zoo animals. This makes human–animal interactions (HAIs) an essential component of welfare and an important consideration in species selection for zoo exhibits and in e...
Measurement of zoo animal welfare states enables improvement to husbandry and management to be evidence-based and implemented according to species’ needs. Theoretical welfare concepts are often discussed, and whilst it is helpful to ensure wide...
Animal sounds are commonly used by humans to infer information about their motivations and their health, yet, acoustic data is an underutilized welfare biomarker especially for aquatic animals. Here, we describe an acoustic monitoring system that is...
Euphorbia resinifera (Zaggûm or Tikiut) is an endemic species of Morocco that grows in the Middle Atlas Mountain range. It is used in folk medicine to treat several diseases, especially various types of cancer. Aim of the review: In this review...
Inspiring visitors to engage in conservation-related behaviour following a zoo visit is a primary objective for most zoos. Animal–visitor interactive (AVI) experiences are often central to this goal. Yet, these interactive experiences are insufficien...
YouTube is the dominant online video-sharing platform and offers zoos an opportunity to engage a vast audience with conservation content. As there is limited research evaluating how zoos currently utilize YouTube, we cataloged and evaluated the conte...
Captive grizzly bears, like their wild counterparts, engage in considerable variability in their seasonal and daily activity. We documented the year-long activity of two grizzly bears located at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. We found...
From ants to zebras, animals are influenced by the behavior of others. At the simplest level, social support can reduce neophobia, increasing animals’ exploration of novel spaces, foods, and other environmental stimuli. Animals can also learn new ski...
Penguins are considered among the most popular animals for zoo and aquarium visitors to observe. Swimming is considered a desirable activity, both for the visitor experience and the welfare of the penguins. However, little is known about the amount o...
This review commentary focuses on traditional management practices and facility design with suggested improvements in non-public primate management areas, often called “back-of-house”, (henceforth BOH) in zoos, sanctuaries, and research f...
Although the use of fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGCM) measurements as non-invasive biomarkers for the stress response in mammals has increased, few studies have been conducted in odontocetes. We investigated if animal sex, age, pregnancy or cont...
We used the COVID-19 pandemic closure at the Saint Louis Zoo to examine visitor effects on space use and glucocorticoid levels in banteng, grizzly bears, polar bears, and western lowland gorillas. The study was divided into four six-week phases: clos...
People’s attitudes toward wildlife may impact their behaviors in support of conservation. We surveyed people in the United States to determine if gender, age, or visual contexts commonly seen in zoos impacted wildlife attitudes and perceptions...
Many botanic gardens are flourishing, and many others can learn from those leading the way; at the same time, all can form new allegiances informed by service research. We developed this paper to plant seeds for different stakeholders interested in p...
Whether or not primates are behaviorally affected by the presence of visitors in a zoo setting is a question of great relevance to zoo animal well-being. The situation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic provided an unusual opportunity to examine how th...
Scientific research is the main driver to push forward and disseminate botanical knowledge. Despite many institutions having this fundamental aim as a core activity, many of them do not have a complete set of facilities, expertise, staff, and resourc...
Visitor effect studies have been of keen interest for decades, but there have been only anecdotal opportunities to investigate the impact of the prolonged absence of visitors on animal welfare in zoos. In some zoos, bears are actively involved in ani...
There is a growing need for animal care institutions to house multiple bull elephants as the population increases due to transfers from private ownership and the births of male offspring in managed care. Elephants in North American, European, and Lat...
Environmental enrichment has been shown to enhance the behavioural repertoire and reduce the occurrence of abnormal behaviours, particularly in zoo-housed mammals. However, evidence of its effectiveness in reptiles is lacking. Previously, it was beli...
Conservation organizations with common missions can find strength and synergy in collaboration. Collaboration can also be challenging, especially finding the right partnerships or organizations to lead. Within the “ecosystem” of conservat...
From its foundations in agricultural science, zoo animal nutrition has developed into a biologically informed, evidence-based discipline. However, some facets of nutrition still make use of a more traditional approach, such as the field of zoo presen...
Invasive alien plant species (IAPS) pose one of the most significant threats to native biodiversity. Swietenia macrophylla, or big leaf mahogany, is among the most threatening invasive plants in the Philippines. This article aimed to formally documen...
Visitors are a prominent feature of the zoo environment and lives of zoo animals. The COVID-19 pandemic led to repeated and extended closure periods for zoos worldwide. This unique period in zoological history enabled the opportunity to investigate t...
Exploring the interaction between humans and animals has become increasingly important in the evaluation of well-being for species housed in zoos and aquaria. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the global closure of zoos and aquaria to visitors. Chester Zoo,...
The space use of captive animals has been reliably used as a tool to measure animal welfare in recent years. However, most analyses of space use focus primarily on terrestrial animals, with very little emphasis placed on the space use of aquatic anim...
This study investigates how virtual reality (VR) experiences influence tourists’ intentions to visit Da Lat, Vietnam, as a botanical destination, emphasizing the mediating roles of enjoyment and immersion. By integrating flow theory with the In...
In order to be successful and have high standards of animal welfare, modern zoos strive to regularly modify, improve, and build animal enclosures and visitor areas. However, these periods of development could result in temporary durations of sub-opti...
Locating a vocalizing animal can be useful in many fields of bioacoustics and behavioral research, and is often done in the wild, covering large areas. In zoos, however, the application of this method becomes particularly difficult, because, on the o...
The conservation status of great apes (chimpanzees Pan troglodytes, gorillas Gorilla sp., orangutans Pongo sp., and bonobos Pan paniscus) is grave and zoological institutions are vital for maintaining numbers of these species and educating the public...
Historically, behaviour of zoo housed species during hours of limited staff and visitor presence has been poorly studied, largely due to the lack of appropriate technology. Advances in digital monitoring equipment and facility design by European elep...
The Sierra Madre Mountain Range (SMMR) is the backbone of the Luzon Islands that contains a high concentration of highly important ecological resources distributed among the 68 protected areas therewith. The present study aimed to assess the composit...
Reptile behaviour and welfare are understudied in comparison with mammals. In this study, behavioural data on three species (Astrochelys radiata, Stigmochelys pardalis, Aldabrachelys gigantea) of tortoises were recorded before and after an environmen...
Cognitive enrichment for professionally managed species has become more prevalent in recent years in both zoological and research settings and has been encouraged as a means of welfare enhancement. However, the task’s difficulty must be specifi...
The interest in the welfare of zoo animals, from both the public and the scientific community, has long been biased towards mammals. However, growing evidence of the complex behavioural repertoires of less charismatic animals, such as reptiles, revea...
