West Nile virus (WNV) is known to cause disease and death in humans and various animals worldwide. WNV has circulated in Germany since 2018. In 2020, four birds tested positive for the WNV genome at Zoopark Erfurt (Thuringia). Moreover, virus neutral...
Avian influenza (AI) is endemic and frequently causes seasonal outbreaks in winter in Bangladesh due to high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 and low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H9N2. Among avian influenza A viruses (AIV), H5, H7, and H9...
Birds are the most speciose of all taxonomic groups currently housed in zoos, but this species diversity is not always matched by their inclusion in research output in the peer-reviewed literature. This large and diverse captive population is an exce...
Usutu virus (USUV) and West Nile virus (WNV) are known to cause diseases and mortalities in bird populations. Since 2010/2011, USUV has circulated in Germany and spread nationwide, while WNV was only introduced into East Germany in 2018. The zoologic...
Captive bird populations in zoological institutions face unique disease risks due to close interspecies contact and human interaction. Vaccination is widely used as a prophylactic measure. However, most available vaccines are developed for poultry an...
Zoo collection management is increasingly driven by meeting global conservation needs. Many avian species have experienced population declines throughout Southeast Asia, underscoring the importance of ex situ conservation in these countries. We focus...
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...
Avian malaria is a worldwide distributed, vector-born disease of birds caused by parasites of the order Haemosporida. There is a lack of knowledge about the presence and pathogenetic role of Haemosporida in Psittacidae. Here we report a case of avian...
Mosquito-borne virus transmission continues to increase in Europe, with the emergence of Usutu virus (USUV) in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 and the geographical expansion of West Nile virus (WNV) to more northerly latitudes. Other mosquito-borne v...
Infections with the zoonotic pathogen Yersinia (Y.) pseudotuberculosis are commonly causing clinical diseases and acute deaths in various mammal and bird species in zoos. These findings prompted us to conduct a targeted study that included animals of...
Animals use specific behaviors and skills to overcome challenges and access resources. Environmental enrichment is provided to animals in human care to both promote species-appropriate behaviors and reduce undesired behaviors. Feather pecking in bird...
Unusual or extraordinary circumstances can cause change to normal husbandry regimes and daily care of managed animals. Increased biosecurity due to disease risk, for example, results in animals experiencing restrictions. Outbreaks of Highly Pathogeni...
This paper discusses paradoxes in our relationship to and treatment of birds in captive and conservation contexts. The paper identifies modern and new challenges that arise from declining bird numbers worldwide. Such challenges have partly changed zo...
Avian influenza is a viral infection which affects mainly the respiratory system of birds. The H9N2 considered as low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) virus and continuously circulating in poultry flocks causing enormous economic losses to poultry i...
Data on zoo enclosure usage provide meaningful evaluation of husbandry and welfare but for social species, group-level data may not capture individual occupancy preferences. Determining zone occupancy using group data may give an inaccurate assessmen...
Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae pose a significant public health risk. As zoos grow in popularity, exotic animals come into closer contact with humans, making them potential reservoirs of ESBLs. However, data on E...
Zoo enclosure design, and housing and husbandry protocols, will always be a compromise between what a species has evolved to do and what is possible to offer in a human-created environment. For some species, behaviours that are commonly performed in...
Monitoring of infectious diseases is one of the most important pillars of preventive medicine in zoos. Screening for parasitic and bacterial infections is important to keep animals and equipment safe from pathogens that may pose a risk to animal and...
Foot lesions are a highly prevalent phenomenon among zoo-housed flamingos, with up to 99.8% of birds affected. These lesions are a recognized welfare concern, increasing the likelihood of bacterial infections, and even septicemia. Although several ri...
Moving zoo animals to new enclosures is a normal part of zoo management, but little is known about how animals respond to these changes. Understanding how species adjust after a move can help zoos improve animal management and support smoother transi...
The burden of gastrointestinal parasites in zoo animals has serious implications for their welfare and the health of veterinarians and visitors. Zhuyuwan Zoo is located in the eastern suburb of Yangzhou city in eastern China, in which over 40 species...
Flight is part of the natural behaviours of most bird species, and as a consequence, flight restraint in zoos, even for those species that are primarily ground-dwelling, encounters increasing animal welfare concerns. While previous studies on greater...
We analysed data collected at the Innsbruck Alpenzoo (Tyrol, Austria) over 33 years (1988–2020). We examined data from 4542 wild birds of 137 species that were rescued in the increasingly urbanised and densely populated Inn Valley around Innsbr...
We 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 wh...
The pinioning of birds was previously one of the most-accepted forms of mutilation in zoos. Despite a lack of knowledge on the effects of deflighting procedures with regard to the well-being of deflighted birds, pelicans are often reversibly deflight...
Avian malaria parasites are widespread parasites transmitted by Culicidae insects belonging to different genera. Even though several studies have been conducted recently, there is still a lack of information about potential vectors of Plasmodium para...
Tumors in birds can be caused by a variety of factors such as species, age, sex, virus, chemicals, and environment. In particular, tumors are a major cause of death in long-lived birds such as parrots and zoo birds. A male sandhill crane that was bre...
Tropical forest hornbills display complex social and reproductive behaviours that make them hard to reliably and frequently breed in ex situ facilities. This study investigated potential behavioural indicators of pair compatibility for two wreathed h...
Air quality in zoo premises is insufficiently investigated, yet scientific interest is growing. In these places, air pollutants such as microorganisms may represent health risk for both animals and exposed people. Thus, maintaining good air quality i...
West Nile virus (WNV) and Usutu virus (USUV) are zoonotic arboviruses. These flaviviruses are mainly maintained in the environment through an enzootic cycle involving mosquitoes and birds. Horses and humans are incidental, dead-end hosts, but can dev...
The study of animal behaviour is important for the development of husbandry and management practices for zoo-housed species. Yet, data are typically only collected during daylight hours, aligning with human work schedules rather than animal activity...
The brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) is a flightless, nocturnal bird native to New Zealand and is classified as “At Risk” due to predation from domestic dogs and ferrets. In the U.S., brown kiwi have been managed under the AZA Animal Populat...
Background/Objectives: Healthy animals can harbor complex and diverse bacterial communities, including pathogenic taxa capable of causing disease and mortality, and individuals that are kept in zoos may act as asymptomatic carriers of a broad range o...
Visitors are a prominent feature in the lives of zoo animals, and their presence can cause a range of impacts on zoo animals (typically classed as positive, negative or neutral impacts), commonly referred to as the ‘visitor effect’. This...
Birds kept in zoological institutions are highly exposed to gastrointestinal (GI) parasitism caused by coccidia and nematodes. The current research aimed to characterize the avian GI parasitic fauna in several zoological collections in Portugal and S...
Deflighting zoo birds is a practice that receives increasing criticism due to its presumed incompatibility with animal welfare. To our knowledge, this is the first approach to address this problem in a scientific way. To do this, we compared feather...
Monitoring infectious diseases is a crucial part of preventive veterinary medicine in zoological collections. This zoo environment contains a great variety of animal species that are in contact with wildlife species as a potential source of infectiou...
Air quality management in zoological gardens plays a crucial role in their sustainable development. However, air quality in these settings remains understudied. In addition, previous research has largely focused on airborne microbial contamination me...
The combination of animals and plants in zoological gardens provides the opportunity for conservation within the grounds. An example is pollination gardens that support free-moving butterflies and bees. Pollination gardens and other areas with plants...
Despite being undomesticated, African Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) are commonly found in captivity, in zoos or as pets. Captivity can be an ongoing stressor. Non-invasive glucocorticoid metabolites (GCM) measurements from bird droppings are of...
Here, we investigate whether bone microanatomy can be used to infer the locomotion mode (cursorial vs. graviportal) of large terrestrial birds. We also reexamine, or describe for the first time, the bone histology of several large extant and extinct...
Wild birds play an important role as reservoir hosts and vectors for zoonotic arboviruses and foster their spread. Usutu virus (USUV) has been circulating endemically in Germany since 2011, while West Nile virus (WNV) was first diagnosed in several b...
Animal ambassador programs are increasingly prevalent in zoos, yet few studies have investigated their impact on animal welfare. We assessed the effects of an ambassador program on the behavior of a colony (N = 15) of zoo-housed African penguins (Sph...
Birds are the main natural host of West Nile virus (WNV), the worldwide most distributed mosquito-borne flavivirus, but humans and equids can also be sporadic hosts. Many avian species have been reported as susceptible to WNV, particularly corvids. I...
Many species of birds are housed in zoos globally and are some of the most popular of animals kept under human care. Careful observations of how species live and behave in their natural habitats can provide us with important knowledge about their nee...
During the spring, an outbreak of sudden death involving 58 birds occurred in a zoo. Histopathological examinations revealed variable numbers of intracytoplasmic basophilic microorganisms in the macrophages, hepatocytes, and renal epithelium of most...
There has, to date, been no systematic study of the various ways in which birds blink. Digital video recordings were made, and studied using still frames, of 524 bird species, mainly in zoos but also in the wild. Videos on 106 species from various si...
The increasing number of wind energy sites developed globally, has consequently resulted in a green-on-green predicament, due to an increase in avian mortality caused by collisions with wind turbines. The proportion of collision-related fatalities is...
Some wind farms have implemented automated camera-based monitoring systems, e.g., IdentiFlight to mitigate the impact of wind turbines on protected birds. These systems have promoted the collection of large amounts of unique data that can be used to...
The Atlantic puffin is a medium-sized seabird with black and white plumage and orange feet. It is distributed mainly along the northern Atlantic Ocean, and due, among other reasons, to human activities, it is in a threatened situation and classified...
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