Includes structural, behavioral, food, and auditory enrichment.
The public has expressed growing concern for the well-being of fishes, including popular pet species such as the Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). In captivity, male Bettas behave aggressively, often causing injuries and death if...
Environmental enrichment is frequently used to improve the captive environment, aiming to enhance the quality of captive animal care. Water-based enrichment can increase exploratory behaviour and tool use, promoting object manipulation, particularly in macaque species...
Several types of enrichment can be used to improve animal welfare. This review summarizes the literature on the use of mechanical brushes, tactile udder stimulation, music, and visual stimuli as enrichment methods for dairy cows...
We aimed to assess whether object play can be used as a positive emotional state indicator for farmed spotted pacas (Cuniculus paca) by examining its association with other positive welfare markers including affiliative behavior and...
The past several decades have witnessed significant improvement in the physical welfare of marine mammals in zoos and aquariums. Over that same time period, research has revealed complex cognitive abilities in at least some of...
We hypothesised that resource choice during early life contributes to both current and longer-term beneficial effects on animal welfare. We investigated this hypothesis in a longitudinal cross-over experiment with laying hen pullets (Gallus gallus domesticus)...
Maintaining healthy and consistent levels of physical activity (PA) is a clinically proven and low-cost means of reducing the onset of several chronic diseases and may provide an excellent strategy for managing mental health and...
Understanding the emotional states of animals is a long-standing research endeavour that has clear applications in animal welfare. Vocalisations are emerging as a promising way to assess both positive and negative emotional states. However, the...
Neuroscience heavily relies on animal welfare in laboratory rodents as it can significantly affect brain development, cognitive function and memory formation. Unfortunately, laboratory animals are often raised in artificial environments devoid of physical and social...
While general enrichment strategies for captive animals attempt to elicit variable and species-typical behaviors, approaches to cognitive enrichment have been disappointingly one-size-fits-all. In this commentary, we address the potential benefit of tailoring cognitive enrichment to...