Zoo animals are crucial for conserving and potentially re-introducing species to the wild, yet it is known that the morphology of captive animals differs from that of wild animals. It is important to know how...
Flow is an altered state of feeling ‘in the zone’ when fully absorbed in a challenge and is associated with positive affective state (feelings). Despite almost five decades of research, Flow has not yet been...
Cognitive enrichment is a growing subset of environmental enrichment for captive animals. However, it has been difficult for practitioners to design, implement, and evaluate relevant and appropriate cognitive challenges. Even though pure comparative cognition researchers...
Cognitive enrichment” is a subset of enrichment that has gained interest from researchers over the past decade, particularly those working in zoos. This review explores the forms of cognitive enrichment that have been attempted for...
The maintenance of species-specific behaviors for animals in zoological institutions is of top priority, as this can help ensure high levels of animal welfare. Strict feeding schedules within institutions can often impact natural foraging behaviors...
In captivity, positive human-animal interactions are often part of daily management procedures, which can enhance the welfare of animals and help caregivers with routine husbandry tasks. For example, the provisioning of food (produce or enrichment)...
Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic...
Using various forms of enrichment, animal care specialists encourage species-specific behaviors and discourage stereotypic behaviors. Within the zoo community, bears (Ursids spp.) are commonly housed, yet are prone to exhibiting stress-related behaviors. Here, we assess...
450 million years of evolution have given chondrichthyans (sharks, rays and allies) ample time to adapt perfectly to their respective everyday life challenges and cognitive abilities have played an important part in that process. The...
Negative affect in humans and animals is known to cause individuals to interpret ambiguous stimuli pessimistically, a phenomenon termed ‘cognitive bias’. Here, we used captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to test the hypothesis that a...