Long-term relationships are essential for the psychological wellbeing of humans and many animals. Positive emotions and affective experiences (e.g., romantic or platonic love) seem to be closely related to the creation and maintenance of social...
Circumstances surrounding advances in stranding response and veterinary care have created a growing need for the long-term housing of captive sea turtles. However, the difficulty in recreating natural conditions in captive settings places a responsibility...
As people’s focus broadens from animals on farms to zoos and aquaria, the field of welfare science and the public’s concern for animal welfare continue to grow. In captive animals, stress and its causes are...
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...
Animal welfare researchers are committed to developing novel approaches to enhance the quality of life of chimpanzees living in professional care. To systematically monitor physical, mental, and emotional states, welfare scientists highlight the importance of...
The goal of this study was to answer two research questions: (1) how important is it to rotate enrichment types to maintain high levels of engagement in individually-housed adult chacma baboons? and (2) which methods...
The terms short-term, temporary, and transitional are related but can have different contexts and meanings for animal husbandry. The definitions and use of these terms can be pivotal to animal housing and welfare. We conducted...
Mobile zoos are events in which non-domesticated (exotic) and domesticated species are transported to venues such as schools, hospitals, parties, and community centres, for the purposes of education, entertainment, or social and therapeutic assistance. We...
A preference scale for use by nonhuman animals would allow them to communicate their degree of liking for individual items rather than just relative preferences between pairs of items. It would also allow animals to...
Almost all home aquaria contain substrate, either as intentional enrichment or for aesthetic purposes. For fishes, benefits of structural enrichment have been well considered, particularly in research and aquaculture settings. However, our understanding of the...