Open AccessCommentary
Considering What Animals “Need to Do” in Enclosure Design: Questions on Bird Flight and Aviaries
by
Paul Rose
Paul Rose
Dr Paul Rose is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Faculty of Health [...]
Dr Paul Rose is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Faculty of Health & Life Science, University of Exeter, UK. He is also a Research Associate at the Wildfowl & Wetlands
Trust and managed the Animal Welfare & Ethics Committee. He completed his PhD in the social organisation of captive wild animals at the University of Exeter from 2012 to 2018. His research predominantly centres on animals in zoos, aquariums, and other ex situ facilities. He uses evidence from behavioural studies to inform animal husbandry and management, to ultimately improve welfare and their role in the zoo.
1,*
,
Marianne Freeman
Marianne Freeman
Dr. Marianne Sarah Freeman has a PhD in Biological Sciences from Queen’s University Belfast where [...]
Dr. Marianne Sarah Freeman has a PhD in Biological Sciences from Queen’s University Belfast where she researched Chinese muntjac deer (Muntiacus reevsi) invasion and the use of camera traps as a population assessment tool. She is a registered Animal Scientist with the British Society of Animal Science and has a keen interest in animal behaviour and welfare research. She is also a Co-founder of the ManyZoos initiative and collaborator on several ManyX projects including a registered collaborator on the ManyDogs project (an international consortium of researchers interested in Canine Science). Plus a member of the Animal Welfare Research Network. She is the trustee of the Animal Behaviour and Training Council, co-chair of the British Ecological Society Grants Committee and section editor for the Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research. Her research interests include Conservation Biology, Ecology, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecology and Evolution, Wildlife Conservation, Wildlife Ecology, Animal Ecology, Conservation Ecology, and Invasive Species.
2
,
Ian Hickey
Ian Hickey 3,
Robert Kelly
Robert Kelly 1
and
Phillip Greenwell
Phillip Greenwell 4
1
Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
2
Sparsholt College Hampshire, University Centre Sparsholt, Sparsholt, Winchester SO21 2NF, UK
3
Chester Zoo, Upton-by-Chester, Chester CH2 1LH, UK
4
Salce, 32430 St. Georges, France
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Submission received: 28 July 2024
/
Revised: 26 August 2024
/
Accepted: 5 September 2024
/
Published: 12 September 2024
Simple Summary
Flight is a fundamental characteristic for the majority of bird species, but how well is this behaviour catered for when birds are housed in managed populations under human care? Zoo enclosure design and animal care practices often balance natural behaviour performance and what is feasible in a human-made environment. As zoos focus more on animal welfare, enclosures should be evaluated to ensure they provide adequate space, natural habitat features, and opportunities for natural behaviours. This paper highlights the need for a better understanding of behaviours, using flight in bird as the core example, and recommends posing and then answering directed questions to gather evidence for improved enclosure design to provide for what birds need to do. We call for changing “best practice” guidelines to “better practice guidelines” to emphasise continuous improvement in animal care based on evidence and regular reassessment, and to encourage all stakeholders in zoos to regularly consider the impacts of housing and husbandry on animal behaviour and welfare.
Abstract
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 the wild may be constrained by husbandry practices that are used for ease or aesthetics or are accepted conventions. As zoos place more emphasis on positive animal welfare states, zoo enclosures should be scrutinised to check that what is provided, in terms of useful space, appropriate replication of habitat features, and maximal potential for natural behaviour performance, is relevant to the species and individuals being housed. For some species, zoos need to grapple with tough questions where the answer may not seem immediately obvious to ensure they are continuously improving standards of care, opportunities for the performance of species-typical behaviours, and advancing the attainment of positive welfare states. Determining the importance of flight, for example, and what this behaviour adds to the quality of life of a zoo-housed bird, is an important question that needs addressing to truly advance aviculture and how we determine bird welfare. This paper provides questions that should be answered and poses measures of what flight means to a bird, to provide evidence for the development and evolution of zoo bird housing. If we can devise some way of asking the animals in our care what they need, we can more firmly support decisions made that surround enclosure design, and housing decisions. Ultimately, this means gathering evidence on whether birds like to fly (e.g., from birds in training or demonstration activities) by applying mixed methods approaches of behavioural analysis, data on wild ecology, qualitative behavioural assessment, and cognitive bias testing to develop a robust suite of tools to address avian welfare considerations. Avian welfare scientists should attempt to define what meaningful flight is (i.e., flight that truly suggests a bird is flying) in order to support guidelines on aviary dimensions, space allowance, and welfare outputs from birds in both flighted and flight-restricted populations, and to determine what is most appropriate for an individual species. Changing the term “best practice” husbandry guidelines to “better practice” husbandry guidelines would instil the importance of regular review and reassessment of housing and management suitability for a species to ensure such care regimes remain appropriate. With an increasingly welfare-savvy public visiting zoos, it is essential that we seek more evidence to support and justify how birds are kept and ultimately use such evidence to enact changes to practices that are shown to infringe on avian welfare.
Share and Cite
MDPI and ACS Style
Rose, P.; Freeman, M.; Hickey, I.; Kelly, R.; Greenwell, P.
Considering What Animals “Need to Do” in Enclosure Design: Questions on Bird Flight and Aviaries. Birds 2024, 5, 586-603.
https://doi.org/10.3390/birds5030039
AMA Style
Rose P, Freeman M, Hickey I, Kelly R, Greenwell P.
Considering What Animals “Need to Do” in Enclosure Design: Questions on Bird Flight and Aviaries. Birds. 2024; 5(3):586-603.
https://doi.org/10.3390/birds5030039
Chicago/Turabian Style
Rose, Paul, Marianne Freeman, Ian Hickey, Robert Kelly, and Phillip Greenwell.
2024. "Considering What Animals “Need to Do” in Enclosure Design: Questions on Bird Flight and Aviaries" Birds 5, no. 3: 586-603.
https://doi.org/10.3390/birds5030039
APA Style
Rose, P., Freeman, M., Hickey, I., Kelly, R., & Greenwell, P.
(2024). Considering What Animals “Need to Do” in Enclosure Design: Questions on Bird Flight and Aviaries. Birds, 5(3), 586-603.
https://doi.org/10.3390/birds5030039
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