Nature calls: intelligence and natural foraging style predict poor welfare in captive parrots

Understanding why some species thrive in captivity, while others struggle to adjust, can suggest new ways to improve animal care. Approximately half of all Psittaciformes, a highly threatened order, live in zoos, breeding centres and private homes. Here, some species are prone to behavioural and reproductive problems that raise conservation and ethical concerns. To identify risk factors, we analysed data on hatching rates in breeding centres (115 species, 10 255 pairs) and stereotypic behaviour (SB) in private homes (50 species, 1378 individuals), using phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs). Small captive population sizes predicted low hatch rates, potentially due to genetic bottlenecks, inbreeding and low availability of compatible mates. Species naturally reliant on diets requiring substantial handling were most prone to feather-damaging behaviours (e.g. self-plucking), indicating inadequacies in the composition or presentation of feed (often highly processed). Parrot species with relatively large brains were most prone to oral and whole-body SB: the first empirical evidence that intelligence can confer poor captive welfare. Together, results suggest that more naturalistic diets would improve welfare, and that intelligent psittacines need increased cognitive stimulation. These findings should help improve captive parrot care and inspire further PCM research to understand species differences in responses to captivity.

Visitor attachment to dolphins during an interaction programme, are there implications to dolphin behavior?

Millions of people visit zoos and aquariums globally each year, with a smaller number choosing to participate in animal interaction programmes which allows visitors closer contact with individual animals. These are reportedly having mixed effects in increasing conservation-related behaviors. Human-animal interactions (HAIs) during these programmes are generally positive experiences for the human participants, however are there behavioral implications for the animals involved? The Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is the most widely used cetacean for dolphin interactions, known as "swim with dolphin" (SWD) programmes. This study investigated visitor attachment to the dolphins they interacted with, whilst assessing behavioral implications of the dolphins. A total of 41 visitors to a Spanish dolphinarium, who participated in a SWD were surveyed using a modified version of the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale. Alongside this, 15-min continuous focal samples monitored three female dolphins (D1, D2, and D3) aged 22-40, split into pre (n = 96), during (n = 96) and post (n = 96) SWD. 80% of visitors reported a sense of attachment to the dolphin they interacted with. An exploratory factor analysis extracted three factors from the survey, these were "relationships," "emotional attachment," and "non-attachment." A Friedmans two-way analysis of variance produced significant results for some behavior categories for each individual, including locomotory (D1: F₂  = 9.556, p < .01), rest (D2: F₂  = 14, p < .01, D3: F₂  = 10.889, p < .01) and individual play (D1: F₂  = 11.677, p < .01 D2: F₂  = 6.353, p < .05) however, pairwise comparison showed no differences pre-post SWD. In this context it can be implied that participating in the SWD was neither enriching nor aversive for the individual animals, although due to the small sample size further research is required. As visitors reported a sense of attachment post HAI, this can have applications in improving conservation education during SWD. This study has provided scope for further research into methods that facilities can use to utilize the emotional attachment developed to individual animals to facilitate learning about conservation issues.

Causation, Responsibility, and Harm: How the Discursive Shift from Law and Ethics to Social Justice Sealed the Plight of Nonhuman Animals

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the 'but for' rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals.

Phylogenetic comparative methods: Harnessing the power of species diversity to investigate welfare issues in captive wild animals

This paper reviews a way of investigating health and welfare problems in captive wild animals (e.g., those in zoos, aviaries, aquaria, or aquaculture systems) that has great potential, but to date has been little used: systematically comparing species with few or no health and welfare issues to those more prone to problems. Doing so empirically pinpoints species-typical welfare risk and protective factors (such as aspects of their natural behavioral biology): information which can then be used to help prevent or remedy problems by suggesting new ways to improve housing and husbandry, and by identifying species intrinsically best suited to captivity. We provide a detailed, step-by-step "how to" guide for researchers interested in using these techniques, including guidance on how to statistically control for the inherent similarities shared by related species: an important concern because simple, cross-species comparisons that do not do this may well fail to meet statistical assumptions of non-independence. The few relevant studies that have investigated captive wild animals' welfare problems using this method are described. Overall, such approaches reap value from the great number and diversity of species held in captivity (e.g., the many thousands of species held in zoos); can yield new insights from existing data and published results; render previously intractable welfare questions (such as "do birds need to fly?" or "do Carnivora need to hunt?") amenable to study; and generate evidence-based principles for integrating animal welfare into collection planning.

Ecological ethics in captivity: balancing values and responsibilities in zoo and aquarium research under rapid global change

Ethical obligations to animals in conservation research and management are manifold and often conflicting. Animal welfare concerns often clash with the ethical imperative to understand and conserve a population or ecosystem through research and management intervention. The accelerating pace and impact of global environmental change, especially climate change, complicates our understanding of these obligations. One example is the blurring of the distinction between ex situ (zoo- and aquarium-based) conservation and in situ (field-based) approaches as zoos and aquariums become more active in field conservation work and as researchers and managers consider more intensive interventions in wild populations and ecosystems to meet key conservation goals. These shifts, in turn, have consequences for our traditional understanding of the ethics of wildlife research and management, including our relative weighting of animal welfare and conservation commitments across rapidly evolving ex situ and in situ contexts. Although this changing landscape in many ways supports the increased use of captive wildlife in conservation-relevant research, it raises significant ethical concerns about human intervention in populations and ecosystems, including the proper role of zoos and aquariums as centers for animal research and conservation in the coming decades. Working through these concerns requires a pragmatic approach to ethical analysis, one that is able to make trade-offs among the many goods at stake (e.g., animal welfare, species viability, and ecological integrity) as we strive to protect species from further decline and extinction in this century.