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Welfare Implications of Zoo Animal Training
Vicky A. Melfi and Samantha J. Ward

Training can improve and compromise zoo use by animals, to increase animal visibility
animal welfare; the outcome is dependent on a to the public, to facilitate human–animal
great many variables and often situations interactions, to support education pro-
which can only be judged on a case by case grammes and outreach which might include
basis. This can make the relationship between animals leaving the zoo site, to ensure appro-
training and animal welfare complex. priate nutritional intake, to increase or reduce
the expression of different behaviours, to
entertain visitors, to facilitate breeding pro-
11.1 Setting You up to Succeed grammes and the use of artificial reproduc-
tive techniques… the list could go on and on!
As described by many zoo professionals, When we consider the many ways that
training is just one of many different ‘tools’ in training can be applied to the lives of zoos
the husbandry ‘tool box’. Zoo animal man- animals, it appears that there are three over-
agement aims to ensure good animal welfare arching goals: improving the individual ani-
through a myriad of applications, from mals’ welfare; facilitating zoo operations; and
ensuring genetic diversity, high quality and achieving the zoos’ mission, which includes a
appropriate nutrition, a suitable social group conservation imperative (Barongi et al.
(in terms of composition and number), pre- 2015). These three goals are important to the
ventative and remedial veterinary care, success of the zoo, but unhelpfully they might
appropriate housing, and as we’ve learned in not be congruent with respect to their impact
this book, learning opportunities which can on animal welfare. In much the same way
be afforded in different ways, e.g. environ- that zoo professionals consider the ultimate
mental enrichment, zoo environment, or goal of zoos to be species conservation
training (see Chapters 3, 5, 6). (Fa et al. 2014), we know that tools and tech-
Training has been applied to the lives of niques which might yield good conservation
zoo animals in countless ways for almost as goals can themselves compromise welfare
many reasons. To support preventative vet- (Beausoleil et al. 2014; Keulartz 2015).
erinary care, administer drugs, and remedial In this chapter we hope to: clarify how ani-
veterinary support, to move animals between mal welfare science can be used to better
areas within their enclosure, to separate ani- understand the impact of training; enable zoo
mals temporally or for prolonged periods of professionals to take an evidence‐based
time, to aid the introduction and/or translo- approach to whether training is the best tool
cation of the target animal or those who will for a given a situation; explore methods of
receive a new animal, to maximise enclosure evaluating the impact of training on welfare;

Zoo Animal Learning and Training, First Edition. Edited by Vicky A. Melfi, Nicole R. Dorey, and Samantha J. Ward.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.