Reproductive Success

Reproductive success is a telling indicator of biological fitness, which is in turn an indicator of physical wellbeing. In the wild, reproductive success is affected by the environment, and whether or not the animal’s physical traits are suited to the environment. In the zoo, since the environment is artificial and the conditions regulated for theoretical optimal standards for the animal, reproductive success should be at its optimum, and impaired success indicates compromised conditions. This in turn indicates poor welfare standards. Indicators of poor reproductive fitness include slow reproduction onset during development, increased gaps between breedings, decreased litter size and early mortality.(Broom, 1991)

 

Presence of diseases

Diseases are another sign of poor welfare and care. While medical facilities and resources in zoos are much better than in the wild (which do not have these at all), sometimes captive animals may have weaker immunity to diseases than their wild counterparts, or even contract diseases that are normally absent in the wild. This can be attributed to the conditions of the artificial habitats. In such cases, it is most likely due to flaws and neglect in management of the animal’s living situation by caretakers.  (Broom, 1988b; Fraser and Broom, 1990).

 

 

Behavioural Measures

A necessity for the animal’s psychological wellbeing is the opportunity to fulfill its behavioural needs. A few examples of behavioural patterns that suggest good welfare include

• Alertness and curiosity about the surroundings
•  The range of activities displayed by the animal (which depend on species, breed, age, environment, the size of the group the animal is in etc.)
• Positive social interactions within the animal’s group (for instance allogrooming, the act of grooming each other)
• Positive interaction with humans -the comfort level of the animal with humans, which may be measured by the time taken for it to approach the human (a long time taken to approach a human implies past negative experience with humans, and in turn poor welfare by previous humans or caretakers).
• Play; while more research needs to be done on this front, currently animal play is thought to be an indicator of good welfare (Held and Spinka, 2011).
• Fighting and other signs of aggression indicating poor welfare
• Stereotypies (repetitive behaviours which are constant in form and which serve no obvious purpose in the context in which they are performed)
• Other relevant behaviours

It should be noted that just as humans have very different behavioural expressions, so too do animals. Hence, any analysis in behavioural patterns of animals should be based on multiple observations and not an observation of a single occasion.