Editorial: Research in Zoos

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Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Strasse 17, D-10315 Berlin,GermanyE-mail: direktor@izw-berlin.deThere are already signs that research in zoosand aquariums has begun totakeona sense ofurgency. Throughout the zoo world, profes-sionals have always been aware of the social,nutritional and welfare benefits to be gainedfor their animals by a better understanding ofthe biology of the ‘beasts in their care’ (e.g.Hosey et al., 2009; Kleiman et al., 2010).Indeed, the contribution of biological researchonzooanimalstoourunderstandingofanimallife histories has beensubstantial and not beenfully appreciated to this day (Hofer et al.,2005). Prompted in part by the zoos andaquariums themselves, partly by the type ofstaff they employ, by the staff in associatedinstitutions, partly by regional, national orinternational zoo and aquarium associationconservation or research strategies (WAZA,2005; Reid et al., 2008; Penning et al., 2009)and governmental legislation (Council Direc-tive, 1999), and not least by academic scien-tists (e.g. Dehnhardt et al., 2001), researchwithin zoos has not only increased in breadthand depth, as demonstrated by the contents ofthis volume, it has also found exciting newways of establishing constructive and closecollaborations with academic institutions. Theurgency arises from an increased generalawareness of the loss of biodiversity andthe urgentneedtoconserveit, and the impactsof climate change on individual speciesand habitats (Barnosky, 2009), together withthe anticipated scale of impact in the futureas calculated by the increasing number ofsignificantly more sophisticated climate pro-jections and analyses (IPCC, 2007; Hansen,2009; Loarie et al., 2009; Met Office, 2010).Therefore, ‘Time’ can be considered as thehidden underlying theme running throughthis communication, our introduction of thearticles in this volume of the InternationalZoo Yearbook; time’s passage; time’s impor-tance; what is done with it; how we areconstrained by it; how much time does some-thing take to do; what can be done in time?These important questions are all intrinsic tothe articles of this volume. As members ofinterlinked zoological communities in differ-ent parts of the world, some of us may thinkthat not much change has taken place in theenvironment in which we live over the pastdecades or longer; others of us have seendramatic changes brought about by war, en-vironmental destruction, weather or disease.Today, all are now aware that changes areunder way – whether the seas are beingemptied of sustainable fish stocks (FAO,2010) or the weather appears to show ‘excep-tional modifications of natural variation’(Slingo, 2011): too much snow too early,longer summers, rains not coming when theyshould, for too short a time or too long.As a zoo community, we have becomeused to looking 100 years into the future andarranging the planning of our conservationbreeding efforts on that time scale (Lacy,