The Assessment of Animal Welfare in British Zoos by Government-Appointed Inspectors.

Chris Draper,Stephen Harris

doi:10.3390/ani2040507

Chris Draper, Stephen Harris

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ani2040507

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Abstract

Simple SummarySince 1984, British zoos have been required to meet the animal welfare standards set out under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. Zoos are regularly assessed by government-appointed inspectors, who report on animal welfare standards in each zoo. This is the first analysis of those reports from a representative sample of British zoos. We highlight a number of concerns about the inspection process itself, and identify areas where changes would lead to improvements in both the inspection process and our ability to monitor animal welfare standards in zoos.We analysed the reports of government-appointed inspectors from 192 zoos between 2005–2008 to provide the first review of how animal welfare was assessed in British zoos since the enactment of the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. We examined the effects of whether or not a veterinarian was included in the inspection team, type of inspection, licence status of the zoo and membership of a zoo association on the inspectors’ assessments of animal welfare standards in five areas that approximate to the Five Freedoms. At least 11% of full licence inspections did not comply with the legal requirement for two inspectors. The inspectors’ reports were unclear as to how animal welfare was assessed, whether all animals or only a sub-sample had been inspected, and were based predominantly on welfare inputs rather than outcomes. Of 9,024 animal welfare assessments across the 192 zoos, 7,511 (83%) were graded as meeting the standards, 782 (9%) as substandard and the rest were not graded. Of the 192 zoos, 47 (24%) were assessed as meeting all the animal welfare standards. Membership of a zoo association was not associated with a higher overall assessment of animal welfare standards, and specialist collections such as Farm Parks and Other Bird collections performed least well. We recommend a number of changes to the inspection process that should lead to greater clarity in the assessment of animal welfare in British zoos.

Highlights

Captivity is widely acknowledged to affect the welfare of wild animals e.g., [1,2,3]
Our analysis complements earlier reviews by Greenwood et al [16], which focussed on the performance of Zoo Inspectors (ZIs) themselves rather than the ZIs’ assessments of the zoos, and ADAS [21], who reviewed the implementation of the ZLA in England and Wales by local authorities
Despite the recommendation that copies of inspection reports be sent to national authorities [6], only 59% of local authorities sent completed inspection reports to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Welsh Assembly Government [21], and there is no mechanism in place to gather and analyse data from these forms to examine zoo performance across the industry [22]

Summary

Introduction

Captivity is widely acknowledged to affect the welfare of wild animals e.g., [1,2,3]. Our unpublished analysis of zoo stocklists for a separate sample of 211 British zoos from 2003 to 2009 showed that they collectively held more than 60,000 individual wild tetrapods i.e., mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians: in this review we exclude domesticated species, fish and invertebrates. Given the variety of their species-specific requirements, monitoring the welfare of the wild animals held in British zoos presents a considerable challenge. This was subsequently amended to reflect the requirements of Council Directive

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Conclusion