"ANIMAL WELFARE/WELLNESS: an animal's (or group of animals) collective physical and mental states over a period of time, and measured on a continuum from good to poor."
"1.5.0. The institution must have a process for assessing animal welfare and wellness. This process should be both proactive and reactive, transparent to stakeholders, and include staff or consultants knowledgeable in assessing quality of life for animals showing signs of physical or mental distress or decline. The process should also include a mechanism to identify and evaluate the welfare/wellness impacts of significant life events or changes in the animal's environment as identified by the individual institution. Examples of life events/changes could include construction events, unusual weather events, noise intrusion, change in housing, or changes in animals exhibited with or nearby, etc."
- 2020 AZA Accreditation Standards & Related Policies
As I found with the green-winged macaws on my last day of work, it's depressingly easy for some animals to slip through the cracks. The non-squeaky wheels who never are calling out for oil, who seem to do "fine" with minimal effort, and who never have major veterinary problems are easy to overlook. One day, if you're not careful, a major problem can unfold over them, and you'll be gob-smacked, wondering where it came from and why you never saw it coming.
The answer will usually be, "Because you weren't looking."
To prevent occurrences like that, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums has recently instituted mandatory welfare check policies for all animals in their member institutions. It requires animal staff - a mixture of keepers, managers, and veterinary staff - to inspect each animal (or, in some cases, such as a school of fish, group of animals), judging their care from a variety of angles, which should include (but might not be limited to):
- Physical Health: good physical condition, body weight, absence of pain, disease, or injury
- Diet: analyzed for nutritional content, diversity, and promotion of natural feeding behaviors
- Social: proper social group (which may be "solitary"), access to (and away from) other members of the group, as deemed appropriate
- Behavioral: chance to express natural behaviors, training and enrichment program, appropriate sleep-and-awake periods
- Enclosure: physical environment is of a size and type to keep the animal safe (includes protection from the elements and mitigating risk of escape) while allowing it to engage in natural behaviors.
The inspectors should have a way to quantify their answers to the questions they are asking, be it Yes/No, or on a numeric scale. This will help them objectively look at the different aspects of animal welfare and ask, "Are we meeting the needs of this animal?" Different categories may be needed to assess the welfare needs of animals in different circumstances, such as those that live in an animal contact yard or feeding aviary, or animal ambassadors that routinely travel off-grounds to meet the public.
While these are standards unique to AZA, they sum up criteria of care that all animal caretakers should think about. Even if you are a dog or cat owner, it's worth taking a step back every now and then to reassess the care you provide your pet. Maybe you don't need a formal schedule and a numeric scale, but you should look at the various aspects of your pet's care (is the diet good, when did we last do a vet check up, is it too cold to be out in the yard tonight?) to make sure that all of the animal's needs are being met.
Everyone wants to believe that they are providing good care for their pet, but without careful checking of every facet, it can be difficult to verify that you're providing great welfare.
Almost inevitably, you will find some areas that are coming up short. That's not a failure - that's a sign that the welfare checks are working and identifying areas of improvement. What determines whether the process is a success or failure is how you respond to it.
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