This thesis has the overall aims of creating a welfare-sensitive additive index of captive great ape husbandry using the expert opinion of relevant stakeholders, highlighting the aspects of husbandry requiring most improvement and allowing enclosures in different zoos and wildlife parks to be ranked in a uniform way. I investigated the attitudes of experts on the management of captive great apes to gain a greater understanding of the features of their environment that may be critical in maintaining a high standard of welfare. From the experts ranking of the different Levels of facilities offered to the great apes I constructed an additive index with 17 key attributes with between two and four Levels for each. The Great Ape Welfare Index (GAWI) derived from expert opinion has Social structure, Enclosure appearance, Group size, Enclosure furnishings and Avoidance provision as the most important attributes of a management system. The GAWI was then validated by recording the behaviour of the captive great apes housed in Australian and overseas zoos, and comparing their activity budgets to wild individuals. Using a Penrose Distance Statistic a significant negative correlation was found between Index score and the departure from wild activity budgets. Additionally I found a significant negative correlation between the change in the proportion of time spent resting and the welfare Index score achieved indicating that those great apes housed in enclosures achieving higher Index scores are more active in general. Finally the husbandry and management systems for great apes currently used by zoos globally were investigated and their ranking in the Index were calculated. This allowed the particular aspects of great ape management requiring improvement to be identified for each enclosure. Comparisons of regional means showed that Australian zoos achieved significantly higher Index scores than those in other parts of the world. The proportion of great apes housed in New Zealand zoos reported as displaying an abnormal behaviour was significantly higher than all other regions with the proportion of great apes housed in Australia displaying significantly less abnormal behaviour when compared to the US. The highest index achieved by any enclosure was 97.5 for an enclosure that housed a group of gorillas, with the lowest index allocated was 52.2 for an orangutan enclosure. The presence of abnormal behaviours was also investigated with the most common abnormal behaviours reported being regurgitation and re-ingestion (15.8%), hair plucking (10.2%) and begging (7.9%) with some animals reported as exhibiting four different abnormal behaviours. The GAWI has the potential to improve the captive environments provided to great apes through highlighting the most critical aspects of their husbandry requiring improvement. This should encourage zoos to aim higher than just complying with minimum standards set by their regional zoological associations. As the index correlates with the behaviour of the great apes housed, their behaviour may more closely resemble wild individuals if improvements are made. The GAWI has been compared to two alternative models to investigate whether the methods used to create the index could be simplified while still allowing adequate discrimination between enclosures and species. This index can be adapted for use in other institutions housing great apes and can act as a model to create indices for other species. The index has been submitted to the primate Taxon Advisory Group of the Australian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria for their consideration of its use in their accreditation scheme or husbandry guidelines.

Bibliography: leaves 312-329. / xv, 329 leaves : col. ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 1999

This thesis has the overall aims of creating a welfare-sensitive additive index of captive great ape husbandry using the expert opinion of relevant stakeholders, highlighting the aspects of husbandry requiring most improvement and allowing enclosures in different zoos and wildlife parks to be ranked in a uniform way. I investigated the attitudes of experts on the management of captive great apes to gain a greater understanding of the features of their environment that may be critical in maintaining a high standard of welfare. From the experts ranking of the different Levels of facilities offered to the great apes I constructed an additive index with 17 key attributes with between two and four Levels for each. The Great Ape Welfare Index (GAWI) derived from expert opinion has Social structure, Enclosure appearance, Group size, Enclosure furnishings and Avoidance provision as the most important attributes of a management system. The GAWI was then validated by recording the behaviour of the captive great apes housed in Australian and overseas zoos, and comparing their activity budgets to wild individuals. Using a Penrose Distance Statistic a significant negative correlation was found between Index score and the departure from wild activity budgets. Additionally I found a significant negative correlation between the change in the proportion of time spent resting and the welfare Index score achieved indicating that those great apes housed in enclosures achieving higher Index scores are more active in general. Finally the husbandry and management systems for great apes currently used by zoos globally were investigated and their ranking in the Index were calculated. This allowed the particular aspects of great ape management requiring improvement to be identified for each enclosure. Comparisons of regional means showed that Australian zoos achieved significantly higher Index scores than those in other parts of the world. The proportion of great apes housed in New Zealand zoos reported as displaying an abnormal behaviour was significantly higher than all other regions with the proportion of great apes housed in Australia displaying significantly less abnormal behaviour when compared to the US. The highest index achieved by any enclosure was 97.5 for an enclosure that housed a group of gorillas, with the lowest index allocated was 52.2 for an orangutan enclosure. The presence of abnormal behaviours was also investigated with the most common abnormal behaviours reported being regurgitation and re-ingestion (15.8%), hair plucking (10.2%) and begging (7.9%) with some animals reported as exhibiting four different abnormal behaviours. The GAWI has the potential to improve the captive environments provided to great apes through highlighting the most critical aspects of their husbandry requiring improvement. This should encourage zoos to aim higher than just complying with minimum standards set by their regional zoological associations. As the index correlates with the behaviour of the great apes housed, their behaviour may more closely resemble wild individuals if improvements are made. The GAWI has been compared to two alternative models to investigate whether the methods used to create the index could be simplified while still allowing adequate discrimination between enclosures and species. This index can be adapted for use in other institutions housing great apes and can act as a model to create indices for other species. The index has been submitted to the primate Taxon Advisory Group of the Australian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria for their consideration of its use in their accreditation scheme or husbandry guidelines.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 1999. / Bibliography: leaves 312-329.

Since its opening in 1836 Bristol Zoo has displayed animals from every continent except Antarctica in order to deliver amusement and instruction to its visitors. Over time, the nature of this human-animal space changed in a variety of important ways, reflecting transformations in the ways humans gave meaning to non-human animal life. This thesis engages with insights rooted in colonial, environmental, cultural and intellectual histories, principally arguing that multi-layered interspecies relationships were predominantly rooted in a complicated dyad of object-subject. Animals were seen as representative objects to be bought, sold, studied and enjoyed, as well as simultaneously individual subjects capable of communing with their human counterparts. Such relationships were frequently illustrative of a fluid balance of control and, in many ways, lay bare the uncertain philosophical boundary separating humans from the rest of the natural world. While this thesis details important changes over time, it approaches these relationships thematically. It shows that animals were objects of desire, though they had different values depending on species, age, sex and utility. Later, their value was increasingly attached to the genetic information coursing through their veins. Modes of maintaining the animal and displaying it for instructive and entertaining consumption reveal similarly complicated ways of thinking about non-human animal life. The imagination of animals in scientific and anthropomorphic ways denote entangled ontological classifications of human and nonhuman animals, and the existence of a hierarchy of species based on the possession of humanoid features. Moreover, the material influence of animals, while challenging conceptualisations of absolute human power in captive spaces, has often been interpreted in ways which reinforced the status of animals as objects of physical and imaginative manipulation. Finally, in death, animals were understood in ways that changed significantly during the period, but which remained rooted in the familiar binary of object-subject.

The goal of this work is to create overview of the zoo clubs in the Carlsbad region. The clubs with their existence and activity contribute to enhance and consolidate curriculum within each output not only in Biology but also in environmental education. In the first part of this work there are summarized data dedicated to the history of the zoo clubs in the Czech Republic. I deal with their distribution according to the criterias given and present status of the zoo clubs within free time activities. The special attention is dedicated to the history of the extinct zoo clubs in the Carlsbad region, to the plans of their future arrangements and recovery in this region, mainly future construction of the zoo. The second part deals with each zoo club in detail. In the last part I deal with animal species, their acquisition and adoption. There are information about extracurricular activities in each institution, like lectures, clubs and camps. Web pages are the integral part of each zoo club because they often inform about present and future activities within extracurricular activities. Key words Zoo clubs , extracurricular activities, Biology, environmental education

The subject of this thesis is make analysis water system in the pavilion of reptiles in the Zoo Brno, with an emphasis on environmental sustainability, local fauna and flora. It is propose specific technical and technological resolutions to reduce the economic and energy performance of the pavilion. The design primarily needed to respect the needs of the animals, but also high aesthetic and educational function of the pavilion.

Zoos engage individuals with species and education opportunities that they may have never meet on their own; specifically, education regarding visitor’s sustainability habits. This thesis investigates the extent to which adult participants believe their sustainability behaviors, such as recycling and water usage habits, have been impacted by their childhood zoo visitation rates, and discusses the long-term impact zoos have on what has been termed “socially acceptable sustainability behavior.” A survey of 136 Southern Illinois University Carbondale students of various majors found that a majority individual does not remember learning sustainability behaviors while visiting zoos; however, participants believe that visiting zoos has impacted their overall level of environmental concern, primarily regarding animal welfare and species conservation. The initial analysis of the findings suggest that zoos need to develop new ways of engaging visitors regarding sustainability behavior and provide post-visit experiences that reinforce and extend sustainability messages and action. Further research and analysis are required to verify these claims.

The thesis is based on the presumption that zoological gardens are cultural institutions which reflect social and cultural interpretations of what is called 'nature' and animals. By analyzing data gained through participant observation it focuses on the meanings and forms which are ascribed to animals living in the Prague Zoo via the gaze of visitors. Furthermore, by analysis of visual and textual sources provided by the zoo, I examine how the 'zoo animal' is constructed by the zoo itself. I argue that this zoo animal constitutes a specific form of the animal, different from both the domesticated and the wild one. The zoo and its visitors create a chimeric 'beast' which encompasses different and even contradictory trends and conceptions of thinking about the zoo animal.

The assignment was to create a design of a tropical pavilion at the Brno Zoo. The most important aspect influencing the overall solution is the unique location of the existing pavilion, located at the top of the hill. In the wider area there is a forested landscape. There is an opportunity to build new exhibition spaces with regard to the future development of the zoo. So how to proceed with such assignment? The exhibition of the pavilion focuses on fauna and flora of the rainforest: Central America and the Amazon. The proposal envisages the demolition of the existing pavilion, which is currently unsuitable and obsolete. Part of the new pavilion is also the design of outdoor exposure areas. The main inspiration for the new pavilion was the Mayan Pyramid in the jungle. The outdoor expositions are inspired by the relief of the Amazonian landscape.