EAPSI: Balancing Conservation and Animal Welfare in Twenty-first Century Zoos

Clay Anne S, Manassas VA

Investigators

Abstract

Zoos of the twenty-first century not only entertain their visitors, but also educate them about humanity's relationship to the environment. They have a broad mission to collaborate with other research and educational institutions, engage in innovative projects to conserve habitats and species, and help make the public case for sustainability. In addition, modern zoos have a responsibility to understand and present the challenges between conservation and animal welfare ethics in order to balance animal rights with conservation. Unlike the animal welfare or rights viewpoint, the conservation standpoint gives precedence to endangered species, and says that the willingness to protect ecosystems defines moral consideration of wild species. Discrepancies between animal welfare and conservation occur when the rights or interests of individual animals conflict with the need to preserve ecosystems or a particular species. Because the welfare of individual animals is often sacrificed at the expense of conservation research, the two concepts have traditionally been thought to be incompatible. Created as a place for leisure in 1984, the Seoul Grand Park Zoo in South Korea only recently made conservation a core priority and improved animal care under the influence of the animal rights movement. However, not only does the Seoul Zoo still lack resources and funds both for the development of animal welfare and conservation research, but South Korea also has very little legislation protecting the welfare of zoo animals. By focusing on the Seoul Zoo's direct involvement in the conservation of three different animals (the Asiatic black bear, the red fox, and the Asian leopard cat), this research aims to determine the degree to which the institution prioritizes individual animal welfare in their conservation endeavors. This project will be conducted at Ewha Women's University, under the guidance of Professor Jae Chun Choe, a prominent biologist who has spurred conversations on the treatment of animals in zoos and is active in researching improvements in animal welfare science for captive animals. This collaboration could help provide a framework to aid in the improvement of the welfare of Korean zoo animals and make for more humane scientific education and conservation methods. This project will focus on the Seoul Grand Park Zoo's conservation endeavors within the framework of compassionate conservation, where empathy plays a role in conservation decision-making. The application of this concept's guiding principle "first do no harm" in education programs, zoological institutions, dealings with invasive species, the capture and tagging of endangered animals, and other acts related to protecting ecosystems, can help encourage a peaceful coexistence between humanity and the natural world. The research project will complete an ethnographic analysis of the Seoul Zoo's current conservation and education programs. The researcher will analyze several conversations with Seoul Zoo officials, Korean academics, and conservation experts, which will reveal the zoo?s struggles in balancing its different welfare and conservation priorities, especially in its current projects to the breeding and propagation of three different species: the Asiatic black bear, the red fox, and the Asian leopard cat. Compassionate conservation aims to use techniques in animal welfare science to inform and improve conservation methodology. Using the concepts of animal welfare science as a framework for a broad questionnaire, the project seeks to find out whether the conservation programs at the Seoul Zoo focus on the desires of individual animals as well as the improvement of their health, consciousness and emotions. Such research could provide guidelines for evidence-based decisions to aid in the improvement of legislation concerning the welfare of Korean zoo animals, in turn improving the function of the institution for the Korean people. The results of this project are expected to explore an innovative perspective on the management and conservation priorities of Korean zoos, an underrepresented group in the twenty-first century debate on the role of these modern institutions. This award, under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the National Research Foundation of Korea.