Sherwen Sally L, Hemsworth Paul H
Wildlife Conservation and Science, Zoos Victoria, Victoria, Melbourne 3052, Australia.
The Animal Welfare Science Centre, the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Melbourne 3052, Australia.
Animals (Basel). 2019 Jun 17;9(6):366. doi: 10.3390/ani9060366.
Achieving and maintaining high standards of animal welfare is critical to the success of a modern zoo. Research has shown that an animal's welfare is highly dependent on how various individual animal factors (e.g., species traits, genetics, temperament and previous experience) interact with environmental features (e.g., social grouping, enclosure design and sensory environment). One prominent feature of the zoo environment is the presence of visitors. Visitor contact can be unpredictable and intense, particularly in terms of auditory and visual interaction. Depending on an animal's perception of this interaction, visitors can have either negative, neutral or positive impacts on zoo animal behaviour and welfare. This paper reviews the literature on the implications and potential opportunities of human-zoo animal interactions on animal behaviour and welfare, with the aim of stimulating interest, understanding and exploration of this important subject. The literature to date presents a mixed range of findings on the topic. It is possible this variation in the responses of zoo animals to visitors may be due to species-specific differences, the nature and intensity of the visitor interactions, enclosure design, and individual animal characteristics. Analysing these studies and better understanding animal preferences and motivations can provide insight into what animals find negatively and positively reinforcing in terms of visitor contact in a specific zoo setting. This understanding can then be applied to either safeguard welfare in cases where visitors can have a negative impact, or, conversely, it can be applied to highlight opportunities to encourage animal-visitor interaction in situations where animals experience positive emotions associated with visitor interaction.
实现并维持高标准的动物福利对于现代动物园的成功至关重要。研究表明，动物的福利高度依赖于各种个体动物因素（如物种特征、遗传学、性情和过往经历）与环境特征（如社会群体、圈养设计和感官环境）之间的相互作用。动物园环境的一个显著特征是游客的存在。游客接触可能是不可预测且强烈的，尤其是在听觉和视觉互动方面。根据动物对这种互动的感知，游客可能会对动物园动物的行为和福利产生负面、中性或正面影响。本文综述了关于人类与动物园动物互动对动物行为和福利的影响及潜在机会的文献，旨在激发对这一重要主题的兴趣、理解和探索。迄今为止的文献在该主题上呈现出各种各样的研究结果。动物园动物对游客反应的这种差异可能是由于物种特异性差异、游客互动的性质和强度、圈养设计以及个体动物特征所致。分析这些研究并更好地理解动物的偏好和动机，可以深入了解在特定动物园环境中，动物在游客接触方面认为哪些是负面和正面强化因素。然后，这种理解可应用于在游客可能产生负面影响的情况下保障福利，或者相反，在动物体验到与游客互动相关的积极情绪的情况下，应用于突出鼓励动物与游客互动的机会。
