Maher Chloe J, Gibson Angela, Dixon Laura M, Bacon Heather
The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH25 9RG, UK.
The Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd, Oakland, CA 94605, USA.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Oct 29;11(11):3090. doi: 10.3390/ani11113090.
Animal welfare assessments are essential for the identification of welfare hazards and benchmarking of welfare improvements, though welfare assessments for zoo species are lacking. Bears are commonly housed in zoos but currently no composite welfare assessment tool exists for captive bears. This study describes the development of such a tool for use across hibernating bear species. A draft tool was developed using indicators derived from the literature and a modified Delphi analysis with an international group of bear keepers. A total of 18 bear keepers from 12 zoos were recruited to trial the tool on 24 brown bears and American black bears. The participating keepers assessed their bears three times across a period of nine days. Intraclass correlation coefficients analysis was used to analyse inter-, intra-rater and item reliability. The inter- and intra-rater reliability showed good to excellent levels of agreement (>0.7, < 0.05). Item reliability was also assessed and showed good to excellent levels of agreement (>0.75, < 0.05). The resulting bear welfare assessment is an important step in identifying and understanding challenges to bear welfare in captivity.
动物福利评估对于识别福利风险和衡量福利改善情况至关重要，尽管目前缺乏针对动物园物种的福利评估。熊是动物园中常见的圈养动物，但目前尚无用于圈养熊的综合福利评估工具。本研究描述了一种适用于冬眠熊类物种的此类工具的开发过程。该工具草案是根据文献中的指标以及与国际熊类饲养员小组进行的改进德尔菲分析制定的。总共招募了来自12家动物园的18名熊类饲养员，对24只棕熊和美洲黑熊试用该工具。参与的饲养员在九天时间内对他们的熊进行了三次评估。采用组内相关系数分析来分析评估者间、评估者内以及项目的可靠性。评估者间和评估者内的可靠性显示出良好到优秀的一致性水平（>0.7，<0.05）。项目可靠性也进行了评估，显示出良好到优秀的一致性水平（>0.75，<0.05）。由此产生的熊福利评估是识别和理解圈养熊福利挑战的重要一步。
