Zoo Biology

Aim

After the course, the students should be able to

• communicate the value and importance of ex situ conservation in the global conservation efforts, and how zoo conservation and education can help with conservation efforts in the wild.
• communicate, discuss and critically assess ethical and animal welfare factors in the field of ex situ conservation.
• describe the basics of how to maintain genetic diversity of zoo populations, how zoo medicine is used to diagnose and treat wild populations and ex situ reproduction techniques.
• identify, analyze, and compare pros and cons for housing animals in professional care.
• develop a research hypothesis and plan and execute a small research project either collecting new data or gathering historical data in the zoo.
• demonstrate science communications skills, both written and oral.
• assess welfare of a specific exhibit in the zoo and propose ways that can help to improve the exhibit.

Content

Students will be given lectures on basic concepts such as animal behavior, welfare, husbandry and ethics to allow them to understand the requirements to maintain animals in human care, and the importance of zoos and aquariums in conservation of wild species. Students will read and discuss peer reviewed publications with their peers, and determine where future research efforts should be focused. Students will enhance grant-writing skills by writing a proposal after developing a hypothesis and a research design to answer an unsolved question in the topics of animal welfare, husbandry, cognition, behavior, physiology, or conservation. Students will write their proposal in a standard federal grant format. Students will identify critical questions in zoo biology and learn the benefits of whole animal research to humans, to all other animals, to communities, and to ecosystems.