Animal Welfare Goes Online In India
Wild Welfare recently took animal welfare training online, carrying out a welfare webinar to zoos across India.
Carrying out a webinar entitled ‘Enrichment for Animal Welfare’, Wild Welfare’s Georgina Groves spoke to members of India’s Central Zoo Authority (CZA). This formed part of the Association’s capacity building initiatives, as one of a series of webinars presented by invited speakers on a variety of zoo animal health and welfare topics.
Good animal welfare is an ethical and economic imperative within the modern zoo, and the animals we care for should be afforded the opportunity to thrive. As part of our animal welfare support programmes, Wild Welfare provides training around the world to help improve operational practices that impact animal welfare.
Environmental and behavioural enrichment should play a significant role in the day to day care provided to wild animals in captivity and the implementation of appropriate enrichment is an important part of our training programmes.
Speaking to a wide membership of zoos, Georgina spoke on the importance of understanding animal welfare to implement a successful enrichment programme.
The presentation explored what animal welfare really means and how effective enrichment should be species focused and aim to meet animal needs within three key areas; 1) physical and social comfort, 2) environmental control and 3) behavioural choice.
Commenting on the webinar, Dr S. P. Yadav, from the CZA, said: “CZA remains greatly indebted to your valuable time and support in our capacity building initiatives and we look forward to furthering active collaboration with you.”
Feedback on the webinar was very positive and we were delighted to be able to collaborate with CZA to help further their programme and are looking forward to future partnerships with the Association to continue improving animal welfare across India.
Many challenges have been presented to us as a result of COVID-19, including our ability to travel to project countries to provide welfare training workshops in person.
We have been working to adapt to the circumstances and one of the new ways of reaching our intended audiences has been to move more of our training programmes online.
As well as providing bespoke webinars for particular audiences such as in the case of CZA’s recent webinar, we have developed a suite of online training packages in welfare concepts and practice, to ensure we can reach and teach animal care staff, managers and curators across the globe and continue to help animals in need.
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Notes to Editors
For more information or interview requests please contact Wild Welfare on communications@wildwelfare.org
Wild Welfare is a global organisation committed to improving animal welfare for captive wild animals. By uniting the world’s leading zoos, zoo associations and animal welfare organisations, we build trusting partnerships that help provide long-term solutions to critical wild animal welfare issues.
Our vision is to end the suffering of captive wild animals around the world and ensure full and sustainable protection is given to all animals in human care. Find out more at wildwelfare.org. Registered charity in England (no.1165941).
