Innsbruck 2012 - Plenary Sessions
The plenary sessions at the EAZA Annual Conference bring all delegates together for presentations of general interest to the membership and to the wider zoo and aquarium community. The opening plenary includes a keynote presentation intended to set the context for the event in an inspiring and thought-provoking way. This year's conference will also see plenary sessions dedicated to themes relating to animal welfare and sustainable animal populations.
Opening Plenary
Wednesday 26 September - 08.30-10.30
EAZA Chairman’s welcome: Simon Tonge (Executive Director, Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust)
Conference host's welcome: Welcome to Innsbruck
A year in the life of EAZA : Lesley Dickie (Executive Director, EAZA)
Keynote Presentation (via video):
Julia Marton-Lefévre, Director General, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
The EAZA IUCN SSC Southeast Asia Campaign
Wednesday 26 September - 16.30-18.00
The EAZA IUCN SSC Southeast Asia Campaign has been extended for a further year, and will come to an end in September 2013. This session will remind attendees of the importance of this campaign, provide an update on progress so far and suggest ways in which members can become involved and make this campaign EAZA’s most successful yet.
Chair: Gary Batters, Banham Zoo / Africa Alive, co-Chair EAZA IUCN SSC Southeast Asia Campaign
Campaign Update: Mirko Marseille, EAZA
Saola and the Extinction Crisis in Southeast Asia: Bill Robichaud, IUCN SSC
The saola of Laos and Vietnam is one of the world's most endangered large mammals. It is also the largest terrestrial animal in the world (of undisputed existence) that has never been seen in the wild by a biologist, and there is none in captivity anywhere in the world. Yet, for compelling reasons, EAZA made this enigmatic species the logo for its current Southeast Asia Campaign - most importantly, because the fate of the saola is tied to fate of many other threatened species in the region.
William Robichaud has worked on wildlife conservation in Indochina since 1992 (variously for the Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF, IUCN and the government of Laos), and has been involved in saola conservation since the mid 1990s. He is currently coordinator of the Saola Working Group of the IUCN/SSC Asian Wild Cattle Specialist Group, and splits his time between Laos and the United States.
Legal and Illegal Wildlife Trade in Southeast Asia: Vincent Nijman, Oxford Brookes University
Edwards's Pheasant - a story of ex situ conservation efforts: Jan Dams, Weltvogelpark Walsrode, EAZA Galliformes TAG Chair
An Upstream Journey – Tagging Migratory Fish of the Mekong River: short video, introduced by Will Duckworth, IUCN SSC, co-Chair EAZA IUCN SSC Southeast Asia Campaign
Animal Welfare in EAZA Zoos - Future Directions
Friday 28 September - 14.00-16.00
Good animal welfare is integral to everything we do: without good welfare our breeding programmes will be unsuccessful; our visitor and public communications will be untrustworthy; we will be unable to fundraise for conservation in the field; and, ultimately as an organisation EAZA will have little influence in the European policy sphere if we are not seen as trusted partners for captive animal welfare. At heart, EAZA and its member institutions must have a relationship with both their animals and their visitors who believe we take good care of these animals - a relationship which is based on trust. This ‘trust relationship’ is the core dialogue between zoos and the general public and impacts everything we can accomplish thereafter.
To this end EAZA has clear policies and structures pertaining to animal welfare and the ethical responsibility we bear to the populations of animals we maintain. The EAZA Minimum Standards for the Accommodation and Care of Animals in Zoos and Aquaria, the EAZA Code of Ethics and the Membership and Ethics Committee all speak to the importance of good welfare in our community. This session will examine what new developments there have been in the field of zoo animal welfare from both within and outside the EAZA Community. External speakers will discuss the changing animal welfare policy of the EU, the academic community research in captive animal welfare and internal presenters discussing of practices such as regular animal welfare audits can enhance good care of individuals, groups and ultimately populations.
Chair: Dr. Lesley Dickie, EAZA
EU Draft Strategy Animal Welfare: Lesley Dickie
Welfare Assessment Criteria: Paul Koene, University of Wageningen
Welfare Audits: Steph Sandersen, Chester Zoo
Bear husbandry guidelines - an ongoing, holistic approach: Dr. Lydia Kolter, Koelner Zoo, Bear TAG vice-chair
EAZA Academy - Enrichment training in Eastern Europe: Myfanwy Griffith, EAZA Academy
EEP Plenary: Sustainable animal populations - are we there yet?
Saturday 29 September - 11.00-13.00
Analyses carried out by population management experts from various regional zoo and aquarium associations clearly point to an overall lack of self-sustaining populations in regional breeding programmes. The analyses of EAZA’s bird and mammal EEPs and ESBs (Leus et al, 2010) prove our breeding programmes are no exception and lack self-sustainability. During the EEP plenary at the EAZA Annual Conference in Montpellier, September 2011 various initiatives directed at achieving more sustainable populations were presented to the conference participants. At this year’s EEP plenary speakers will report back on some of these ongoing initiatives providing an update of current stands. Other speakers will present some exciting new initiatives, tools and strategies that are in the cards or undertaken on the road towards achieving sustainable animals populations.
Chair: Danny De Man, EAZA
Sustainable animal populations – What’s The Focus? Danny de Man
Danny will explain the overarching topic of the session and introduce the speakers and presentations that will be given. Secondly he will provide an update on ongoing initiatives (GSMPs, Population Management Manual, pedigrees and molecular genetics, current state of affairs re. import legislation)
Building bridges for species conservation: Ann-Katrine Garn, EAZA
Ann-Katrine will introduce an IUCN and EAZA initiative that is aimed at establishing and strengthening links between EAZA Taxon Advisory Groups and IUCN SSC Specialist Groups. This presentation is very much related to ongoing discussions on integrated conservation, holistic (ONE) approach to species prioritisation and IMPs. There are various examples of existing bridges that relate to the concept such as the workshop held at the Specialist Group meeting in Abu Dhabi, the Asian Wild Cattle Specialist Group’s Captive Breeding Group, the Djibouti Action Planning workshop, the Galliformes and Aquatic Plant Specialist Group requests and updates from the One approach workshop in Jeju.
A tool to measure your collection’s sustainability: Colleen Lynch, Curator of Birds, Lincoln Park Zoo / Population Biologist, AZA Population Management Centre (PMC)
As holders of the animals, achieving sustainable breeding programme populations starts with member institution’s commitment and successes keeping and breeding given species. Colleen will explain the Collection Sustainability self-evaluation tool that bird curators and population biologists from various AZA zoos have developed. This tool is intended to provide a quantitative assessment of Collection Sustainability at the Species, Order, and Total Collection level. The Tool will identify areas of growth and decline, production and consumerism, and Community Impact of a selected Institutional collection over a selected time frame. Data from multiple institutions can also be combined to see how individual taxonomic groupings are performing within a regional Association. The tool can be used by EAZA members to measure their successes and point to areas in need of improvement.
The EEP Committee’s strategic action plan for 2013-2016: Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo, Chair EAZA EEP Committee
The EEP Committee is finalising its strategic action plan for 2013-2016 which obviously is tied to the new overall EAZA Strategic Plan for the same period. Overseeing the TAG and breeding programme framework of EAZA, the EEP Committee is at the forefront when it comes to finding ways to reach more sustainable animal populations in EAZA. Bengt will present the vision and main aims and objectives that the EEP Committee has agreed upon for the coming four years.
Completing the first cyclical EEP evaluations - experiences and improvement: Eric Bairrão Ruivo, ZooParc de Beauval, Member EEP Evaluation Subgroup
Well functioning breeding programmes are of crucial importance for successful population management, and thus also for achieving as sustainable population as possible. Evaluating EEPs is key to monitor and where necessary improve the functioning of these EAZA breeding programmes. The EEP Committee launched the first five year EEP evaluation cycle late 2006, after working in close cooperation with the TAGs in designing the process for these evaluations. The EEP evaluation procedure involves the various stakeholders that are part of EEPs, is very much process based and is TAG driven. This year the EEP Committee closed the first five year cycle. On behalf of the EEP Committee – Evaluations subgroup Achim Johann (or Eric Ruivo tbc) will present an overview of the general outcomes of the EEP evaluations, the lessons learned along the way and the suggested changes to the structure for the next evaluation cycle.
Closing Plenary
Saturday 29 September - 16.30-17.00
Host handover: Alpenzoo Innsbruck, Austria hands over to Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland
Chairman's closing remarks: Simon Tonge