Resources - Animal welfare

Find here everything you need to understand animal welfare better and develop your own institutional welfare assessment programme.  

Animal welfare resources

EAZA Welfare Webinars

EAZA Welfare Webinars are free and open to all, to support animal management professionals across the wider animal management community. Joining the webinars is a fantastic opportunity to gain professional development from experts in the animal welfare field, which you can apply within your own work to promote evidence-based positive animal welfare.

Our next webinar

When? 7 January, from 13h to 14h CET

Who? James Star, primate keeper at Chester Zoo and co-founder the Keeper Educational Exchange Programme (KEEP)

What? The Keeper Educational Exchange Programme (KEEP) is a free-of-charge programme designed to connect animal care staff with other institutions. By facilitating short-term educational placements at other zoos/aquariums and the sharing of best practice, KEEP aims to promote the best possible standards of animal welfare across zoological institutions. The webinar will introduce KEEP and explore how professional development benefits both zookeeper and animal welfare. With many exciting plans coming up, we hope this is of interest to both keepers and managers alike!

What is coming in 2026? Get a sneak peek and save the dates!

   

Provisional datesWebinar titlesSpeakersRoles and affiliations
7 JanuaryKeeper exchanges for good animal and keeper welfareJames StarPrimate keeper at Chester Zoo; co-founder of KEEP; Alaotran reed lemur EEP species committee member
6 February Development of a welfare assessment toolSylvie ClavelZoo African Safari
6 MayHoof Trimming : how to and welfare benefitsSioned Mai Davies-GrimshawPeak Wildlife Park
TBCDevelopment of the Dolphin-WET toolKatrin Baumgartner

  

Join our Welfare Webinar series as expert speaker!

Are you an animal welfare professional? Would you like to support EAZA Members improve this area within zoos and aquariums? Can you talk about a general or more specific topic linked to application and improvement of animal welfare?

We would love to hear from you! Please email us a brief topic overview to info@eaza.net.

 

Animal Welfare Assessments

  

The ability to assess animal welfare within our zoo and aquarium collections is a very valuable tool. Periodic assessment will not only provide understanding of the current state of welfare for the animals in our care, but it will also allow for monitoring of welfare changes and identify areas for welfare improvement.

To help support our Members to fulfil EAZA Standards, the EAZA Executive Office and the EAZA Animal Welfare Working Group (AWWG) have created a guide on how to develop your own institutional welfare assessment programme.

We encourage you to read this guide (English) and believe this will be a helpful resource to your zoo / aquarium to move forward the aim of excellent welfare for all animals in EAZA Members.

Русский Russian Translation

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Library

The EAZA Animal Welfare Assessments Library is a collection of previously established animal welfare assessments / auditing tools that have been kindly shared from researchers and animal management institutions. 

The established assessments all take slightly different approaches to welfare monitoring and therefore this gives the opportunity to align your organisations needs with the appropriate pre-established assessments. A decision-making tool has been provided for the full library by the EAZA Animal Welfare Working Group in order to support Members in selecting the most appropriate assessment for their needs.

A number of institutions have offered to share their welfare assessment tools publicly. Please see below the welfare assessment library for public use. It will continue to grow with more institutions offering their assessments and more translations of the current assessments being submitted.

BIAZA Animal Welfare Toolkit:

Wildlife Reserves Singapore:

Zoological Society of London:

Special thanks

EAZA would like to thank the following people for sharing their time and expertise with translations:

  • Xavier Manteca Vilanova, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Caterina Spiezio, Parco Natura Viva, Italy
  • Godelieve Kranendonk, APP Rescue Centre, the Netherlands
  • Annette Pedersen, Copenhagen Zoo, Denmark
  • Sami Khader, Qalqilia Zoo, Palestine
  • Dana Canari, Brasov Zoo, Romania
  • Csaba Harsányi, Sóstó Zoo, Hungary
  • Josef Kindl, Kosice Zoo, Slovakia
  • Valeria Skliarova, Kaliningrad Zoo, Russia
  • Bùi Gia Linh, Hoàng Thị Tỉnh, Thân Thị Trang, Animals Asia
  • Wang Chun Mei, Xie Meng Qi, Animals Asia
  • Julia Vakulenko, Kyiv Zoological Gardens, Ukraine
  • Nora Hausen, EAZA Executive Office
  • Marie Corlay, EAZA Executive Office
  • Catarina Rosa, Lisbon Zoo, Portugal
  • João Pedro Gomes Meireles, Independent
  • Shawn Peng, Taipei Zoo, Taiwan
  • Annie Grannas, Orsa Rovdjurspark, Sweden
  • Elina Lundholm, Furuviksparken, Sweden
  • Irene Beyer, Bjorneparken, Norway
  • Hyunjoo Jang, Seoul Zoo, South-Korea
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Welfare from other regions

Are you interested in the welfare strategies and policies of colleagues in the United States, Australasia and more?