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.

View the past welfare webinar recordings

Our next Welfare Webinar: Animal welfare is our welfare

When? 6 December from 1 to 2 pm (CET)

What? Idu Azogu-Sepe, Head of Research, will talk about the strategic development of a dedicated research department within Serengeti-Park Hodenhagen, emphasizing the integral motto that “animal welfare is our welfare”.

She will cover the fundamentals of what’s research in a zoo, how it contributes to animal welfare, and the top-down positive results of the research on animal welfare and stakeholders. Lastly, she will discuss the many ways that engaging in good animal welfare practices is intrinsically linked to human welfare, environmental sustainability and ethical responsibility.

Who? This talk is dedicated to anyone interested in understanding the connection between animal welfare and human health and wellbeing.

About the speaker

Idu Azogu-Sepe is Head of the Serengeti-Park Department of Research. She is also General Chair and Founder of the International Meeting on Zoo Research, Conservation and Biodiversity (IMZRCB). In addition, Idu is a core member of the EAZA Research Committee and a section editor for the Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research (JZAR).

What is coming in 2025? Get a sneak peek and save the dates!

Provisional dates	Webinar titles	Speakers	Roles and affiliations
13 January 2025	Behind Closed Doors: Considering 24-hour Welfare	Emily Hanley	Lead Keeper (Asian Elephant Team) at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo (UK), EAZA Animal Welfare Working Group Member, EAZA Academy Instructor (Welfare Assessment)
6 February 2025	Swimming Towards Better Welfare Practices for Fish	Claudia Tay	Manager of Animal Welfare and Behaviour Science at S.E.A. Aquarium (Singapore), EAZA Animal Welfare Working Group Advisor
date tbc	(TBC) Learning and cognitive abilities in aquatic species	Kai Mattison
date tbc	(TBC) Identifying and managing pain in zoo animals	Heather Bacon
2 June 2025	The importance of human-animal interactions for zoo animal welfare	Samantha Ward	Associate Professor of Zoo Animal Welfare at Nottingham Trent University (UK), EAZA Records Working Group
date tbc	(TBC) Coral welfare: What does a coral tell you?	Max Janse

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 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.

Download the guide

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: