JZAR Special Edition: Proceedings of the 12th European Zoo Nutrition Conference in Riga, Latvia, 20–22 September 2023
Appropriate zoo animal nutrition is one of the bases of good animal husbandry and welfare. Diet plays an important role in health, reproductive success, longevity, and the avoidance of suffering, whilst a suitable feeding regime should not only cover an animal’s requirements in terms of nutritional and digestive physiology, but also in terms of activity […]
Should Zoo Food Be Chopped for Captive Turacos?
It is common practice for keepers in zoological collections to provide animals in their care with food that is chopped into small pieces. Anecdotally, it has been suggested that chopped food reduces wastage and reduces aggression from group-housed animals. However, there is limited empirical evidence to support these suggestions. To investigate the effects of food […]
Challenges and Directions in Zoo and Aquarium Food Presentation Research: A Review
From its foundations in agricultural science, zoo animal nutrition has developed into a biologically informed, evidence-based discipline. However, some facets of nutrition still make use of a more traditional approach, such as the field of zoo presentation. For example, it is common practice to prepare animal diets by chopping them into bite-size chunks, yet there […]
Guidelines for creating a food safety HACCP program in zoos or aquaria
Abstract 10.1002/zoo.20081.abs The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) monitoring system has been used traditionally to increase quality control in human food production operations and there is pressure to implement it at the producer and purchaser levels of the food chain. Recently, the concept of HACCP monitoring has extended to food fed to domestic […]
Variations in Eastern bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) feeding practices in UK zoological collections
Abstract The feeding strategy of the Eastern bongo in the wild is unusual, poorly understood, and few captive feeding recommendations are currently available to zoos. To assess the current state of nutritional husbandry of this rare antelope, eight UK zoos were surveyed. A nutritional husbandry questionnaire was completed and bongos at each zoo were visually […]