That Tracks: The Science of Animal Happiness

How do you know if an animal you see at the zoo is thriving? Welfare scientist Jason explains.

0:00 Introduction

0:27 What is animal welfare?

0:49 How Lincoln Park Zoo monitors animal behavior

2:55 Why feeding behaviors are central to welfare science

3:32 Introducing the Zoo Monitor app

4:25 Zoo Monitor's global growth

5:20 The large-scale giraffe study

7:38 Balancing population data with individual welfare

9:30 Measuring welfare in understudied species

11:57 Monitoring nocturnal animals overnight

13:30 Welfare, wellbeing, and care: what's the difference?

15:44 How keepers and scientists work together

18:45 The future of welfare science

20:46 The naked mole rat dig pit experiment

23:17 Jason outside the zoo

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to That Tracks, Lincoln Park Zoo's podcast. I'm Jillian Rader and today with me we have My name is Jason Work.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I'm the director of the Animal Welfare Science Program at Lincoln Park Zoo.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

And today we're talking all about animal welfare. That is their holistic experience and how the zoo monitors that with data-informed science and how we understand their experiences from animals with disabilities to those experiencing a loss and everything in between. So Jason, let's start at the top. How can you tell if an animal is happy?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, that's a great question. So animal welfare is really those feelings of the animal, that subjective experience of the animal. And really we work to have to use scientific methods to really understand animal welfare. Largely drawing from the field of ethology, so the study of animal behavior. And so we have a pretty rigorous behavior monitoring program here, and we look for different behaviors. Some of the behaviors specifically that we focus a lot on are natural behaviors of the animals. So we're seeing certainly some of those right here with the giraffes and the browsing behaviors. Yeah, so looking at promoting those natural uh behaviors is really, really key there for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

And when you talk about natural behaviors and natural history and things like that, what's your metric? So for giraffes, for example, and you talked about browse and eating, like how do you know how many hours a day or how much of their time they should be spending doing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, that is a great question. Um, so giraffe in the wild would spend the majority of their day uh browsing off of leaves. Um so the uh trees that they feed on in the wild would be acacia trees, and acacia trees in the wild fight back quite a bit, right? So they have thorns, they have um a symbiotic relationship with ants that bite the giraffe. And so there is a lot of fighting back from the uh, you know, from the plants in the wild. And so I think one of the things that we really work to do here is really try to figure out how do we take, you know, take those challenges and apply that to our care. So a lot of the extractive foraging you're seeing here with the giraffes um is some of that natural behavior and trying to find those analogs in terms of how much of the behavior, you know, certainly there's going to be differences there between the wild and what uh animals in the zoo experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So I think that's so interesting because we think about giraffes as a prey species, and so like running from lions, but you don't think of like the trees fighting back and like little biting ants.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yes, ants biting them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

But I do think that is a really good example of the animal experience. Not everything is easy breezy, like it is a very experiential life, whether you're just eating or grazing. So, what are some other things that we have either like in habitats or with the animals here that help them experience like a full life?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, so I mean, I think we a lot of our focus is around feeding and fortune behaviors because that is, you know, such a fundamental component of the lives of natural animals. Is how do I find food? Where's the food? Um, and so there's a lot that we focus on there with our monitoring program of like really looking specifically at the um types of feeding behaviors that we see in the different animals. So for you know, giraffes, we're thinking about browsing, but other species, it might be grazing behaviors, it might be for our red river hogs outside, it might be rooting behaviors. So a lot of different types of uh feeding and foraging behaviors there. Um, and that's really where our care team comes in and shines. You know, a lot of the work here in getting that food up so high and making it hard for the animals is really the amazing work of the care team to try to simulate those experiences for the animals.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

And you mentioned tools, um, one of which is zoom monitor. Can you tell me a bit more about what that is and like how you're measuring these types of activities?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, so I mentioned um that we study animal behavior. And so we, as they say, I think they still say there's an app for that. I'm not sure if they still say that. Um but yeah, so we developed the Zoom Monitor app. So it's a tool that you can use on tablet devices to easily record uh behavior and how they use their space. So what are they doing and where are they at in their spaces? And that can be really uh helpful to understand um that animal welfare piece, that dimension for us. And so with the Zoom Monitor app, we have a team of uh volunteers, interns, and staff here that use that every single day to record what the animals are doing. And then we in the welfare science program work to take all that data and get that back to our managers to make informed decisions.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

And can you tell me it's now huge, it's everywhere, Zoom Monitor. You've been here for the whole sort of journey of it. Can you talk a little bit about how the scale has grown so much over the past?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, it has grown quite a bit. Um, yeah, so we launched the Zoom Monitor app back in 2016, and now we have over 2,000 organizations around the world that have signed up for Zoom Monitor. Incredible. Um I have certainly been on international trips at zoos around the world, and I hear a beep, and I'm like, I know that beep. And that's Zoom Monitor happening all around the world right now. Um so it's really powerful to kind of see that growth and spread and just all of the impact that it's had for zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, you name it, all around the world. I think it's really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

That's awesome. And part of that too, you know, it started maybe as an app here and then some testing sites, but now also it has this cross-functionality of multi-institutional studies. Um, can you share an example of one that you've been a part of or has been successful and what you learned from it?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, yeah. So I am very excited to talk. I mean, that's certainly something I'm very passionate about, is that multi-institutional research. So that's one of those newest, the newest areas that we built into Zoo Monitor. Um, and one of the projects that we did as our pilot project with those new tools was with giraffe, actually, right here. Um and so we did a large multi-institutional study of giraffe. And so we recorded um the behavior and space use of giraffe at zoos around the country. And so these are all zoos uh accredited by the association of zoos and aquariums. So, with that broader uh the sampling of giraffes around the country, we were able to learn a lot of like bigger insights than we can ever learn from a single institution. So, like our behavior data here is really powerful for welfare to understand our two giraffes, Finley and Ray, right? But it can be challenging to learn about giraffes more broadly as a species. And that's really where that multi-institutional data comes in and is so powerful in that it really gives us that opportunity to look at that natural variation in things like housing and husbandry and really be able to learn and and generate insights on how that can impact welfare and behavior of animals.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, that's great. Is there something, is there like one or two takeaways you learned from that study that were perhaps like surprising or new information?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, so with the giraffe uh study, so we had talked a little bit uh about their browsing behavior, how important that is for giraffe. One of the things that was really encouraging to see in the multi-institutional study is that we saw that their um the amount of time that giraffes spent browsing across the different institutions was uh pretty high. And it was actually higher than what had been reported in past multi-institutional studies. So there's been a lot of attention to like getting uh giraffe to feed uh you know more prolonged feeding valves and making feeding a lot more challenging to giraffe. And so that's been a big community-wide focus on a lot of zoos, and so being able to see that manifest in the data is really powerful and actually see that change happening there. Um, I would also say, too, like internally here at Lincoln Park Zoo, we also had some of the highest levels of browsing behavior and extractive foraging behavior of any uh organization that was in that broader study there. And so I think that is a huge testament to the care team here and all the work that they do to have those challenges for the giraffe uh and promoting those natural behaviors.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

That's great. Yeah. The the scale of a multi-institutional, multi-giraffe or any species study is so great, but I think another thing when we're talking about welfare and well-being is it at the end of the day, too, it comes down to the individual. So how are you measuring or balancing, I guess, population versus individual? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say a lot of like our internal conversations are largely fueled off of that individual driven work that we do here at Lincoln Park too. I think the the broader multi-institutional work that we do as well really helps us understand the species. And that can really guide care practices and guidelines that are being developed more broadly. So if we were to design like a new jar habitat, for instance, we would have really good data-driven information to understand how, you know, what to what to put into those um that design there.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah. And as far as preferences, what are some ways that you address that as a scientist? And like, and I guess in collaboration with the care team, what are how do those preferences manifest in a daily care setting?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah, so we certainly are always trying to understand, you know, a core question is like, what do animals want, right? Um, we know providing choice and opportunities for those natural behaviors is fundamental to promoting good welfare. Um, and so that can manifest in a lot of different ways of how we present that choice to animals. Of course, we have an enrichment program here that is always working to provide unique, dynamic experiences to animals every single day. Um, and so a lot of our data can help drive and inform that process too of like what is working? Is this enrichment successful? Is it promoting the behaviors we think it's promoting? Um, and so that's where we can really get a lot of information out of our behavior data.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah. And for maybe giraffes where browsing is a pretty obvious behavior, or primates where their facial expressions are a little bit easier to read, those feel perhaps a little more easy to understand. But for some creatures that maybe don't move that much as part of their natural history or don't have a ton of expressions, how do you measure these like sort of misunderstood or understudied species?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah, that's a great question. So we have um, you know, historically we recognize that a lot of the research that's been done in welfare science to understand what is important for welfare and even how to study animal welfare, what behaviors to even think about are largely um traditionally mammals and birds. A lot of the research has been in those for those taxa. And so to your point about understudied species, you know, certainly reptiles and amphibians are a big area that has been largely under explored, understudied there. And so we've done a number of studies there to um understand those preferences. And so we kind of still approach it, not that different than how we would approach it for mammals, largely speaking. Um, you know, we'll pro provide different choices, look at their behavior before and after, and evaluate it from there. And so some of the studies work that we've done is like looking at substrate preferences of turtles. Um and you know, right now we're doing a study looking at um preferences for different privacy options for snakes and privacy opportunities for snakes. And so some different work there just to understand what those animals want. But I would say, like to your point about the challenges, it is real. Like, you know, you have snakes, you know, some snakes are sit and you know, sit and wait, ambush predators that don't do as much, right? And so I think there we are looking at other ways that we can maybe explore that. You know, certainly we've done research with toads and frogs, trying to understand like, can we use their posture to maybe understand welfare? Like, how are they standing? Can that tell us something meaningful? And so trying to glean insights from whatever information we can get from the animals.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

From a purely logistics standpoint, do those studies take longer for something like a sit and wait predator? Are you, I mean, does it just take longer form?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Great question. Um, I would say no, we generally don't have those studies take longer, but we do need to interpret maybe on a different time scale. Okay. And a lot of those studies we have also done have been more 24-hour monitoring. So maybe that is a little bit longer. So a lot of our observations are generally during the daytime for a lot of our species, but some of those species are nocturnal and they also work at different timescales, right? So they're not going to be as active as our giraffes are going to be. And so we do certainly think about how do we capture that and how do we replicate that um more broadly. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

You mentioned 24 hours, um, and you also mentioned your team. So we can't be here 24 hours a day. So what are some of the tools that you're using to get those like overnight observations or what is that? Are you watching videos back? Like how does the process work?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we have um we'll we'll have camera systems installed in some of the different habitats that we're monitoring those species that we know are nocturnal and might have those uh overnight behaviors. And so we have um teams that can help collect those observations, record that behavior data of those animals when we aren't physically present here at the zoo. So we really understand more holistically, you know, what is their experience across the entire day.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Is there anything that you've seen in those overnight observations that like perhaps surprised you where we had never seen during the daytime before for any species?

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Well, I think we, you know, thinking the snakes in the Reagan scene, small mammal, reptile house, I mean, some of those are nocturnal species. So just even seeing them active is kind of a unique thing. Um, you know, our African rock python there, a lot of guests, if you were to go to see them, you probably aren't going to see your African rock python doing much during the day, but at night, she's a pretty active individual. And you do actually see that individual going down and using a lot more of the habitat, using the water features and stuff like that. And so I think those opportunities to really appreciate the full diversity of what they're doing across the entire day, and not just limit it to us being diurnal mammals and have that bias in our behavior data, I think is really important.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I think I saw a video of that Roc Python swimming, and it was very cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Um, what is sort of zooming back again? There's a lot of vocabulary that comes with the welfare world. There's welfare, well-being, happiness, care. What is sort of the core differences you see between like care and welfare or welfare and well-being? How are they different? How are they say the same?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, maybe I'll start with welfare and well-being there first. So those terms I would say are largely fairly similar, right? They're both speaking to the animal's experience there. Um, animal well-being is a newer term that's been adopted that is really more looking at those positive experiences of an animal. So when we think about happiness, that's a little bit more equivalent to when we're talking about animal well-being. Um, animal welfare is a traditionally a more historic term that has defined this field. And so that's really the whole holistic experience of the animal, both negative and positive there. In terms of animal care or well-being and animal care, that's really two sides of the coin of what you know amazing care looks like at Lincoln Park Zoo is the animal welfare side is the animal's experience, and the care is what we're doing as people, right? So the care is our people dimension side of all of the practice that we do and our, you know, how we're simulating these behaviors. The experience of the animals is really the welfare side of that coin.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Well, so care is an input. What are some other um inputs that like perhaps you're measuring or you're trying to understand when looking at an individual's experience?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, so I mean, I would say broadly speaking, thinking about environmental inputs as well. Um, you know, we certainly think a lot about temperature and weather and stuff like that. Um and so that has really been applied in a lot of our different projects and behavior data. We record that behavior data of like how much are they using the shade opportunities in the space, you know, for outdoor species. Um, environmental aspects, I would say, is another big one. And then also the social dimension, too. I mean, we think a lot about the care defining that welfare. I mean, it is a really holistic experience that defines animal welfare, right? And so that is the experience of other individuals in their group, it is the environment, um, and it is as well what we put into that with our input there too.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Great. If you are finding through your observations or through um chatting with the keeper staff that an individual is not perhaps like thriving in the way that we think or foraging as much as they should or something, what are some like what is your approach to that? Are we monitoring and then making changes? Are we relying on keeper observations? How does that process kind of work?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

I would say both, right? So I think we get really valuable, rich information from the keepers that know the animals the best, right? I think we each provide different pieces of uh information to complete this puzzle of trying to understand the animal experience. Um, for us, you know, it's really the objective behavior data that we get with our monitoring program is really powerful in that. And so for us to answer your question, like we work to really generate those insights, provide that information back to the managers, and so they can make those informed decisions with that data-driven understanding of what the animals are doing and how they use their spaces.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

And how are you? Um, so I've heard we talked a little bit with this with SIGA, um, our nutrition center manager, about how like diet is not just one meal, it's like over the course of a week or a month. Um, and welfare is not just one second in time, it's your whole life experience. So, how are you balancing like a good day versus a bad day versus a good year? Or like, you know, a lot of these animals go through circle of life, loss of a companion or things like that. How are you monitoring that and judging sort of their holistic experience over the course of time? Yeah, so we have kind of a big question. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah. Um, we have different approaches, I would say, for different experiences that the animal might have, right? So if there is a loss of a companion, we have a separate protocol that gets put into place to help monitor that individual and make sure that um we have a really close understanding of their welfare and how is that changing from those uh those changes that are happening. Um, I would say more broadly, it's really in our interpretation too of the information. Um, you know, our behavior data is dispersed, right? We're getting small snippets of what they're doing throughout the day across, you know, across the week. And really it's working to kind of pull all that information together and it's how we interpret it, I would say, is a large piece of you know, getting to that larger understanding of their holistic experience is really what we're after there.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah. In your time um in this field, what has been sort of the greatest uh advancement or understanding that you've and I can't say zoom monitor.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Okay. Um I you know, I would certainly say just the growth of behavior monitoring and evidence-based practices. Of course, as a scientist, I'm a bit biased there. You know, I certainly love data, but data nerd. Um, but seeing that growth in really applying data into the fundamental practice of animal care, I think is a really powerful shift that has happened across the community, you know, over certainly the last two decades really has uh picked up a lot in the last decade. And so I think being able to have that um supplement, you know, sort of the understanding that our experts in these species and in these individuals have, I think it really is a beautiful marriage of two different processes there.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

And then where do you see it going? What does welfare science look like in five, 10, 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, I'm well, I guess I would certainly say the growth of that, you know, certainly as opportunities start presenting with automated behavior monitoring. That's certainly an exciting development of that's happening across zoos there, of like how could we really be able to get that data 24-7 automated and really be able to scale that up to, you know, all the species that are cared for at a zoo. I think that that's really exciting. I think also, too, the broadening of that umbrella, right? You know, our tagline is, of course, for wildlife for all, and I think very much as a welfare scientist, for all wildlife, right? And so as we sort of have broadened that scale, which we've done here at Lincoln Park Zoo, and thinking, you know, not just about the mammals and birds, but the reptiles, the amphibians, um, a lot of our other species that we're focusing on as well and other situations, I think that that's a really exciting development of just really appreciating the experience of all the animals that are under the care of the zoo.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So we talked about um individuality and preferences and things like that. We also have, you know, not every animal is the same either. They might have different personalities, they might have different physical abilities. How are we measuring those individual differences as well?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, that's uh, I mean, I think when I was talking about broadening that umbrella of, you know, for all wildlife, certainly we have animals with disabilities here under our care at Lincoln Park Zoo. And we've done surveys too to see that that's pretty common. Pretty much all zoos have animals that they care for that have a disability. And so one of the big areas that we've been also thinking and and working towards is how do we provide those accommodations, right? So that is the term that we typically use with people, and that's the same term we would use with animals. So, of course, like right here on my face, I have an accommodation, right, for my disability. And so, how do we present those in the habitats for those animals that might have physical disabilities and how do we reshape that so they can still um perform and display those natural behaviors that they would uh otherwise do?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

So it's about natural behaviors, and we've talked about nocturnal species and things, but I'm also thinking about you know, the like diggers and the the tunnel makers. How do you measure something like in that category, like a naked mole rat that you can always see?

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah, yeah. So I mean I think you know, broadly speaking, we really work hard to think of how we can promote those natural behaviors. We've obviously talked a lot about the natural feeding and foraging behaviors, but digging is you know a key natural behavior for naked mole rats. So they are a fossorial species, they live pretty much their entire lives underground in the wild and dig extensive tunnel networks. But the way the zoo habitats are often designed is those tunnels are provided for them, right? So we take away some of that challenge. And so that really led us to thinking about well, how can we provide them the opportunity to still do those digging behaviors? Um, and so if you go over to the ring and see small mammals reptile house, you'll see to the right of their tunnel system, there is an area there that has compact soil that they can go in and excavate. We fondly nicknamed it the Dig Pit. Um, and through our welfare science program, we evaluated what having the opportunity for that digging through the dig pit, uh how their behavior was before and after that opportunity. And we saw really great behaviors like you know increased exploration, increased positive social behaviors between the naked mole rats. Um so really good evidence, I think, for us to show that it was a positive uh improvement on their welfare.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

What does a positive naked mole rat interaction look like for those of us who are not welfare scientists?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah, they purr and wagged their tail. Um so I would say, you know, really is having those opportunities to look at those behaviors, like you know, the exploration, making sure that they're using more of their space, those positive social behaviors too, I think were a really key guide of like how we were interpreting that this was an improvement. I would also say just the simple fact that when we provided that dig pit to them, they excavated it within like I think the first like 30 minutes or so. So I, you know, certainly there was a lot of um amazing behavior we saw right off the bat that were pretty indicative that they like digging. Yeah. Um, and so that's something that we've been working to always provide them. And and you know, we have to go back and replenish that soil. It's a lot of work from the care team to promote these behaviors. Um, but it's really a fantastic experience for the naked mole rats to be able to still have that digging opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Great. All right, Jason. Can you tell me? So obviously animal welfare is your passion, zoo monitor and the and analyzing and the data, but who is Jason outside of the zoo? What brings you joy when you're not here with the animals?

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, uh uh, I would say definitely my daughter. So I have a three-year-old daughter at home who I love um tremendously. So any time that I get to spend with her and any of the opportunities to be singing Disney show tunes and watching Disney movies is always an amazing experience for me.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Nice. And what about um I heard you like to build miniatures?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Uh paint, yes. Yes. I do.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

What does that look like? Do you have a theme? Is there like, are they Disney?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

They're not Disney. No, Disney would probably not legally allow that. Um they so generally like kind of some fantasy miniatures. Um, I really am excited to start working in painting some more animal miniatures. I mean, it's just bringing together my passions in life. Um, but yeah, so like really small little things. I think as a welfare scientist, I'm just a very detail-oriented person. And it really tickles, yes, it really tickles that itch of like being very detail-oriented and spending like hours obsessing over like the painting of an eyeball, for instance, or something like that. So I think it really can drive a little bit of that passion for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We learned so much. And where can we find out more about animal welfare at Link Park Zoo?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, of course, coming to the zoo is a great way to see it in action. Um, so you as you come around the zoo, if you hear an iPad beeping or you see somebody using it, that's our welfare science in action. That's our Zoo Monitor app. Um, and of course, seeing all these amazing experiences is a great way to see it in action. Um, our website, uh, and of course, all of our social media channels would be a great opportunity to see all the amazing natural behaviors that um we have our animals uh we promote with our animals.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah.