In graduate school at the University of California at Davis, I had the good fortune to work in a
research lab in developmental psychobiology investigating the consequences of social …

Zoos, aquariums, and other captive animal facilities offer promising opportunities to advance
the science and practice of behavior analysis. Zoos and aquariums are necessarily …

Food preference describes the behavior of selecting between items for consumption;
reinforcer effectiveness is the functional effect of that item in controlling behavior. Food …

Protected contact is an alternative to traditional captive elephant training techniques that
emerged as a result of concerns for animal welfare and personnel safety. The present study …

Zoo design throughout the world continues to be inspired by the words of Henry Beston who
so eloquently articulated the familiar mantra that engenders such deep respect for the …

My research into animal welfare began at the California Primate Research Center in 1970
where I studied isolated monkeys from the laboratory of Harry F. Harlow. Harlow and his …

Going by different labels, including behavioral husbandry and applied behavior analysis,
behavioral management is a discipline of psychology that deals with the functional analysis …

Appropriate social groups in zoo-housed animals can enhance welfare, longevity, health
status and reproductive success of individuals, and consequently zoo populations. However …

Scores of wild species and ecosystems around the world face a variety of human-caused
threats, from habitat destruction and fragmentation to rapid climate change. But there is …

We believe that zoos with scientific credibility can be trusted to do the right thing on behalf of
the animals. To keep management on the empirical side, evidence-based managers …