APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE
WELFARE PRIORITY ASSESSMENT
Historically, evidence-based improvements in facility design has relied on comparative welfare assessments, which even if accuracy could be guaranteed and causality determined, ignore the value of opportunities not available to captive animals and so are fundamentally flawed. The Animal Welfare Priority Identification System (APWIS) overcomes this by systematically assessing the value of behaviours and cognitive processes by referencing a species' behavioural ecology and motivational characteristics. Now fully established in the peer reviewed scientific literature and employed by a multitude of zoos and sanctuaries worldwide, AWPIS provides the foundation to establish impactful and innovative design and management priorities.
Putting theory into practice
WELFARE AUDITING
Sometimes, you can see more if you take a step back, and the same is true of welfare. Our unique offering is a systematic, institution-wide, welfare auditing methodology allowing an accurate welfare performance heat map to be produced across an entire facility. Harnessing the knowledge of staff but independently overseen, our published process provides a unique insight that can provide the basis for performance manage and institutional prioritisation and planning. As an adjunct to this process, we offer a simultaneous visitor assessment module providing insights into visitor approval ratings of experiences and animal welfare. Finally, we offer prioritised welfare management support in light of the audit findings and the opportunity for ongoing periodic reviews.
WELFARE BY DESIGN
Exceptional welfare doesn't happen by accident. Our welfare priority assessment methodology forms the basis of our design brief. Working with facility staff and species experts, we identify what is important to the welfare of the species to inform design, management and uniquely the visitor experience. We've shown good welfare enhances the visitor experience, and so central to our design process, is weaving welfare enhancing opportunities into the visitor experience.