The role of Zoos and Aquariums in Conservation

James Hansford, Adam Hejnowicz and Anastasia Tzortzaki

University of York 2009

Project Supervisor: Dr Andy Marshall

Introduction• Historical and modern day roles• Science in conservation• Assessing contribution of institutions

• Methods• Results

• Conclusions• Discussion

Historical and modern day rolesOldest zoos developed from Menageries

In 1800s zoos began to develop as scientific organisations• Taxonomy• Natural History

20th Century led to development as conservation centres•Ecology•Conservation of species

Development of several strategies• Ark Concept• Reintroduction plans• Visitor education• Fund raising

Directing Conservation EffortIUCN, UNEP and the WWF have contributed to a series of publications that hope to shape conservation policy within Zoos

Early documents suggested the need for zoos to be involved in conservation

The latest review calls for direct scientific action and publication within peer reviewed journals, integrated conservation programmes and an increase in In situ conservation effort

Developing zoos as a network of conservation centres

WCS (1980) WZCS (1993) WZACS (2005)

The role of Science in Conservation

Conservation draws upon many disciplines; genetics, population biology, behavioural ecology, physiology and natural history

Bulk of management decisions are not based upon scientific evidence

Evidence-based medicine

Relative strengths and weaknesses of conservation approaches and management decisions

Zoos manage individuals and small populations through meta-data analysis

Sutherland (2004) Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 305-308

Evaluating Conservation Programmes

Evaluation by assessment of individual project success•Clearer goals agreed with peers and practitioners to define success

Quantified inventory of coordinated programs•Does not measure effectiveness or impact of actions taken

Zoo measures groupQuantification of impact conservation impact by zoos

Is WAZA strategy being implemented?

Rise of In situ projects

Difficult to assess due to lack of data available globally

Zimmerman (2007) Zoos in the 21st Century

An overview of Conservation effort

Hypotheses

There has been a significant increase in the peer reviewed scientific output of Zoos and Aquaria

The increase of scientific output is due to increased conservation themed studies

Database Search Patterns

Additional zoo selection criteria

•A country in a region would have no representative if adhering to WAZA membership •Maximise zoos outside the N. American-European zone.

Continent

No of Zoos

Sampled

No. WAZA Affiliate

d

No. Zoos Published

% of Total

Total Papers/Reg

ionEurope 143 131 44 30.7

72583

Asia 41 30 15 36.59

269

N. America 72 71 51 70.83

3785

Central & South

America47 5 3 6.38 20

Africa 21 6 4 19.05

32

Oceania 19 9 9 47.37

300

Total 343 252 126 36.73

6989

Web of Knowledge

• Search parameter: Address

• Zoos selected from WAZA website. Generally, zoos selected on the basis of WAZA membership.

Methodology

Database Search Patterns

Web of Science:

Search Pattern 1: • Address = zoo (refined by Institution – exclude universities)• Documents = articles limited to yrs ‘99 – ’09

Search Pattern 2: • Address = aquarium (refined by Institution – exclude universities, research institutes etc.)• Documents = articles limited to yrs ’99 – ’09

•Search Pattern 3: Same as 1 but capped at ‘98•Search Pattern 4: Same as 2 but capped at ‘98References Exported to Endnote•Duplicates removed

WoS Database No. of References

Search Pattern 1

874

Search Pattern 2

882

Search Pattern 3

806

Search Pattern 4

465

Total References

3027

Total number of references after collation and subtraction of duplicates = 7558

Assessment of Zoo output in Specific Conservation Periodicals: Journal Selection

Type of Institution noted from addresses in the Abstract section.

Tallies were made based on contributions and article output (from contributions) for the following categories: Zoo, University, NGO and Other.

Journal 5 Year impact factor

Conservation Biology 5.393Biological Conservation

3.819

Conservation Genetics

2.408

Biodiversity & Conservation

1.965

Marine Ecology Progress Series

3.151

Five Conservation Journals were chosen, based on keyword search terms and impact factor (Cross-matching between WoS and Sciencedirect) and followed over the time period ’99 – ’09

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Publication Year

Numb

er o

f Pu

blic

atio

ns

Fig. 1 Graph shows total annual Zoo publication output since 1980 (data is from collated database search and displays over 7000 articles).

1980 -1989 1990-1999 2000-20090

100200300400500

Decade

Mean

Yea

r Ou

tput/D

ecad

e

ANOVA F71,91 P=<0.0001 Bonferroni P=<0.0001 .SD Error bars

Is the scientific peer-reviewed output of zoos increasing?

Results

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Animal Biology & WelfareConservationEcologyEthologyGen. ScienceZoo-basedOtherTotal Articles

Publication Year

No.

Of P

ubli

cati

ons

Fig. 3 Zoo publication output as a function of Biological Discipline.

In what areas of Science are Zoos predominantly focusing their effort?

Is there an increase in ‘Conservation’ Publications?

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

TotalConservationZoo basedAnimal Biology and welfareJournal Subset

Publication Year

Tota

l nu

mber o

f pu

blic

ations

Fig. 4 Conservation and Zoo-community publication category outputs since 1980, shown against Total zoo output and zoos’ primary research foci of animal biology & welfare. Also shown is the publication output for the five chosen conservation journals derived from the database search for the period 1999-2009.

1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-20090102030405060

Decade

Mean Y

ear

Outp

ut/D

ecad

e

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

01020304050

DecadeMe

an Y

ear

Outp

ut/D

ecade

ANOVA dF=2, F71,91 P=<0.0001

ANOVA df=2, F24,75 P=<0.0001

Are Zoos Progressing as well as Regressing?

Fig. 6 Three separate regression analyses on the database-derived publications. Specifically, categories (animal biology and welfare, conservation, and zoo-based). Categories measured as a proportion of the total output against time. For ‘conservation’ there is a significant positive trend (r2 0.706, P=0.02). Trends for Animal biology & welfare and zoo-based output were not significant.

Publications in High-end Conversation Journals?

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 20090.00

2.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00

12.00

14.00

16.00

Conservation BiologyBiological ConservationConservation GeneticsBiodiversity & ConservationMarine Ecol Prog Series

Publication Year

% Zo

o Annu

al C

ontr

ibut

ion

marine ecology progress series

biodiversity and

conservation

conservation biology

biological conservation

conservation genetics

0

20

40

60

ZOOS NGOsUniversitiesOther

Journal Title

Tota

l %

Cont

ribu

tion

ac

ross

All

Yea

rs

Conclusions

• Assessing the methods usedTwo ApproachesKeyword search – search within

journalsKeyword search

199920002001200220032004200520062007200820090

1

2

3

4

5

6

Publication Year

Annual percent of zoo contribution %

Annu

al p

erce

nt o

f zo

o co

ntri

buti

on %

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 20090

100

200

300

400

500

600

Total OutputChosen Journals

Publication Year

Number

of Publ

ications

Journal search

Measuring contribution by marking the author affiliationMeasuring contribution by marking whether a zoo participated in a journal article

Only in a subset of years, in Conservation Biology journal

year199920002001200220032004200520062007200820090123456789

zoo%(per issue) per year

Annu

al p

erce

nt o

f zo

o co

ntri

buti

on %

Publication Year

Journal search by contribution Journal search by article

An overview of Conservation effort

Hypotheses

There has been a significant increase in the peer reviewed scientific output of Zoos and Aquaria

The increase of scientific output is due to increased conservation themed studies

• Do zoos publish?

Zoos publish more since 1980.The largest proportion of these articles is under the animal biology and welfare discipline.Most publications are in other than strictly conservation journals, but the proportionate amount of zoo conservation publications has significantly increased.The subset of journals we chose to use in our journal search doesn’t reflect that trend.

• Who publishes most?

zoos universities NGOS Other0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

total research output

Perc

ent

% ba

sed

on

annu

al a

utho

r co

ntri

buti

on

Zoos publish less in comparison with universities, NGOs and other..

Limited funds

Less zoos than universities

Limited research potential due to less human resources

NGOs versus zoos?

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

ZoosNgos

Perc

ent

% ba

sed

on

annu

al a

utho

r co

ntri

buti

on

NGO – zoo research output

Discussion

• How can we define conservation?

• Can we determine and estimate the long- term outcomes of conservation efforts?

Trying to measure conservation success based on the research outcome seems like a valid approach, but this doesn’t mean that we are looking at the whole picture. This can lead us to underestimate, or worse, overestimate the role of zoos in conservation.

Meanwhile..• Assessing contribution and success of breeding/reintroduction programs led by zoos

• Development of evaluation methods for conservation education programs

• Focus research on domains zoos can be more efficient

• Building a stronger network between world zoos to better coordinate, share scientific information, databases etc.

Thank you..

Appendix I

Journal Name YearTotal Articles Published

Zoo Contributed Articles

% Total

Conservation Biology 2003 169 12 7.102004 189 10 5.292005 234 10 4.272006 194 15 7.732007 161 13 8.07

Biological Conservation 2003 251 6 2.392004 319 12 3.762005 316 13 4.112006 371 16 4.31

Conservation genetics 2003 79 3 3.802004 87 4 4.602005 100 7 7.002006 97 4 4.12

Marine Ecol Prog Series 2003 512 2 0.392004 517 2 0.392005 514 10 1.952006 527 7 1.33

Biodiversity & Conservation 2003 157 2 1.27

2004 151 4 2.652005 200 2 1.002006 257 8 3.11

Table 5. Summary- No. of Zoo Produced Articles within the five journals for the period 2003-2006.

Zoo Contribution varies within journals, between journals and across years but not in a generally increasing trend.

Appendix II

Primary Zoos (worldwide) assessed by Publication Output Europe

Number of Publications

Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp 149Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust 146Moscow Zoo 75The Zoological Society of London 1856AsiaLake Biwa Museum 167Taipei Zoo 44N. AmericaToronto zoo 126North Carolina Zoological Park 47Zoo Atlanta 185Brookfield Zoo 146New York Aquarium 153Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden 172Dallas Zoo 107Denver Zoological Gardens 57Inndianapolis Zoo 40Los Angeles Zoo 73Memphis Zoo 48Wildlife Conservation Society 1640San Diego Zoo 285St Louis Zoological Park 47Smithsonian National Zoological Park 98OceaniaTaronga Zoo 120Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens 40Perth Zoological Gardens 54

Table 3. Main Publishing Zoos (based on a minimum of 40 articles produced)

Source TitleRecord Count

% of 4229

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 1633.85%

VETERINARY RECORD 1443.41%

ZOO BIOLOGY 1232.91%

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY 119

2.81%

JOURNAL OF ZOO AND WILDLIFE MEDICINE 105

2.48%

JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY 1042.46%

ORYX 1022.41%

BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION 811.92%

NATURE 731.73%

JOURNAL OF REPRODUCTION AND FERTILITY 72

1.70%

(756 Source Title value(s) outside display options.)

Table 4. Where the top five Zoos Publish