Professor Hannah-Buchanan-Smith is the head of the Behaviour and Evolution Research Group, and Director of Human Animal Interaction Research Group in Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK.

Hannah introduces us to her work, the importance of understanding how animals have evolved, their capacities, and adaptations. She emphasizes that it is key to learn about how animals live in the wild to provide good captive conditions. She shares highlights from her research career such as why animals live in mixed-species groups, research on comparative colour vision, and animal welfare studies.

Hannah describes some early life experiences and encourages you to persevere in reaching your goals and not to give up. She tells us what she finds rewarding and keeps her motivated in her job.

Hannah and Sabrina discuss the important distinction between care and welfare. Hannah talks about continuous animal welfare assessments, and she presents in detail different approaches. For her, the key...

In this episode Amanda Embury, whose career has spanned over 40 years in the fields of animal welfare and species management, shares insights on ongoing animal welfare assessments, teamwork and continuous improvements.

Amanda shares how she started her work in zoos, her study comparing behaviour of wild and zoo gibbons, and ongoing interest in enrichment and behaviour of zoo animals. She gives insights of her work in her current role as Senior Manager Animal Welfare and Life Sciences which leads the team that provides strategic directions for animal welfare, species planning, animal behaviour, training and enrichment.

This includes developing policies and key strategic documents such as frameworks for animal welfare and species planning, and tools to help assess practices including an Animal Welfare Survey and Species Assessment Tool.

Amanda shares snippets of the ongoing process of developing and maintaining an animal care and welfare program, founded on a code specifying criteria...

In this episode, Dr. Jason Wark, an Animal Welfare Scientist in Lincoln Park Zoo’s Animal Welfare Science Program shares details and stories of how he and a wider team, manages and develops the ZooMonitor app.

Jason talks about his career and how he started in the zoo world. Jason describes the history of ZooMonitor – which was the brainchild of Dr. Megan Ross (iBuzz podcast #22) and was developed by Lincoln Park Zoo. It has grown as a data collection tool for recording and analysing behaviour to infer the welfare of animals.

Jason details many features of ZooMonitor including who is it for, and how to use it. He also gives us different examples of research that have been done thanks to this software, which is also available on mobile devices. Jason highlights the flexibility of this app for behavioural recording and different taxa. He thinks ZooMonitor has grown so quickly due to the accessibility and the increased attention to evaluating welfare and specifically...

Robert Young is a Professor at University of Salford, at the School of Science, Engineering and Environment, and also a Chair in Wildlife Conservation. He has hundreds of publications in Wildlife Conservation, Animal Welfare, Animal Behaviour, Zoos and Anthropogenic Impacts.

Throughout the podcast, Rob talks about decades of research with over 50 species, on different continents, covering a wide variety of topics, studying animals both in the wild and in captivity.

Rob started his research during his Ph.D. on foraging behaviour in pigs and enrichment activities. He shares amazing and detailed stories of his projects in Brazil, including preparing animals for reintroduction into the wild, first studies in referential communication, vision and behaviour in primates, and sound pollution, among others!

Rob discusses with Sabrina the importance of learning and studying animals in the wild and applying that knowledge to improve the care of animals in zoos and other facilities where...

Dr. Frans de Waal is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is C.H. Candler Professor of primate behaviour in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory. Frans is the author of many books of which he discusses during this podcast.

Frans discusses the attribution of emotion and morality to animals, which is still a subject of debate among animal scientists. For many, empathy and emotion have been thought of as a distinctly human experience. 

Frans compares feelings and emotions and shares with us different stories and experiences to illustrate emotional capacities in chimpanzees, bonobos, and other animals. He remarks that emotions can be found everywhere in the animal kingdom.

Frans and Sabrina share their thoughts on how scientists and academics should be interpreting their work for broader audiences and how we can get science into practical...

Dr. Megan Ross is a visionary institutional director focused on all strategic, operational, and programmatic initiatives at Lincoln Park Zoo (LPZ). She is also the first female zoo director in the 150-year history of the zoo. Megan is an expert in zoo and aquarium ethics, a published scientist, and a committed environmentalist. 

Megan talks about how she started in the zoo community many decades ago when she met Terry Maple. Throughout her time in the zoo, she has done research in several fields, and she discusses her studies with flamingos, as well as her research on ultra-violet light in birds when she was working as a bird curator.

Megan encourages people who are interested in a zoo career to say yes to (almost) all challenges, to try new things, and seek out advice from others respected in the field. Sabrina and Megan discuss the detail of honesty with yourself as a key point, and how it can help you achieve your goals, and enjoy what you are doing. Megan shares how this...

Dr. Terry L. Maple is an animal behaviourist and wildlife conservationist known for his visionary leadership in revitalizing Zoo Atlanta as the director. Aside from being Professor Emeritus, he is the founder of the Center for Conservation & Behavior, and the Founding Editor of the journal Zoo Biology among many other things from his long career.

Terry shares with us how he transformed Zoo Atlanta in a build for change towards research and improvement for the welfare of the animals. He describes how he applied his knowledge in psychology for turning around and creating wellness-inspired habitats for animals.

Over the years, much of his work has been published in more than 12 books! 

Dr. Maple has written much related to zoo biology, in addition to many other scientific publications. He dives deeper into some of his books and his experiences like “Great Apes and Humans: The Ethics of Coexistence”, “Ethics on the Ark: Zoos, Animal Welfare and Wildlife...

Con Slobodchikoff is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Northern Arizona University, and co-founder and CEO of Zoolingua, a company that is using artificial intelligence technology to decode animal communication. Also known for writing the book “Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals”.

Con shares with us his story on how he became interested in animal languages invites and encourages us to keep an open mind in our theories to understand it.

He shares his studies on defence behaviours in beetles, and later on about his work on prairie dogs, finding these animals to have a rich social life, including demonstrating that also nonrelatives could form part of a social group.

Sabrina and Con discuss the differences between communication and language, and about his books, “Chasing Doctor Dolittle” and “Prairie dogs”, both based on language abilities and communication in animal societies.

Con refutes the idea that animals don’t have...

Saskia Verbruggen is an experienced animal trainer from the Netherlands, with a long career training marine mammals as well as birds of prey. She founded her own consultancy company Animal Training Roundeurope.

When she started her career, she enjoyed learning to train pinnipeds through positive reinforcement. Saskia shares with us her personal stories of the sea lions she cared for, learning that animals should have a choice in participating or not in a training session.

Saskia talks about the importance of giving animals the option to choose, and using positive reinforcement training, a common way of training with marine mammals, with birds of prey, rewarding them when they cooperate.

She discusses with Sabrina the complexity and quality of the habitats of the zoo she works in, trying to make them as natural as possible. She describes with detail the aviaries, and remarks that a key part for the birds is having different types of habitats, thus promoting optimal welfare.

Saskia...

In this episode Mirian Vilela guides us through the importance of sustainable development.  She is originally from Brazil, but now she works in Costa Rica as the Executive Director of the Earth Charter International Secretariat and Earth Charter Center on Education for Sustainable Development. She is also a professor in the University for Peace teaching in the areas of Sustainable Development, Environmental Governance, and Education for Sustainable Development.

Mirian discusses the Earth Charter document that articulates values and principles for a more sustainable, compassionate world, explaining the document’s vision that inspires a global movement for a better world and social justice with ecological integrity. “I fell in love with the work of the Earth Charter because of the possibility to meet people from all regions of the world,” Mirian comments, highlighting the truly inclusive nature of the movement.

She presents the Earth Charter Center on Education...