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Monitoring Technologies for Animal Welfare: A Review of Aspirations and Deployments in Zoos

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Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2022, Volume 3 (FTC 2022 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 561))

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Abstract

Focusing on zoo environments, we conducted a literature review investigating the use of non-invasive technologies designed for monitoring the behaviour and welfare of animals. The research question asks: What technologies or monitoring methods have been able to capture information on behaviours and needs of animals in zoo, sanctuary, domestic or agricultural environments? From the initial literature review, we determined progressive zoos, research labs, institutions and companies and identified monitoring technologies developed to improve animal welfare. We then emailed out a concise survey to those zoos to gauge what monitoring technologies they were using and asked them to identify where systems and their deployment could be improved. We highlight advances and developments identified in the literature, to underline current and future monitoring needs of zoo environments. We contribute to the research field by mapping these sought-after changes against the most relevant identified monitoring technologies distinguished in the literature search.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the generous responses from the four zoos who remain anonymised for this article but have read and agreed that their input be published. Additionally, we thank funding from the AUT Summer Research Award from the Faculty of Design and Creative Technology, without which this research would not be possible. We also thank all who reviewed early drafts of this research, including anonymous FTC reviewers, for their helpful comments that have improved this publication.

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  1. School of Future Environments, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Ann Morrison & Aleksandra Novikova

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  1. Ann Morrison
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Correspondence to Ann Morrison .

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  1. Faculty of Science and Engineering, Saga University, Saga, Japan

    Kohei Arai

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Morrison, A., Novikova, A. (2023). Monitoring Technologies for Animal Welfare: A Review of Aspirations and Deployments in Zoos. In: Arai, K. (eds) Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2022, Volume 3. FTC 2022 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 561. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18344-7_10

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