EAPSI: Balancing Conservation and Animal Welfare in Twenty-first Century Zoos

世纪的动物园不仅娱乐游客，还教育他们人类与环境的关系。他们有一个广泛的使命与其他研究和教育机构合作，参与创新项目，以保护栖息地和物种，并帮助使公众的可持续发展。此外，现代动物园有责任了解和提出保护和动物福利伦理之间的挑战，以平衡动物权利与保护。与动物福利或权利观点不同，保护观点优先考虑濒危物种，并说保护生态系统的意愿决定了对野生物种的道德考虑。当动物个体的权利或利益与保护生态系统或特定物种的需要发生冲突时，动物福利和保护之间就会出现分歧。由于动物个体的福利往往以牺牲保护研究为代价，这两个概念传统上被认为是不相容的。韩国的首尔大公园动物园于1984年作为休闲场所创建，直到最近才在动物权利运动的影响下将保护作为核心优先事项，并改善了动物护理。然而，不仅首尔动物园在动物福利发展和保护研究方面仍然缺乏资源和资金，而且韩国也几乎没有保护动物园动物福利的立法。通过关注首尔动物园直接参与的三种不同动物（亚洲黑熊、赤狐和亚洲豹猫）的保护，本研究旨在确定该机构在保护工作中优先考虑个体动物福利的程度。该项目将在梨花女子大学进行，由著名的生物学家Jae Chun Choe教授指导，Jae Chun Choe教授促进了关于动物园中动物待遇的对话，并积极研究改善圈养动物的动物福利科学。通过此次合作，可以为改善韩国动物园动物的福利、促进更人性化的科学教育和保护方法提供一个框架。本项目将关注首尔大公园动物园在同情保护框架下的保护努力，其中同情在保护决策中发挥作用。在教育计划、动物学机构、处理入侵物种、捕捉和标记濒危动物以及其他与保护生态系统有关的行为中应用这一概念的指导原则“首先不造成伤害”，可以有助于鼓励人类与自然世界和平共处。该研究项目将完成对首尔动物园目前的保护和教育计划的民族志分析。研究人员将分析与首尔动物园官员、韩国学者和保护专家的几次对话，这些对话将揭示动物园？在平衡其不同的福利和保护的优先事项，特别是在其目前的项目，以繁殖和繁殖的三个不同的物种：亚洲黑熊，赤狐，亚洲豹猫的斗争。Comprehensive保护旨在利用动物福利科学的技术，以通知和改善保护方法。 该项目以动物福利科学的概念为框架，进行广泛的问卷调查，旨在了解首尔动物园的保护计划是否关注动物个体的愿望，以及它们的健康、意识和情感的改善。这种研究可以为循证决策提供指导，以帮助改善有关韩国动物园动物福利的立法，从而改善该机构对韩国人民的职能。该项目的成果预计将探索韩国动物园的管理和保护优先事项的创新视角，这是二十一世纪关于这些现代机构作用的辩论中代表性不足的群体。该奖项是东亚和太平洋夏季研究所计划下的一个奖项，支持美国研究生的夏季研究，由NSF和韩国国家研究基金会共同资助。

Zoos of the twenty-first century not only entertain their visitors, but also educate them about humanity's relationship to the environment. They have a broad mission to collaborate with other research and educational institutions, engage in innovative projects to conserve habitats and species, and help make the public case for sustainability. In addition, modern zoos have a responsibility to understand and present the challenges between conservation and animal welfare ethics in order to balance animal rights with conservation. Unlike the animal welfare or rights viewpoint, the conservation standpoint gives precedence to endangered species, and says that the willingness to protect ecosystems defines moral consideration of wild species. Discrepancies between animal welfare and conservation occur when the rights or interests of individual animals conflict with the need to preserve ecosystems or a particular species. Because the welfare of individual animals is often sacrificed at the expense of conservation research, the two concepts have traditionally been thought to be incompatible. Created as a place for leisure in 1984, the Seoul Grand Park Zoo in South Korea only recently made conservation a core priority and improved animal care under the influence of the animal rights movement. However, not only does the Seoul Zoo still lack resources and funds both for the development of animal welfare and conservation research, but South Korea also has very little legislation protecting the welfare of zoo animals. By focusing on the Seoul Zoo's direct involvement in the conservation of three different animals (the Asiatic black bear, the red fox, and the Asian leopard cat), this research aims to determine the degree to which the institution prioritizes individual animal welfare in their conservation endeavors. This project will be conducted at Ewha Women's University, under the guidance of Professor Jae Chun Choe, a prominent biologist who has spurred conversations on the treatment of animals in zoos and is active in researching improvements in animal welfare science for captive animals. This collaboration could help provide a framework to aid in the improvement of the welfare of Korean zoo animals and make for more humane scientific education and conservation methods.This project will focus on the Seoul Grand Park Zoo's conservation endeavors within the framework of compassionate conservation, where empathy plays a role in conservation decision-making. The application of this concept's guiding principle "first do no harm" in education programs, zoological institutions, dealings with invasive species, the capture and tagging of endangered animals, and other acts related to protecting ecosystems, can help encourage a peaceful coexistence between humanity and the natural world. The research project will complete an ethnographic analysis of the Seoul Zoo's current conservation and education programs. The researcher will analyze several conversations with Seoul Zoo officials, Korean academics, and conservation experts, which will reveal the zoo?s struggles in balancing its different welfare and conservation priorities, especially in its current projects to the breeding and propagation of three different species: the Asiatic black bear, the red fox, and the Asian leopard cat. Compassionate conservation aims to use techniques in animal welfare science to inform and improve conservation methodology. Using the concepts of animal welfare science as a framework for a broad questionnaire, the project seeks to find out whether the conservation programs at the Seoul Zoo focus on the desires of individual animals as well as the improvement of their health, consciousness and emotions. Such research could provide guidelines for evidence-based decisions to aid in the improvement of legislation concerning the welfare of Korean zoo animals, in turn improving the function of the institution for the Korean people. The results of this project are expected to explore an innovative perspective on the management and conservation priorities of Korean zoos, an underrepresented group in the twenty-first century debate on the role of these modern institutions. This award, under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the National Research Foundation of Korea.