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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Behavior and Welfare
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1459560

Simplifying the Animal Welfare Assessment Grid for Enhanced Accessibility

Provisionally accepted
  • Department of Horse/Companion and Wild Animal Science, College of Ecology and Environmental Science, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, North Gyeongsang, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Ensuring animal welfare is essential for both the well-being of zoo animals and the effective management of zoological facilities. This study introduces the Simplified Animal Welfare Assessment Grid (S-AWAG), a streamlined adaptation of the original AWAG framework that integrates the Five Domains Model with an observation-based approach. Designed for non-expert users, S-AWAG focuses on easily observable welfare indicators-such as health and environmental conditions-making it particularly suitable for small, private zoos, including petting zoos, roadside zoos, indoor zoos, and animal cafés. We conducted welfare assessments on 304 animals from 11 species across nine zoos in South Korea. The results revealed significant differences in welfare standards between accredited and non-accredited zoos, with accredited facilities consistently demonstrating better welfare conditions (p < 0.05). The tool exhibited high inter-rater reliability (IRR = 0.839), confirming its consistency across assessors with varying levels of expertise and ensuring reliable and accurate results. Pearson correlation analysis identified strong positive associations between health and environmental factors, reinforcing the comprehensive nature of the tool's evaluation approach. With its user-friendly, efficient, and adaptable design, S-AWAG has the potential to improve animal welfare standards not only in South Korea but also globally, particularly in smaller, resource-constrained facilities.

    Keywords: Animal Welfare, Animal welfare assessment, animal welfare assessment grid (AWAG), Five Domains model, Zoo animal welfare, observation-based welfare assessment, simplified welfare assessment, Non-expert welfare evaluation

    Received: 04 Jul 2024; Accepted: 26 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Choi, Kim, Ryu and Kang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: HyeJin Kang, Department of Horse/Companion and Wild Animal Science, College of Ecology and Environmental Science, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, North Gyeongsang, Republic of Korea

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.