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Our animal welfare commitments 

What is animal welfare?

Animal welfare can mean different things to different people. As a term, it covers a range of states that an animal can find itself in and reflects the sum of its sensations and emotions at a given point in time, encompassing both the animal’s physical and mental state. Good welfare is about maximising and generating positive experiences that contribute to a fulfilling life like vitality from good health and nutrition, reward from expressing natural behaviors and making meaningful choices. Good welfare is also about minimising negative experiences like pain, fear, or distress. 

Taronga’s commitment to animal welfare 

Taronga’s commitment to animal welfare is: To enhance the well-being of animals through enriched life experiences and continuous improvement in their care.  Treating animals with dignity and respect, providing opportunities for meaningful choice and agency, and improving animal care using the latest science.

In considering Taronga’s animal welfare responsibilities we acknowledge the inherent nature of the animals in our care. This compels us to provide the type of environment and diverse experiences that the animal’s biology has evolved to expect. We understand that zoos cannot precisely replicate the wild but, as far as possible, we can take inspiration from the animal’s natural environment and aim to support the animal’s behavioural and physiological needs.  

Taronga recognises three categories of responsibilities to ensure we meet the welfare needs of our animals. These are psychological (mental state), physical (biological function), and evolutionary adaptation (naturalness). We are committed to providing environments and situations that focus on the wellbeing of the animal and provide circumstances that the animal’s biology has evolved to experience and expect. Natural history is a powerful reference point for factors that are likely to be important and meaningful at the species level, and animals’ individual history may also inform important individual difference. Animal welfare is based on an individual animal's experience of the world and should be tailored accordingly.   

Taronga is committed to providing excellent care, health management, housing and species appropriate behavioural opportunities that promotes good welfare to all animals in our care. We ensure out animal welfare commitments are supported through good governance, policy and procedure and staff with the resources, training, skills and experience necessary to our enable our animal programs to be delivered effectively. 

Our commitments

Taronga’s animal welfare charter 

The foundation of Taronga’s approach to animal welfare is our Animal Welfare Charter. We believe that good animal welfare is top priority for a modern zoo and conservation organisation and we strive to be a leader, an advocate and an authority on animal welfare.

To achieve this, we ensure our animal experience vitality and the positive effects of good health through varied and nutritional diets and preventative health care. We ensure our animals have access to comprehensive veterinary care programs. We ensure our animals have large, complex spaces where they feel comfortable, can take refuge, and are empowered through opportunities for meaningful choices in their days.  We ensure our animals experience positive behavioural interactions with their environment, other animals and humans. 

Our welfare framework

Taronga has developed a rigorous animal welfare framework to ensure positive welfare is supported, a culture of improvement is fostered and instances risking negative welfare are effectively remediated.  
This is achieved through:  

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