Zoo Animals as Decision-Makers: Facilitating Genuine Choice

The next frontier of zoo animal welfare is providing genuine choices every day,
where animals can actively express their decisions. For example, letting them
choose which enclosure to access, whether to receive their food via training or
enrichment, or which caretaker to interact with. Zoo staff and managers will always have to oversee which choices are available - a sick animal can't have a choice not to undergo medical treatment. But we can certainly offer them more genuine choice in their everyday food, social and enrichment opportunities, as opposed to inferring their preferences through cues, or assuming we know what they want.
 
Join us in exploring how this can be implemented in practice.