Media contact: Sabrina Brando

Founder and Director

AnimalConcepts

[email protected]

+34644805737

Press Release

A new platform, all dedicated to elephants, and a collaboration between Global Elephant Care and AnimalConcepts, is launching soon! 

Purpose

Coming from a culture of care and compassion and combining the most up to date scientific literature and best practices, we strive to improve standards and promote optimal wellbeing for elephants in all types of human care globally.

"Gerry & Sabrina trumpet in excitement about this new platform for elephants and peoples around the world!"

Promoting positive wellbeing and flourishing is at the core of what contemporary zoos, sanctuaries and all other facilities caring for elephants strive for. The aim of this platform is to provide a progressive, safe, and active space for all people involved in caring for elephants anywhere.

Through this online continued education platform, both...

Samantha Chiew on understanding the effects of animal-visitor interactions, learning from little penguins, and animal welfare policy

Samantha Chiew starts by sharing some of her first memories of connecting with animals at a children’s farm.

With so many other ways to study and work with animals abound, Samantha reflects on different pathways and how she obtained an MSc and joined, like Sabrina, the CAWSEL course in Cambridge.

Samantha shares about her work at the Healesville Sanctuary as a customer service representative, learning about why zoos are so important. Looking at both animal welfare and the visitor experience.

She then pursued a PhD in zoo animal welfare studying penguins and human and visitor interactions. Samantha shares research findings and how outcomes were used to modify environments and regulate the visitor animal interaction. "Findings have increased our understanding of the multifaceted nature of visitor attitudes and have identified some influencing...

This is the 3rd episode with Jan van Hooff in which we continue to follow his stories from England to the Netherlands, back to Burgers' Zoo and the monthly TV program on AVRO TV, called "ZooZoo" from 1964 till 1967 which Jan presented with his brother Antoon. Jan continued on his PhD with the late Professor Dijkgraaf.

Jan shares his involvement in research concerning the socialization of a large group of chimpanzees held at the United States Air Force in 1966. Focusing on not only the physical
but also psychological wellbeing in a group living environment. 

He continues with stories of the chimpanzees at Burgers' Zoo and his work with Frans de Waal who was his PhD student. Jan shares historical perspectives on raising chimpanzee babies, the socialisation of the group and stresses that chimpanzees should never be pets!

Hear about chimpanzees on the loose, building boats and ladders and going to the self-service, and a somewhat surprising ending. 

Jan...

The global zoo community has made great efforts and progresses to understanding, promoting, and engaging in the animal welfare and conservation domain. However, there are, among others, various legal, educational, strategical, and operational aspects which affect animal welfare, and which warrant critical analysis, discussions, mitigation, and resolution. This podcast will not only highlight some of the ‘System failures’ as Sabrina Brando has started to call them, root problems that cause some or many symptoms but will also be a call to action. Too often we still deal with symptoms instead of going to the root of the problem, many of which can only be solved by local and a global approach, and multi-disciplinary collaboration.

Working with zoos and aquariums and promoting optimal wellbeing for the many animals in our care, what does such a relationship look like, what are the different distant and proximate aspects related to animal wellbeing are important for us to...

Jan van Hooff briefly recapped what was previously discussed in episode 44 of iBuzz, saying how he grew up in Burger’s Zoo and studied biology at the University of Biology.

Jan discusses how he initially got his biology kick from working in the institute of Sven Dijkgraaf, who is famous for his input towards the discovery of echolocation in bats during World War II. Jan states that Dijkgraaf himself was inspired by Lazzaro Spallanzani. He observed that bats could still navigate when blinded, but not when their ears are plugged. Building on this Dijkgraaf noted that bats could distinguish different shapes using different calls. Jan also noted that Donald Griffin simultaneously discovered echolocation in bats and dolphins. His work triggered an interest from the Navy, which allowed the development of sonar in submarines.

Jan noted that Dijkgraaf and his team also discovered the use of electroreception in sharks, enabling them to find prey in the sand. This work triggered many...

Gregg Tully is the Executive Director of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA), the largest association of wildlife centres in Africa, with the aim of securing a future for the African primates and their habitats.

Gregg shares with us how he has always had a passion for nature and animals, he just did not know how to obtain a career in that field. Consequently, he went to university to study biology with a major in environmental studies. Soon he identified that he loved teaching older people and believed this way he could share his passion for animals. Gregg understood that this required a PhD, so he earned one in Evolutionary Biology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2006.

Gregg, alongside his studies, volunteered at the Nepal Youth Foundation. Here, he developed his passion for working for non-profit organisations. Following his PhD, he became the Development Director of the Nepal Youth Foundation. He highlighted his skills in funding proposals and how they...

When Jill Robinson moved to Hong Kong in 1985, she soon joined the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Her responsibilities for the position back then included many investigative work in live animal markets and animal protection programmes throughout Asia. 

There was a time that Jill had the opportunity to visit a bear bile farm and it inspired her to found Animals Asia Foundation with the mission of further improving animal welfare and providing sanctuary for bears rescued from the bear bile industry.

Jill shares some of the practical work of the Animals Asia Foundation, including the collaborations with both local communities and governments. She also explains how and why some of the work is done differently in different countries. 

Jill said, “We are all connected. We all have our individual personalities and characters” and she strongly believes that every individual, animal or human, is worthy of respect. One of her philosophies is to work from...

Award-winning animal welfare attorney and author James Gesualdi, works on animal law since 1989. He is the founding Member and former Chair of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Animals and the Law; Founding Co-Chair of the Suffolk County Bar Association Animal Law Committee; and Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section Animal Law Committee.   

James has a B.A., magna cum laude, with highest honours in Government by the St. Lawrence University; a M.A., in Political Science by the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and a J.D. with Distinction by the Hofstra University School of Law. He was also a recipient of both the Animals and the Law’s Exemplary Service Award in 2018 and Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award in 2019. 

James shares his encounter with a well-known performing dolphin, Little Bit, and how this inspired him into serving people and animals through the power of...

Happy World Chimpanzee Day! 

On July 14th, we celebrated World Chimpanzee Day, including some care tips for chimpanzees in an interactive PDF. Learn more and explore the links about chimpanzee care, welfare, and conservation. You can download the PDF HERE

Access to all our webinars, resources and materials, become a member of PAWS HERE

Clive Wynne is the founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University. He is also the Director of Research at Wolf Park in the USA and the author of many books, including his latest ‘Dog is Love’. 

Clive is from Britain and he was inspired to study animals while he was studying in London. Later, he went to University of Edinburgh to study for a PhD and further studied animal behaviour and minds, psychology and cognition. 

Afterwards, Clive had the opportunity to study the behaviour of marsupials in Australia. Then, he went to University of Florida, where he developed a keen interest in animal-human relationship, especially that of dogs and humans, and he then expanded this context to other canines. 

When speaking of his past and current research interests, Clive starts by talking about the issues of animal shelters in the US, and in particular dogs. As the number of euthanasia cases in shelters have decreased in the past few...