Meet The Animal Welfarist

Hello! My name is Siobhan (pronounced: “shove-on”) and I am a wild animal geographer and welfare researcher. Specifically, I conduct transdisciplinary research at the intersection of animal welfare, conservation, and sustainable tourism in wildlife sanctuary tourism.

I joined the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University in January 2024 as a postdoctoral visitor, continuing my collaboration with Professor Alice Hovorka, who was also my Ph.D. supervisor at Queen’s University in Environmental Studies (2017-2023). My Ph.D. research focused on the lives of monkeys in Costa Rica; generously funded by a SSHRC Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship.

As part of my transdisciplinary research approach, I established the Costa Rican Monkey Interest Group to connect wildlife researchers, caregivers, and professionals around the improvement of monkey lives. I have published on primate rehabilitation, animal labour, tourism ethics, and the phenomenon of ‘wildlife selfies.’ I also participate in scientific activism and communication through teaching, and the website theanimalwelfarist.ca, to disseminate my research. I have contributed as a wildlife expert to multiple podcasts and journalistic news outlets, including National Geographic and the Queen’s Alumni Review.

Research Interests

Wildlife tourism can endanger animal welfare and conservation by compromising biodiversity; these interdependent components represent “two sides of the same coin,” mutually influencing the sustainability of a wildlife attraction (Paquet & Darimont, 2010).

Feeding, petting, riding, and other animal-visitor interactions (AVIs) are significant draws for wildlife attractions (Muzzo et al., 2023). In a review of over 1200 wildlife facilities, 75% offered some form of interaction (most often, petting captive wild animals); also, the majority were members of the World Association for Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) (D’Cruze et al., 2019). Close interactions with humans increase the risk of zoonotic disease transmission (Chomel et al., 2007) and could lead to habituation.

When wild individuals lose their fear of humans, they may become more susceptible to poaching (Ménard et al., 2014) or reliance on human provisioning (Sengupta & Radhakrishna, 2018). The intersection of wildlife tourism with the legal and illegal wildlife trades further complicates the sustainability of the industry (D’Cruze et al., 2017; Lenzi et al., 2020).

Providing good welfare to wild animals in our care is no easy task; there are still gaps in our knowledge of the welfare of wild animals; those captive in wildlife facilities, and even less known the welfare of their free-living counterparts (Goulart et al., 2009; Melfi, 2009). This is in part due to the fact that the welfare of captive wildlife is most often investigated in a zoo context, outside of which collaborative research or knowledge-sharing on the interdependence of animal welfare and conservation is rare (Beausoleil et al., 2018).

There is also a documented “taxa bias” in zoo research which misrepresents the populations of animals available for study and the number of zoos housing them there is also a need for systemically-monitored and tested practices in housing and husbandry (Melfi, 2009, p. 582).

The provision of positive or negative animal welfare and conservation outcomes influence the sustainability of attractions, by directly or “indirectly by disturbing life-sustaining processes and balances of nature, for example by habitat destruction and climate change” (Fennell et al., 2023;  Fraser, 2012, p. 721). There appears however to be little cross-pollination between animal welfare science and animal-based tourism research, especially concerning the “conservation-welfare nexus” (Swaisgood, 2010) as it impacts non-zoo, captive wildlife tourism attractions.

These are the stakes for wild animals in an industry in which revenue is the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes their permissible use in tourism; research examining TripAdvisor reviews found that– without priming– Moorhouse et al. found tourists are ineffective at evaluating whether an attraction harms wild animals (2015, 2017). Whether the wildlife tourism industry can meaningfully incorporate sustainability (and thus reject anthropocentrism) remains unanswered (Bertella, 2019). From an ecofeminist standpoint, Bertella advises taking a step back and, “with new eyes, reconsider the underlying conceptual assumptions” of sustainability and wildlife tourism (2019, p. 204).

Part of my Ph.D. research included delineating the  ‘trouble’ with wildlife tourism– which includes biodiversity loss, unethical and unevidenced practices, gaps in knowledge of wild animal welfare, and limited engagement with wild animals as stakeholders. Then, I suggested ways to bring the animals in-to wildlife tourism by including and consulting animals in developing and implementing a more sustainable and ethically robust paradigm.

Decades after its introduction as an environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional, ‘consumptive’ tourism– the question of whether sustainable or eco-tourism is truly win-win for the host economy and the environment is a pervasive debate within the scholarship (Butler, 1999).

Ecotourism– which in its official definition is “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people and involves interpretation and education” (TIES)– has in many cases failed to be sensitive to local traditions and culture and empower local communities.

In theory, sustainable approaches to tourism should support local communities and conservation more so than traditional tourism or intensive land use, minimizing the loss of biodiversity and cultural heritage (Aylward et al., 1996; Campbell, 2007; Scheyvens, 1999). However, scholars are still hesitant to deem it a panacea (Das & Chatterjee, 2015; Moscardo & Murphy, 2014).

Wildlife attractions may operate with “a mere veneer of green” (Buckley, 2003, p. 76) and it remains uncertain whether sustainable wildlife tourism can successfully achieve its conservation objectives (Trave et al., 2017).

While it should be a tool for community-based conservation scholars maintain that ecotourism is a Western construct which commodifies nature, ‘packaging’ it for tourist consumption, and perpetuating inequalities at the local level of host communities (Duffy, 2014; 2015).

Moreover, a lack of consensus or clarity on how sustainability is defined or operationalized in the context of wildlife tourism hampers efforts to determine the conservation benefits of individual wildlife tourism operations and the industry as a whole (Trave et al., 2017, p. 212)– a gap my research contributes to. The number of ecotourists is growing three times faster than conventional tourists (Das & Chatterjee 2015). Yet, the unequal distribution of profits and benefits amongst local stakeholders– the host community and wildlife themselves– is a persistent issue plaguing attempts to improve conservation through ecotourism development. Expectedly, there is a call to decentralize power within ecotourism from the national level to the host-community level to foster conservation incentives and economic development.

Achieving a more ethical approach to the conservation-based tourism industry and practice requires a substantial paradigm shift in research and practice towards a more holistic, and less anthropocentric paradigm.

There is a need for quantitative research examining the long-term impacts of wildlife tourism as a tool for conservation and community empowerment. As well, we need to qualitatively examine the lives of animals and local communities impacted by tourism development.

My research proposes these oft-marginalized stakeholder groups be ‘brought in’ through the adoption of relational, justice-seeking paradigms which centre ethics of care to sharpen our understanding of how tourism can be a tool for uplifting the host community and improving environmental resiliency towards wildlife conservation and protection.

Given the positive and negative aspects of ecotourism it’s clear that, at least in its current state, it is an imperfect solution. While it can improve local human livelihoods and achieve long-term conservation goals, an irresponsibility managed ecotourism operation may jeopardize welfare and conservation in several ways: endangering the wild population through removal of individuals, triggering a change in feeding and reproductive behaviour, causing stress or physiological illnesses (Moorhouse 2015). Likely, there will always be a trade-off for ecotourism between conservation, welfare, visitor satisfaction, and revenue generation (ibid), but a well-managed ecotourism operation with a confluence of positive animal welfare states, positive conservation impacts, and a tangible benefit to the local community could have the transformative power to create truly sustainable wildlife ecotourism.

The major challenge facing the provision of good lives and working conditions for animals in tourism is the discrepancies that emerge when establishing universal norms for animal use– which can challenge the cultural legacies of how those species are encountered in local tourism contexts (Fennell, 2022a).

Scholars have called for a new paradigm for sustainable tourism; one which assumes a more environmental ethic and focuses on stewardship with stakeholders, integrating ecofeminist notions of care and entangled empathy offers a way forward toward this goal (Bertella, 2019; Gruen, 2015). Increasing tourism research recognizes the positioning of wild animals as passive recipients of the tourist gaze and lively commodities who participate in a myriad of labours (Rickly & Kline, 2021; Yudina & Grimwood, 2016).

While studies of interspecies justice and ethics in tourism practice are increasingly attended to within the scholarship, “much work awaits to clearly conceptualize and identify key 21 principles and approaches to justice to navigate through the challenges that await tourism in a (post)-covid world” (Jamal & Camargo, 2014, p. 147).

Ethics of care and justice frameworks, espoused by ecofeminist and critical tourism scholars, are applied to shift literature and practice towards a more meaningful recognition of animal interests and agency (Bertella, 2019; Fennell & Nowaczek, 2010; Jamal & Higham, 2021; Tomassini et al., 2022).

Emerging research on establishing hypernorms for wildlife tourism, buttressed by animal-informed consent and the “right-to-exit” encounters with humans, are essential components of a just, care-full paradigm for wildlife tourism (Fennell, 2022a; 2022c).

Thousands of non-releasable, “internally-displaced” wild animals live in sanctuaries around the world; non-human primates especially feature in these facilities, with an estimated 10,000+ individuals in 130 sanctuaries worldwide– nearly half of whom represent endangered species (Speiran et al., 2023; Trayford & Farmer, 2013).

Sanctuaries vary widely in purpose and structure, however– from sites specializing in one type of animal to those serving local wildlife more generally. Some have traditional, closed enclosures, while others offer open or hybrid forms of captivity. Sanctuaries can be operated by government agencies, non-profits, or private businesses, and their regulation depends on the country and location. Sanctuary residents can vary in conservation status and origin; they may be captive or wild-born, a local or an introduced species, or transferred from another sanctuary. Some sanctuaries operate as wildlife attractions that combine tourism and conservation, while others are closed to the public.

A niche of captive wildlife tourism, wildlife sanctuary tourism refers to tourism at facilities with captive wild animals where visitors can see captive wild animals who have undergone rehabilitation but are unsuitable for reintroduction to the wild.

In a global survey of 24 types of wildlife tourism by Moorhouse et al. (2015), only 6 had positive impacts on the welfare and conservation of the species in their care, of which 5 were wildlife sanctuary attractions (Moorhouse et al., 2015). Thus, in theory, sanctuary tourism attractions which improve the lives and conservation of wild animals may offer a win-win for sustainable wildlife tourism

My Ph.D. dissertation added to the growing scholarship about the lives of animals in the wildlife sanctuary tourism industry from an interdisciplinary grounding in tourism studies, multispecies geographies and ethnographies, animal welfare and conservation research. My broad aim was to highlight animal interests, welfare, and sanctuaries as potential sustainable tourism sites through a case study of the lives of monkeys in Costa Rican wildlife sanctuary attractions.

Practically, I sought to improve the lives of monkeys in my research context through knowledge mobilization, as well as learn from and with sanctuaries in Costa Rica as collaborators to develop best practices and future research. Though more empirical research is needed, I found that wildlife sanctuary attractions– when buttressed by ethics of care, compassion, and a commitment to sustainability and justice for animals –have the potential to offer a kinder form of wildlife tourism.

My postdoctoral research continues this line of inquiry to generate a research agenda for wildlife sanctuaries and a typology of wildlife sanctuary attractions, depicted along a spectrum of wildlife tourism, ranging from consumptive to non-consumptive attractions.

The Lives of Monkeys in Costa Rica

As a wild animal geographer and welfare scholar, I am thrilled to have found an academic home amongst the vibrant EUC community as a postdoctoral visitor. I continue collaborating with Dr. Alice Hovorka (my Ph.D. supervisor) and The Lives of Animals Research Group. My Ph.D. thesis added to the growing scholarship about the lives of animals in the tourism industry, highlighting animal interests, welfare, and sanctuaries as potential sustainable tourism sites through a case study of the lives of monkeys in Costa Rican wildlife sanctuaries.

First, I applied an animal geography lens to wildlife tourism to explore animal stakeholdership, ethics of care, and best practices. Then, I explored the labour-based roles, circumstances and experiences of monkeys in wildlife sanctuaries. Finally, I assessed the extent to which wildlife sanctuaries satisfy ‘sustainability’ criteria in terms of animal welfare and conservation outcomes. To investigate the latter, I designed a non-invasive, field-based Conservation Welfare Assessment Framework to evaluate the impact of sanctuary attractions on animal welfare and conservation outcomes for involved species.

During the summer of 2019, I had the opportunity to ground-truth this framework empirically through a case study of primate sanctuaries in Costa Rica. This involved visiting eight sanctuaries with extended stays at three focal sites where I employed mixed, socio-ecological methods. My findings demonstrated that each focal site, varyingly but positively, contributed to the welfare and conservation of monkeys– which is essential to sustainable wildlife tourism. This evidence of overall benefit to the conservation-welfare nexus of wild primates at these focal sites underscores the importance of understanding the interplay of these factors in sustainable approaches to wildlife tourism and management.