Support AZA Animal Care and Wellbeing

Animal care, welfare, and wellbeing are at the core of our collective work across AZA-accredited facilities. We are committed to ensuring all animals thrive in our care and continually advancing approaches that further enhance animal wellbeing. AZA has established a grant fund to support applied animal care and welfare science and science-based staff training and education initiatives.

Awards from the AZA Animal Care and Wellbeing Grant Fund will be distributed to AZA member facilities through a competitive grant program. Some examples of work that these grants could fund include:

• The initiation of new research in understudied species;
• The advancement of cutting-edge animal monitoring and welfare technologies;
• The validation of animal welfare assessment techniques;
• Collaborative, multi-institutional studies in animal care, health, and management; and
• The development of new science-based learning opportunities and materials related to animal care and wellbeing.

Our collaborative research on animal care and wellbeing is critical to maintaining and enhancing our position as the preeminent accrediting zoological organization in the world. When this research is placed in the hands of the animal care professionals caring for animals at AZA-accredited facilities, it will undoubtedly enhance animal wellbeing.

When animals experience enhanced wellbeing, they are more comfortable, healthy, and happy. Animals with enhanced wellbeing, as well as zoological professionals who have a greater level of understanding about animal wellbeing, will result in a collective movement that supports the education and conservation missions of AZA-accredited facilities.

Your support of the AZA Animal Care and Wellbeing Grant Fund today will help make our collective mission-critical research goal a reality!