Research Strategy

Zoos and Aquariums are uniquely positioned to be able to help fill knowledge gaps related to animal husbandry, in-situ conservation, and species protection. All modern zoos recognise that evidenced-based conservation research is a key task.

At Tropical world we are expanding our research efforts in order to contribute to the worldwide effort of conservation research. We will do this in several ways:

• Participating in research helping to improve animal welfare in zoological collections and in the wild, in line with our mission statement to ‘above all, provide a high standard of animal husbandry and welfare’.
• Developing and maintaining our internal database of research questions, influenced by BIAZA’s research priorities.
• Forming long-term partnerships with academic institutions and other zoos, providing assistance and access, and filling knowledge gaps in order to produce high-standard and high-value animal welfare research.
• Maintaining our use of ZIMS (Zoological Information Management System) to ensure our records are accurate and up to date, allowing researchers access to a highly valuable dataset.
• Continued participation in Nature’s SAFE – A conservation charity which is dedicated to storing tissues from deceased zoo-houses animals as an additional conservation tool to prevent vital genetics from being lost. Some tissues will be used by Nature’s SAFE for research to improve processing, storage, and regeneration techniques of zoo samples.

As stated above, we intend to steer all research towards BIAZA’s research priorities but overall, the majority of research Tropical World is to be involved with will directly benefit the species we hold in our collection, either presently or in future.

Currently there is little by way of direct funding for research for Tropical World beyond relevant staff salaries – to counter this, we do not charge our partner academic institutions any research fees and allow full access to the animal collection and collected ZIMS data for behavioural studies (all research projects are agreed upon by Tropical World and the partner academic institution ahead of any work commencing). As a local authority-run collection, we are not currently applying for any grants in order to fund research but are investigating this as a possibility for the future.

All research projects at Tropical World are undertaken with the intent to share the results with the wider zoological community upon completion.

For information regarding research at Tropical World please contact: tropicalworld.research@Leeds.gov.uk