The welfare of wild animals in captivity is a hot topic. Not only does our understanding of animal welfare have to be adapted to each species we interact with, but what constitutes ‘good’ welfare for captive animals may be significantly different than in the wild. This is especially important when considering public aquariums, as a large number of these animals are still captured from the wild and there’s a lot we don’t know about the life cycles and husbandry needs of many of the species on display.

While we do have animal protection laws and models to evaluate and monitor animal welfare, these are overwhelmingly focused on vertebrate species. Unfortunately, invertebrates are way less regarded than vertebrates — beyond just addressing their needs, there’s a widespread lack of understanding that they even have needs. The main exceptions to this are cephalopods (such as squids, octopuses, and cuttlefishes) and decapods (such as crabs, lobsters, and crayfishes), who are beginning to receive legislative protections in some parts of the world.

Nowadays, we can observe in the general population an increased awareness of and interest in animal welfare in public aquariums. This trend represents an ideal tipping point to encourage better transparency of welfare indicators, both for the people who work with the animals and for the public, and better husbandry practices.

The main goal of this research was to gain insights into the public’s perception of animal welfare in aquariums. By exposing the public’s perspective, we can focus welfare and awareness efforts on species that are often overlooked.

In September 2020, the author compiled reviews on TripAdvisor from 485 aquariums in 77 countries. They focused on negative welfare implications by selecting comments containing at least one of six keywords: ‘welfare,’ ‘dead,’ ‘sad,’ ‘horrible,’ ‘confinement,’ and ‘torture.’ They also included the associated rating of the aquarium.

Results showed the expected trend of people favoring vertebrate over invertebrate welfare. The most prevalent keyword observed was ‘sad,’ which usually referenced the mood of the animal. It was most often used for penguins, dolphins, seals, and turtles. Because ‘sad’ is an emotive word, the author argues that this shows the public has preconceived ideas about animals’ emotional states, particularly vertebrates. Aquatic invertebrates don’t elicit the same emotional response in the public.

Comments on the negative welfare of invertebrates only represented 18% of all negative welfare comments, while vertebrates represented 51%. The remaining 31% were about welfare more generally.

Within the comments about invertebrate welfare, most focused on octopuses and touchpools. Touchpools are low-level tanks allowing the public to touch animals such as starfishes, anemones, sea urchins, and crabs. At these touchpools, visitors may observe others handling animals inappropriately — for example, by applying excessive force or lifting them out of the water. Also, the fact that octopus welfare was cited far more often than cuttlefish welfare (43 times compared to only four times) doesn’t line up with the scientific evidence of sentience and pain in these closely related species. It does, however, point to the fact that the public likely understands less about cuttlefishes’ cognitive abilities than those of octopuses. The author suggests that the underrepresentation of cuttlefishes in the comments indicates a lack of understanding of welfare cues for the species combined with a familiarity bias.

There were also some differences when the aquarium’s location was considered. Reviews of aquariums in Asia showed significantly fewer negative welfare comments than those in Europe or North America. Within reviews of Asian aquariums that mentioned invertebrates, they tended to comment less on crab welfare and more on coral welfare than in other regions, suggesting that cultural and societal ideology differences play a role in the public perception of animal welfare.

Lastly, it’s interesting to note that comments about poor welfare didn’t necessarily equate to a lower rating of the aquarium. The author notes that while the public seems increasingly interested in welfare issues, people are still drawn to have direct or indirect physical contact with wild animals.

These results should be considered in light of the study’s limitations. Only one website, TripAdvisor, was included. This site is managed and mostly used in North America. It’s also important to mention that the study considered invertebrates as a whole, yet they represent the most diverse group of animals on the planet. Current knowledge of invertebrate sentience, for instance, suggests a huge gap between cephalopods and corals, though the author didn’t go so far as to nuance the different ethical implications of this.

The author suggests one major direction for advocacy: the creation or improvement of guidelines for the care of invertebrates and the use of welfare tool kits to detect potential welfare issues, mainly by aquarists, but also by the general public. They also emphasize that the public is more likely to complain about a negative experience online than in person because of the anonymity. Yet, because online comments are an essential part of the feedback culture, the author encourages aquariums to take them seriously when visitors point out welfare issues.

The data presented here seem to reinforce the idea that the more the public knows about the cognitive abilities and pain perception of a species, the more they tend to look for and expose negative welfare signs for individuals of this species. Therefore, for animal advocates, raising awareness about sentience is a promising way forward to promote greater consideration of invertebrates.