My name is Angelica Åsberg and I’ve since childhood been fascinated by animals and their behaviour. During the last ten years, my interest in especially ethology and conservation biology has risen. Today a growing number of species are threatened by extinction due to us humans and something must be done to save our biodiversity. I want to be a part of this conservation work so I took a Bachelor degree within the field of ethology and animal welfare from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Here I focused on ethology and conservation biology.

During my studies I started to work at the zoological institution Nordens Ark where they breed threatened species. Here I learned about the possibility and importance of using zoos and ex situ methods to assist in situ work in the field. Except from breeding, zoos are an excellent tool to educate people about the importance of biodiversity and conservation.  To reach a more scientific profile to better communicate this message, I’m now about to finish my master thesis here at Linköpings University within the field of applied ethology.

You can’t just keep animals in zoos without taking their welfare and natural behaviour into consideration so I want to contribute to increase the knowledge about this topic with my thesis. Hopefully, it will also lead to increased welfare for my study species.  My study is about behaviour and welfare in Yellow-throated martens kept in zoos which is a species accompanied by low breeding success and high amounts of stereotypic behaviour. This is a species that recently has risen in popularity in European zoos but little is known about its natural behaviour. The neonatal mortality is very high and the zoo community wants to do something about it. You will find more information about this topic at this web page. Enjoy!

You can contact me via e-mail at angelica.asberg@gmail.com or via phone at (+46)70-530 56 04