Discipline specific OER for academics

Animal Science and Conservation

This page is designed to support academics with teaching by providing a wealth of OER for Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Zoology and Animal Science.

Explore our curated collection of OER that highlights Australian OER and resources on the following topics:

• Animal Anatomy and Physiology
• Animal Ethics and Rights
• Biodiversity and Extinction 
• Conservation and Management 
• Ethology and Animal Behaviour

NOTE: While there is currently limited Australian-specific OER on these subjects, we encourage you to explore international OER and consider adapting these materials to better suit local contexts and curriculum needs.

Animal Anatomy and Physiology 

• Introductory Animal Physiology by Sanja Hinic-Frlog (2019), University of Toronto, is licensed under CC BY 4.0
• Anatomy and Physiology of Animals by Ruth Lawson (2015), Otago Polytechnic, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Animal Ethics and Rights 

• Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights by Nathan Nobis (2016), Morehouse College, Open Philosophy Press, is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Biodiversity and Extinction 

• Extinction Stories by Marja Bakermans and William San Martin (n.d.), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Conservation and Management 

• Fish, Fishing, and Conservation by Donald J. Orth (2023) Virginia Tech Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in association with Virginia Tech Publishing, is licensed under CC BY 4.0
• Wildlife Habitat Management: Concepts and Applications in Forestry, 2nd edition by Brenda C. McComb (2022), Oregon State University, is licensed under CC BY 4.0
• What Works in Conservation by William J. Sutherland, Lynn V. Dicks, Silviu O. Petrovan and Rebecca K. Smith (Eds.) (2021), Open Book Publishers, is licensed under CC BY 4.0
• Sustainable Wildlife Management by Farzana Khan Perveen and J. Kevin Summers. Intech Open (Eds.) (2023), IntechOpen, is licensed under CC BY 3.0
• Comparative Endocrinology of Animals by Edward Narayan (Ed.) (2019), IntechOpen, is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Ethology and Animal Behaviour

• Monitoring Animal Populations and their Habitats: A Practitioner's Guide by Brenda McComb, Benjamin Zuckerberg, David Vesely and Christopher Jordan (2020), Oregon State University, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Where to find more OER?

There are many platforms available that contain OER, the platforms listed below are a good starting place to find resources on animal science and conservation.

• NSDL: National Science Digital Library
  Repository gathers all possible online open resources from various providers in all STEM disciplines. Resources are browsable by education level, resource type, and subject. Even though most resources are free on this site, there are also some that have some cost associated with them.
• IntechOpen - Open Access Book
  World’s largest Science, Technology & Medicine Open Access book publisher. The website contains more than 3,000 open access books distributed under CC BY 3.0 license in various subjects.