Comparisons of Activity Budgets, Interactions, and Social Structures in Captive and Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Nodoka Inoue,Masaki Shimada

doi:10.3390/ani10061063

Nodoka Inoue, Masaki Shimada

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10061063

Copy DOI

Abstract

Simple SummaryFor chimpanzees in zoos, the key aim of environmental enrichment is to enable them to exhibit behaviors, interactions, and societies similar to chimpanzees in the wild. A comparison of observational data, showed that the proportion of their time spent on collecting foraging was significantly lower in captive chimpanzees (located in Tama) than in wild chimpanzees (located in Mahale), but no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of the proportion of their total time spent collecting, extractive, and hunting foraging. The percentage of time spent performing mutual grooming was much higher in Tama than in Mahale. Males, but not females, in Mahale formed a core social group, but no sex-specific differences were found in Tama. The multiple artificial feeders allowed chimpanzees in Tama to spend more time on extractive foraging to achieve a similar proportion of time on foraging as compared with that of the wild chimpanzees. The environmental enrichment for chimpanzees in Tama can be considered to be successful.Chimpanzees in zoos with sufficient and appropriate environmental enrichment devices are expected to exhibit behaviors, interactions, and societies similar to those in the wild. In this study, we compared the activity budgets of each observed behavior, characteristics of social grooming, and social networks of captive chimpanzees at Tama Zoological Park (Tama) with those of wild chimpanzees at Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania (Mahale), and tested our predictions. We surveyed 16 chimpanzees in both Tama and Mahale and recorded the behaviors and individuals in proximity of each focal individual and social grooming the focal individuals participated in. The proportion of time spent collecting foraging was significantly lower in Tama than in Mahale. Additionally, the percentage of mutual grooming was much higher in Tama than in Mahale. All focal individuals in Mahale performed mutual grooming interactions, including grooming handclasp (GHC) but this was not observed in Tama. The result of a high rate of mutual grooming in chimpanzees in Tama without GHC and the finding that individuals forming the core of their social network are sex independent suggest that chimpanzees placed in an appropriate environmental enrichment have idiosyncratic grooming or social features, even in captivity.

Highlights

IntroductionAnimals 2020, 10, 1063 ultimate goals of environmental enrichment in captive animals is to bring their behavioral repertoire and daily behavioral time budgets closer to those of their wild counterparts [3]
The result that we found no abnormal behavior in Tama and Mahale suggests that the introduction of abundant and complicated enrichment items associated with foraging improved the well-being of captive chimpanzees and made abnormal behavior among them less likely to occur [9,39,40,50]
Bringing the proportion of time spent foraging closer to that of the wild chimpanzees is thought to inhibit the occurrence of abnormal behaviors [67], which was not observed in Tama

Summary

Introduction

Animals 2020, 10, 1063 ultimate goals of environmental enrichment in captive animals is to bring their behavioral repertoire and daily behavioral time budgets closer to those of their wild counterparts [3]. Environmental enrichment for captive primates should encompass all five of the following categories: social, physical, nutritional, occupational, and sensory [1,4]. Devising enrichment in the form of an improved feeding method or using more appropriate feeders can be thought of as nutritional, occupational, and sensory enrichment [3,5,6]. Rearing multiple individuals in a group can be thought of as social enrichment [4,6,8]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion