Effects of Enclosure and Environmental Enrichment on the Behaviour of Ring-Tailed Lemurs (Lemur catta)

Daan W Laméris,Marina Salas,Jonas Verspeek,Lise Plessers,Arno Depoortere

doi:10.3390/jzbg2020012

Daan W Laméris, Marina Salas + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jzbg2020012

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Abstract

Environmental enrichment is widely used to improve the quality of life of animals under human care. To successfully implement enrichment programs, it is important to evaluate their effect in different enclosure types since housing conditions may change depending on external factors, such as husbandry, management, or seasonal variation. This study investigates how ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) behaviour changes with the availability of enrichment items and the type of enclosure the animals are housed in. Through observations, we compared the behaviour of the lemurs in an indoor and outdoor enclosure, both without and with enrichment items. Although we observed enrichment effects, we found that enclosure type had a bigger effect on the lemurs’ behaviour. Additionally, behavioural changes induced by enrichment items differed between indoor and outdoor enclosures. These results indicate that the effectiveness of enrichment items may depend on the enclosure in which they are provided and consequently suggest that the impact of these programs should not be generalised over enclosure types. This highlights that the evaluation of environmental enrichment programs remains important when optimising zoo animal welfare.

Highlights

Over the last decades, zoological institutions have made major efforts in promoting positive animal welfare
We found that resting was lower outdoors than indoors, both without enrichment (z = −6.310, p < 0.001) and with enrichment (z = −10.062, p < 0.001) and lower in the outdoor enclosure with enrichment compared to when enrichment was absent (z = −2.429, p = 0.015)
The lemurs engaged more with the enrichment in the outdoor enclosure, something observed in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) [14], which could have led to lower resting levels

Summary

Introduction

Zoological institutions have made major efforts in promoting positive animal welfare. Environments that provide complexity, novelty, choice, and a sense of control provide animals with a variety of opportunities to experience different levels of (dis)comfort, interest, and confidence [1,2]. Aiming to provide these key factors contributes to the animal’s welfare. One way zoos aim to create stimulating and complex environments for the animals under their care is by providing environmental enrichment. There are numerous definitions for environmental enrichment, but all incorporate the idea that the environment of the animal is enhanced by providing variation in stimuli or creating opportunities of choice [3] while taking into account the species’ behavioural biology and natural history [4]. Goals of enrichment typically include, but are not limited to: (a) increase the diversity and performance of species-appropriate behaviours, (b) encourage space use in the enclosure, (c) reduce the presence of, and prevent the development of abnormal behaviours, and (d) increase the ability to cope with challenges [2,7]

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