Abstract
Previous research into public perceptions of live prey feeding has been focused on terrestrial animals. The reasons for this likely relate to the difficulty humans have in being compassionate to animals who are phylogenetically distantly related. In order to test these assumptions, the general public (two groups; one who had just visited an aquarium; and one group who had just visited a zoo), aquarium professionals in the UK/US and terrestrial zoo animal professionals (UK) were investigated to see how they would differ in their responses when asked about feeding various live aquatic animals to one another. Likert based surveys were used to obtain data face to face and via online social media. Demographics in previous research identified a lower acceptance of live prey feeding by females, however in aquatic animals this was not reflected. Instead, separations in perception were seen to exist between participants dependent on whether they had just visited a zoo or aquarium, or worked with animals.
Highlights
Research into public perception of live prey feeding has, until now, been focused entirely on terrestrial animals [1, 2]
Public perceptions of live prey feeding to aquatic species in captivity either terrestrial animals in a zoo or aquatic animals in an aquarium
Within the ‘fish to shark on show’ question significant differences lay between: UK aquarist and US aquarist (p = 0.032); UK aquarist and Zoo visitor (p
Summary
Research into public perception of live prey feeding (whether it involves invertebrates or vertebrates as either the prey or predator) has, until now, been focused entirely on terrestrial animals [1, 2]. Barney [6] found public knowledge of dolphins was poor, and opinion was largely based on a person’s emotional and empathetic response rather than the widely available educational information on these animals. This empathy extends even less towards fish (i.e. teleosts) as, despite being aquatic vertebrates, they are even further removed from humans, phylogenetically and with regards to physical and behavioral similarity [7].
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