Abstract
AbstractThe relationship between zoo animals, particularly nonhuman primates, and visitors is complex and varies by species. Adding complexity to this relationship is the trend for zoos to host events outside of normal operating hours. Here, we explored whether a late-night haunted-house style event influenced the behavior of spider monkeys. We conducted behavioral observations both on event nights and nights without the event. The spider monkeys were active and outside more frequently on event nights compared to the control nights indicating that their typical nighttime behavior was altered. However, it is difficult to definitively conclude whether the behavioral changes were a result of the event being aversive or enriching. Our findings suggest that zoos should conduct behavioral observations of and collect physiological data from their animals, especially if they are sensitive to environmental changes, when implementing new events, including those occurring outside of normal operating hours to ensure high levels of animal welfare.
Highlights
The relationship between zoo visitors and animals, nonhuman primates, is a complicated one and there is little consensus in the literature on whether visitors cause stress, provide enrichment or do not affect the animals
To begin to address the lack of information on zoo animal welfare during special events, we opportunistically studied how a new, late-night, haunted-house style event affected zoo animal behavior
Because we had different numbers of scan samples in 2015 and 2016 and different numbers of baseline and event nights, we first converted our data into proportions of scans for each of our three behavioral categories for both event and baseline nights
Summary
The relationship between zoo visitors and animals, nonhuman primates, is a complicated one and there is little consensus in the literature on whether visitors cause stress, provide enrichment or do not affect the animals (for a review see: Hosey, 2000). In primates, this relationship seems to be dependent on the species and sometimes the individual. To further complicate this issue, modern zoos focus on providing visitor experiences that go beyond passively observing animals (Anderson et al, 2003) These experiences include activities such as interactions with keepers, animal training, and special events that occur outside of normal operating hours. While these extra activities/events enhance the zoo visitors’ experience, there has been little empirical research into how zoo events, aside from standard visitation, affect the welfare of the animals
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