Elephant Behaviour (Short Survey)

[zoogiraffe]

I understand your point about the balance, however I was only working on one objective here!
Thank you for your response

Which you didn't explain at the start hence why you got pulled up on it,I will still not be filling it in as its biased in favour of being anti-keeping Elephants in captivity!!

 

[Zooplantman]

Just to be realistic:
If you come to a forum of zoo fans and ask "Can you take my survey reporting that you have seen stereotypical stress behaviors of elephants in zoos" you may get a defensive response.
Your research may well be broad, deep and even handed, but all we are encountering is an invitation to document behavior problems.
We're not going to be eager to support that.
Important lesson here: Always remember who you are speaking with ;-)

 

[lamna]

I don't think anyone is offended, it just seems like all you can learn from that questionnaire is do elephant exhibit stereotypies in captivity, when everyone already knows they do.

It also doesn't take into account the history of individual animals. Once an animal starts stereotypical behaviour, that's almost certainly going to continue throughout that animals life.
Combine that with elephant's long lives and you have plenty of cases of very good facilities where elephants have been rescued and still have stereotypies.

This could really mess up the data. If you don't take into account the animals history, then sanctuaries are going to look like the very worst place for elephants to end up, because most of the animals that end up in sanctuaries are going to have had a rough life.

Phrasing the question is vital. "Do you believe in space aliens?" and "Do you believe there is intelligent life in the universe?" are the exact same question, but have very different tone and connotations.

 

[Zooplantman]

Phrasing the question is vital. "Do you believe in space aliens?" and "Do you believe there is intelligent life in the universe?" are the exact same question, but have very different tone and connotations.

Or "When did you stop beating your wife?"

 

[FBBird]

Elephant Behaviour.....

I never beat my wife. She'd kill me. I never fill in badly constructed surveys, as I could be contributing to poorly conducted research that someone might then take seriously.