Polar Bear Exhibits

[Jurek7]

R. Clubb & G. Mason (2007). Natural behavioural biology as a risk factor in carnivore welfare:

A-ha...

NOT! Similar paper was bashed before and, sorry to say, is simply bad.

Just main problems:

-Just few studies for a species, so

kinkajous

are only one study of kinkajou which landed as typical for a species.

-Types of enclosures were lumped together (circus, old zoo cages, big enclosures, safari parks, with/without hiding places). Even mink and arctic fox in fur farms were included. Strange, because authors themselves say later that exhibit type is important for strereotypies. So is result because some lions were in tiny cages and snow leopards in big paddocks?

-social situation was not studied. I suppose, if somebody put a group of snow leopards together, they would be as stressed as polar bears.

-for each species, only stereotyping individuals were included. So, e.g. 90% of lions might show no stereotypy and species still comes as stereotyping.

-studied animals were not chosen randomly, but authors used only published data. Therefore, lions and polar bears come as very stereotyping - because they are popular and many studies were done how to stop stereotypies.

-territory size varies enormously within species. If important, we would expect huge differences e.g. between sumatran and siberian tigers, african and amur leopards or european and asian brown bears, because first have home range many times smaller than second. Don't talk about application to migratory birds.

So, result are I suppose artifacts. I guess polar bears come high because: 1) well studied in zoos 2)kept in groups, not solitary/pairs, 3) kept on concrete not grass/sand 4) kept without hiding places. And I guess bad study results in link to territory size and no differences between predators/omnivores and social/solitary species.

So... I have no great opinion on results...

BTW - good polar bear enclosures were on other thread about a month ago. I only forgot to tell Sun Wukong that bears stay white and don't dig in grass.

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Are you sure you are not biased?

This study (R. Clubb & G. Mason (2007)is hardly “trash†and should not be branded as such so easily.

“Study length or observation method did not systematically vary with species, nor correlate with any of our independent or dependent variables (see Clubb, 2001 for details). The same was true for husbandry variables. The only exception was that large species were typically held in large enclosures (F1,21 = 63.2, p < 0.0001)†R. Clubb & G. Mason (2007). It is clear from this statement right out of their paper that just because polar bears are studied for a longer period does not threaten their results.

Average enclosure sizes were actually quite representative of what you would find in zoological institutions. The average polar bear enclosure was 836.9 square meters in size. The average snow leopard enclosure was 128.6 square meters

Most polar bears are now kept in social situations similar to those of other large carnivores like snow leopards. According to ISIS holdings for North American mammals more than 2 snow leopards are kept in 17 out of 68 Zoo’s (25%) housing the species, and more than 2 polar bears are kept in 13 out of 39 (33%) Zoo’s holding the species. In the 68 Zoo’s holding snow leopards 151 individuals are held or an average of 2.22 per Zoo. In the 39 Zoo’s holding polar bears 85 individuals are kept or an average of 2.18 per Zoo. Both species are very solitary animals in the wild so the large difference in stereotypical behaviour of 7.43% in snow leopards and of 36.8% in polar bears can surely not be accounted for to a significant degree by how many individuals are kept at the same Zoo. If stress from exposure to conspecifics in solitary species is responsible for captive stress than why did lions have such high levels of stereotypical behaviour?

It is also interesting that 26 stereotyping snowleopard individuals were included in this study and 20 polar bears, so you cannot claim that polar bears were overrepresented.

Although it is true that individuals not exhibiting stereotypical behaviour were not included in the analyses of this paper, including them would not have changed the results considerably. How many polar bears do you know of that NEVER pace? Can you name one? If so have you observed it all day on numerous random visits? After spending millions of dollars researching their polar bears and implementing new enrichment Lincoln Park Zoo was only able to cut their polar bears daily pacing in half from 33% to 16%. Even with a multimillion dollar environment and advanced enrichment the polar bears at San Diego zoo still pace. I have never seen or heard of meerkats pacing before this paper so by including only those polar bears and meerkat individuals that do exhibit stereotypical behaviour in this study results were actually not as strong as they would otherwise would have been!

So if lots of studies have been done on polar bears and lions and how to prevent stereotypical behaviour doesn’t that mean that we should expect, all other things being equal, that we understand polar bears and lions better and have more experience dealing with and managing their behaviour, which should decrease stereotypical behavioural tendencies compared to other carnivores like arctic foxes and fishing cats. Doesn’t the fact that pacing is still such a problem for polar bears compared to these animals tell you something about underlying biological problems associated with keeping these species in captivity?

The fact you brought up differences between species of bears is interesting because R. Clubb & G. Mason (2007) actually controlled for phylogeny by using accepted phylogentic trees and still came to their conclusions! Migratory birds do not pertain to R. Clubb & G. Mason’s discussion because they are a completely different taxonomic group! The fact that increased daily travel distance was positively correlated with increases in infant mortality and stereotypical behaviour is probably one good reason why migratory birds do not have huge problems in captivity. Migration and moving across home ranges are totally different behaviours’!

@Jurek7 artifacts of biasing their study? Surely everyone who has been to a Zoo intuitively knows that polar bears and tigers pace more than meerkats, snow leopards and foxes? Do you think differently?

If it is so obvious that polar bears pace more because they live on hard substrates and don’t have hiding spots then why don’t more Zoo’s change their exhibits? These are surely cheaper designs to incorporate than vastly increasing enclosure space and creating different microclimates or areas. If having a hiding spot prevented polar bear pacing than why don’t Zoo’s allocate enrichment budgets to constructing them? Zookeepers are highly trained and dedicated, if there was an easy solution to help animal welfare they would implement it and you would see it everywhere very quickly.

If you really want to criticize the findings of this study factor in whatever variables you can justify as being pertinent then run the same analyses and tell me if you come up with a result that doesn’t tell you that carnivores with larger home ranges (with body mass) and longer daily travel distances have higher rates of stereotypical behaviour and higher rates of infant mortality. Your argument (Jurek7) is somewhat tantamount to trashing and completely ignoring the results of a phylogeny because you think they should have included additional characters without running your own analyses with the new data to see if the result actually changes.

Finally it should be noted that R. Clubb & G. Mason are not animal activists hard bent on removing animals from captivity, they are scientists inquisitive about how management in captivity can be improved by taking the animals biological and native behavioural characteristics into account!


R. Clubb & G. Mason. 2007. Natural behavioural biology as a risk factor in carnivore welfare: How analysing species differences could help zoos improve enclosures. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 102 (3-4): 303-328.

 

[patrick]

A ton of people have viewed this thread, and many have commented on it, but no one has mentioned the exhibit photos from the Japanese zoos. The 113 photos show atrocious living conditions of polar bears in Japan...

becuse its bloody depressing!

okay....so i scanned through the document. atrocious! truly disgusting. and really when you think about it, the conditions of the bears at melbourne are ot much better. their exhibit is equally small, predominantly concrete, with little land area, high walls and thus a lack of views and zero privacy from the public.

 

[Jurek7]

In the 68 Zoo’s holding snow leopards 151 individuals are held or an average of 2.22 per Zoo. In the 39 Zoo’s holding polar bears 85 individuals are kept or an average of 2.18 per Zoo. Both species are very solitary animals in the wild

In my experience, polar bears are often kept in groups, but snow leopards in pairs, ev. with offspring. Number of animals in a zoo makes no sense, because zoos separate most cats into multiple enclosures.

I didnt see all zoos, but never seen snow leopard group. I guess nobody put them this way, because they stand stress worse than bears, that is, would kill each other.

At least in two zoos I seen very clear social stress in bears. This takes a form that dominant animal goes as it pleases, while subordinate avoids it. In one case famale paced on the end of enclosure, looking round. In another case, bear avoided dominant. One goes to the pool - another goes out. other rests on land - another goes swimming. etc, etc.

How many polar bears do you know of that NEVER pace?

I did not observe polar bears pacing in: Berlin zoo (at least some), in Nurnbergen (two of three) and in Rhenen (new exhibit) - on top of my head. I cannot say they never pace - especially at night.

After spending millions of dollars researching their polar bears and implementing new enrichment Lincoln Park Zoo was only able to cut their polar bears daily pacing in half from 33% to 16%. Even with a multimillion dollar environment and advanced enrichment the polar bears at San Diego zoo still pace.

Every study agrees that pacing can have several reasons, and that old animals can continue to pace. I didnt see these places, but arent bears in Lincoln Park old and in Sand Diego - on concrete?

So if lots of studies have been done on polar bears and lions and how to prevent stereotypical behaviour doesn’t that mean that we should expect, all other things being equal, that we understand polar bears and lions better and have more experience dealing with and managing their behaviour, which should decrease stereotypical behavioural tendencies

Yes, when 1) enclosures are rebuild, which is financial problem for huge animal needing large water pools, 2) elderly animals which got into stereotypic habit pass away.

Lion enclosures are cheaper and lions live shorter. So I seen lots of lions which don't pace.

If you really want to criticize the findings of this study factor in whatever variables you can justify as being pertinent then run the same analyses

Enclosure size, social structure, surface type, hiding place, animal age are commonly known to be importnat in zoos. See e.g. this first paper you cited. Asking about them is not extravagant criticism.

See earlier thread about good polar bear enclosures. At least we agree that they are cheaper than usual concrete platform!

 

[James27]

Berlin keeps it's polar bears in a group of four in a (quite large) all concreat/rock enclosure. Last time i went, 2 of them were pacing and another was weaving her head. The other, which I think was the male, wasn't pacing, head weaving or anything, so it might have something to do with the social structure.
But then, I think they only have one Sloth bear, and he/she was pacing cotinuously in a circle...

 

[snowleopard]

I'll make an extremely general statement here, which we all know to be true: the majority of bears and big cats in captivity pace. Every zoo that I go to there is at the very least one exhibit that features a large carnivore going back and forth, back and forth, until the day it dies. Who knows how often these animals walk the same exact spot when they are shut in at night? I can remember seeing the sun bears at Taronga Zoo in Sydney (which is an excellent zoo overall) and one sun bear went back and forth on a dead tree trunk for the entire 10 minutes that I stood there. Not once did the bear break its monotonous routine. At another great zoo, San Diego, there have been many studies done on the polar bears and the animals have always paced for at least a small portion of their day. Even with a multi-million dollar exhibit, real snow being incoroporated into the extensive enrichment system, balls and toys, etc...the bears still pace.

The forum member Jurek7 has brought up some good points in the past about having much more substrate in bear enclosures. Why do zoos persist in creating mockrock/concrete bear pits when a grassy, dirty, gravelly, rocky landscape would be much more conducive to a decline in pacing? Allowing bears access to their night dens, privacy from the public, sandy pits for digging, larger space, etc, have all been able to cut down on the pacing of the bears.

It is a sad situation when I visit a zoo and see a worn-down path stretching all the way around a large carnivore's exhibit. Many large cats spend most of their day pacing back and forth around the same old enclosure, never varying their route...and then at the end of the day are locked in sterile, concrete-floored night-quarters. I know that it's kind of depressing, and yet changes to exhibit design are still progressing ever so slowly. If only there was more usage of natural landscapes rather than fake rock, and an increase in the overall size of exhibits for carnivores that like to roam, then perhaps the amount of pacing would significantly decrease with some species.

The Philadelphia Zoo just won Best AZA Exhibit for 2007 for its "Big Cat Falls", which rotates leopards, snow leopards, cougars, lions and tigers through 5 different exhibits. I realize that such an exhibit isn't geographically correct, but perhaps a zoo should do the same thing with sloth, sun and asian black bears?

 

[okapikpr]

Both Brookfield and Columbus Zoos are incorporating rotation into their new bear exhibits. And Detroit, as mention before, has two different exhibits to rotate their polar bears.

 

[James27]

So true snowleopard
I think a lot of zoo's don't do enough to stop it myself. The polar bears in Berlin did nothing but pace, and their enrichment consisted of a tractor tyre. That was for 4 bears kept on rock...
A lot of zoo's just aren't imaginative enough really, and I agree that it's quite sad to see them just walk back and forth all the time, especially if it's a zoo you visit a lot.

 

[Taccachantrieri]

How do hard substrates increase the rate of stereotypic behaviour? If anything the increased discomfort associated with walking over hard surfaces constantly should dissuade polar bears from walking back and forth. Not surprisingly when the Oregon Zoo introduced rubber flooring to replace their concrete floors activity levels of their elephants increased (Meller CL (Meller, Carnie L.), Croney CC (Croney, Candace C.), Shepherdson D (Shepherdson, David). 2007). Stereotypical behavior also increased because it was also more comfortable for the animals to engage in. If some Zoo's were to change their substrates and flooring in polar bear exhibits to softer substances I would actually expect polar bear pacing to increase not decrease! this suggests that a lot of polar bears are even worse off than we expect !

Snow Leopards are kept in very similar situations to other species of large solitary cats. If stress from being in unnatural social conditions contributed to their pacing than surely we would expect similar rates in other big cats like tigers and jaguars. In reality rates of stereotypical behavior are higher in certain species as can be shown in the following rates of stereotypical behavior used by Mason and Clubb (2007): Cheetahs 24.6%; jaguar 20.08%; tiger 16.43%; mountain lion 11.75%; and snow leopard 7.43%. Home range does show a correlation with these behavioral tendencies (all results are averages for the species and expressed as square kilometers): Cheetah 60; jaguar 54.3; tiger 67; snow leopard 38.9; mountain lion 37.8. Polar bears actually somewhat congregate around shores waiting for ice to form, and so are probably not any less social than other species of bear. Polar bears have the highest infant mortality of any bear in captivity and high rates of pacing. Most bears are kept in similar social situations so you cannot use polar bear captive social grouping as an explanation for their unnatural behaviors in captivity, however you could use the fact that they have larger home ranges and travel longer distances per day.

As far as enclosure size goes Jurek7 pay attention to the quote I gave and my comments on how snow leopard enclosures are actually much smaller than polar bear enclosures because it refutes the argument you're making in quite a tidy manner.

Polar bears live in very open environments in the wild and feel very comfortable in vast rather bare spaces with long sightlines because of their camouflage. How can the fact that captive environments are so open increase their stress so significantly? I would certainly expect animals that live in very closed environments in the wild like rainforest's to feel more exposed and stressed in open captive enclosures than polar bears.

The age argument falls through as well because age is somewhat reflected in phylogeny. Bears live longer than big cats, so age was actually controlled for in this experiment.


P.S. Jurek7 please do not quote me by snipping off the ends of my arguments. I find it exceedingly annoying when it distorts what I was saying. I have too much respect for you to quote you in this manner so please return the courtesy.

Meller CL (Meller, Carnie L.), Croney CC (Croney, Candace C.), Shepherdson D (Shepherdson, David). 2007. Effects of rubberized flooring on Asian elephant behavior in captivity. ZOO BIOLOGY 26 (1): 51-61.

 

[Jurek7]

Taccachantrieri, for the beginning - I don't buy your view that stereotypies (which you equal to pacing, which is wrong, btw.) are very invariable within species and related to species behavioral ecology.

Why? Because:
1) study which you read has layers upon layers of bad design,
2) In captivity, there is huge variation depending from age and sex, and also individual. And stereotypy in most individuals can be induced by poor management or reduced to nill.
3) In nature, many species of carnivore readily colonize very diverse habitats, changing territory size, behavior and even social system. So in fact, median or minimal territory is of little value.

How do hard substrates increase the rate of stereotypic behaviour? If anything the increased discomfort associated with walking over hard surfaces constantly should dissuade polar bears from walking back and forth. Not surprisingly when the Oregon Zoo introduced rubber flooring to replace their concrete floors activity levels of their elephants increased (Meller CL (Meller, Carnie L.), Croney CC (Croney, Candace C.), Shepherdson D (Shepherdson, David). 2007). Stereotypical behavior also increased because it was also more comfortable for the animals to engage in. If some Zoo's were to change their substrates and flooring in polar bear exhibits to softer substances I would actually expect polar bear pacing to increase not decrease! this suggests that a lot of polar bears are even worse off than we expect !

Because they give wrong simulation to feet, there is no comfortable resting place, they lack even this minimal variety of smell and touch of sandy/grassy surface. Zoos which changed concrete to soft substrate in all animals noticed improvement in behavior - except some ungulates which must wear hooves.

Snow Leopards are kept in very similar situations to other species of large solitary cats. If stress from being in unnatural social conditions contributed to their pacing than surely we would expect similar rates in other big cats like tigers and jaguars. In reality rates of stereotypical behavior are higher in certain species as can be shown in the following rates of stereotypical behavior used by Mason and Clubb (2007): Cheetahs 24.6%; jaguar 20.08%; tiger 16.43%; mountain lion 11.75%; and snow leopard 7.43%. Home range does show a correlation with these behavioral tendencies (all results are averages for the species and expressed as square kilometers): Cheetah 60; jaguar 54.3; tiger 67; snow leopard 38.9; mountain lion 37.8. Polar bears actually somewhat congregate around shores waiting for ice to form, and so are probably not any less social than other species of bear. Polar bears have the highest infant mortality of any bear in captivity and high rates of pacing. Most bears are kept in similar social situations so you cannot use polar bear captive social grouping as an explanation for their unnatural behaviors in captivity, however you could use the fact that they have larger home ranges and travel longer distances per day.

As far as enclosure size goes Jurek7 pay attention to the quote I gave and my comments on how snow leopard enclosures are actually much smaller than polar bear enclosures because it refutes the argument you're making in quite a tidy manner.

Taccachantrieri, first, I consider this data as artifact, because of non-randomly sampling, small samples and excluding non-pacing individuals.

Second, I consider this data as artifact, because territory size in the wild is so flexible. Serious scientist would not give average or minimal territory size for large carnivore. Average territory size of leopard? Where - in rain forests of India or marginal semidesert of Arabia? How to include vast areas where leopard territories were unstudied? With natural prey density, current density usually lowered by man, or animal exploiting man-made food source?

Finally, it is unrealistic to invent and refute rules to which each species can fit. Like that territory size important/important, because one species - snow leopard - doesnt behave this way.

Polar bears live in very open environments in the wild and feel very comfortable in vast rather bare spaces with long sightlines because of their camouflage. How can the fact that captive environments are so open increase their stress so significantly? I would certainly expect animals that live in very closed environments in the wild like rainforest's to feel more exposed and stressed in open captive enclosures than polar bears.

Two wrong points:
- I see no reason of your idea, that polar bears would unconditionally like open areas because they live in them. Do they also like white walls more than other colors?

- Problems for other animals are often: no resting places, no possibility to withdraw from conspecifics, little simulation.

The age argument falls through as well because age is somewhat reflected in phylogeny. Bears live longer than big cats, so age was actually controlled for in this experiment.

Age - I meant age of animal. Old animal which developed stereotypy may not change it. Surely, all carnivores are young, mature and aging?

About phylogeny - polar bears are actually phylogenetically nested among brown bears. Phylogenetical approach here is doubly wrong.

Sorry, this study is so full of wrong approaches that I cannot list them all. Not all are revelant to polar bears, but I just wanted to show you to treat studies with criticism and open head.

I have more faith in reports of enrichment, even anecdotal. Because these show actual success in reducing stereotypies in polar bears.

BTW, the same authors, I think, committed a study [BTW - are you professionally related to them?] comparing result of various enrichment. Food came as most effective, and toys as least effective - even common enichment.

***

My own observation of bears and elephants is that pacing/weaving occurs often when animals not have access to all exhibit area. Especially, animals denied access to indoor area, often pace before closed doors.

I would definitely start practice of giving animals access to all exhibit space normally 24/365, except really extreme weather. If necessary, raise fences a little and install small light outside not to let animal panic in starless night. During cleaning time, I would distract animal closed away by small amount of food. I would limit practice of luring animals with food to get them in/out, perhaps restrict to give them special treats.

 

[Taccachantrieri]

I think some things need to be clarified. First off the study by Mason and Clubb analyzed a data set of over 2,600 carnivore births and deaths of offspring under 30 days from 1988-2000 from over 500 Zoos. This time frame coincided with over 85% of their stereotypy papers utilized. These values came from International Zoo Yearbook. No further selection process was used. This is obviously a very substantial database that can not reasonably be described as producing small samples that improperly bias data in analyzing the effects of increased range size on infant mortality in carnivores.

As far as the papers on stereotypic individuals are concerned 425 individuals were used in the analysis comprising 33 different species. Again, this is a very large set of data to analyze overall trends. Clubb and Mason were careful to only select comparable data. Some of their stipulations were that: the data had to be collected over a minimum of over 1 week; only adults were used; animals under food restrictions could not be used; and animals that were experiencing new shifts in social structure could not be utilized. Including non-stereotypical individuals in their study would have introduced a bias because individuals that exhibit stereotypical behavior are more regularly and thoroughly investigated. In order for the result of this study to change individuals that exhibit higher values of stereotypical behavior would have to belong to species where fewer individuals engage in stereotypical behavior, which is certainly counterintuitive.

By using statistical analyzes of their data sets Clubb and Mason virtually eliminated the ability for artificial trends to be produced by probability alone. In other words they toke an objective approach to analyzing their data .

Organisms are inherently variable in almost every characteristic even within the same species. This is why good scientists run statistical tests.

@Jurek7 if I were to utilize your argument about territory size I could likewise say that Bergmann's Rule (which implicates that within closely related species the heavier species lives further north) is scientifically irrelevant because body mass varies as you get older, between sexes, between different individuals and populations, at different times of the year, etc. Are you prepared to make that assertion too?

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Nowhere in my comments did I suggest that I think that behaviours are invariable within animals. Mason and Clubb likewise did not make this assumption. Believe me I do not assume that organisms are not inherently variable.

Stereotypy is not induced solely by bad management. This statement would be read as incredibly insulting to all the zoo staff that care diligently for animals that engage in stereotypical behaviour more so than other animals despite the best intentions of staff. Are you (Jurek7) actually implying that large carnivores that frequently engage in stereotypical behaviour do so because they are poorly managed compared to foxes, meerkats, snow leopards, etc?

I provided only a few of the possible examples where animals with smaller home ranges do not engage as frequently in stereotypical behaviour, as examples to make my passages more interesting. It is you, Jurek7, who is refuting the trend hypothesized by Clubb and Mason, by providing a single example-polar bears, so I explained why polar bears are not a deviation and in fact fit into the picture.

Concerning age polar bears are not significantly older than sun bears and other bear species exhibited in captivity and many individuals from those species likewise share a history of living in worse situations before their exhibits were re-modeled.
In the phylogeny utilized by Mason and Clubb (Bininda-Emonds et al. 1999) brown bears (Ursus arctos) were actually the closest living relatives of polar bears (Ursus maritimus), by asserting this phylogenetic relationship you are doing nothing to challenge Mason and Clubb’s results.

Humans are attracted to savannah type ecosystems even though our ancestors spread into many different habitats over the past few million years. This is why good landscape designers construct parks that have open grassy areas with good sight lines and cover in the form of several trees, instead of really dense shrubby areas underlying dense tree canopies. Most private landscapes are also strikingly similar to savannah type ecosystems. Obviously because of variation not every human exhibits this pattern. Another landscape feature that helps relax human beings and make them feel comfortable is a water source. Most human habitation patterns in the past have been clustered around bodies of water. Taking biological history of ecosystem habitation by organisms is a major concern of people working in zoological institutions. It is why gorillas should be kept in closed more secure areas with more overhead cover reminiscent of their native rainforest environment than chimps which can live in more fragmented forests. I actually expect polar bears to be more attracted to white surfaces, after all they have great camouflage against such backgrounds and their biology has probably evolved to exploit this for maximal evolutionary success. In other words cues provided by the environment either consciously or unconsciously tells the animal to move into these areas when it is advantageous, if they cannot do so they may even experience stress. The reason you may not see them preferentially utilizing these backgrounds in captivity is because they are not in a “hunting modeâ€Â.

Lincoln Park Zoo actually gave their polar bears access to their holding area 24/7. This reduced their stereotypical behaviour as would be expected if a primary reason they exhibited such behaviour in the first place is because they are wide-ranging in the wild and want to exert more control over their movements and environment in captivity.

O.R.P. Bininda-Emonds, J.L. Gittleman and A. Purvis. 1999. Building large phylogenies by combining phylogenetic information: a complete phylogeny of the extant Carnivora (Mammalia), Biol. Sci. 74 (1999), pp. 143–175.

 

[Jurek7]

As far as the papers on stereotypic individuals are concerned 425 individuals were used in the analysis comprising 33 different species. Again, this is a very large set of data to analyze overall trends.

This is not impressive - less than 15 animals per species, with some less than five, and we know that between zoos conditions and behavior of animals vary dramatically.

Basic: if you collect data in biased way, even the largest dataset will be biased. They collected only studies which animals which attracted enough attention to produce study of pacing.

So small animals are underrepresented. Not surprisingly, "heaviest pacing" are popular species (lion and polar bear), diurnal and partialy diurnal species (visible for keepers and public), and those which dont react to stress by hiding in holes.

Lion came as animal which apparently poorly adapts to captivity. Alarm for me. Lions are bred since Middle Ages, and some zoo specialists complain, that they became domesticated breed of "cage lion".

By using statistical analyzes of their data sets Clubb and Mason virtually eliminated the ability for artificial trends to be produced by probability alone.

ROTFL! Basic: statistic program will produce result, whenever study is good or bad.

@Jurek7 if I were to utilize your argument about territory size I could likewise say that Bergmann's Rule (which implicates that within closely related species the heavier species lives further north) is scientifically irrelevant because body mass varies as you get older, between sexes, between different individuals and populations, at different times of the year, etc. Are you prepared to make that assertion too?

Happily, Bergmanns rule was corrected for age, sezes and time of year. After that, you get objective answer - heavier sub-species lives further north only in some cases. Those north of Equator and not moving higher up the mountains.

 

[Jurek7]

Nowhere in my comments did I suggest that I think that behaviours are invariable within animals. Mason and Clubb likewise did not make this assumption. Believe me I do not assume that organisms are not inherently variable.

Stereotypy is not induced solely by bad management. This statement would be read as incredibly insulting to all the zoo staff that care diligently for animals that engage in stereotypical behaviour more so than other animals despite the best intentions of staff. Are you (Jurek7) actually implying that large carnivores that frequently engage in stereotypical behaviour do so because they are poorly managed compared to foxes, meerkats, snow leopards, etc?

Love of animals by keepers has nothing to do. Problem is presence of old exhibits (like these concrete platforms for polar bears, and small cages of ancient "lion houses") and not knowing what produces stereotypy.

About others. Foxes, if don't sleep, in my few observations pace very much. Meerkats when stressed, hide in holes (pacing is not only sign of stress, another drawback). Snow leopards are nocturnal, and few people ever spend all night at snow leopard cage.

Concerning age polar bears are not significantly older than sun bears and other bear species exhibited in captivity and many individuals from those species likewise share a history of living in worse situations before their exhibits were re-modeled.

I observed other bears pacing, too. Sun bears, brown bears, asian black bears. I think almost every species of bear will pace on concrete.

Humans are attracted to savannah type ecosystems even though our ancestors spread into many different habitats over the past few million years. This is why good landscape designers construct parks that have open grassy areas with good sight lines and cover in the form of several trees, instead of really dense shrubby areas underlying dense tree canopies. Most private landscapes are also strikingly similar to savannah type ecosystems. Obviously because of variation not every human exhibits this pattern. Another landscape feature that helps relax human beings and make them feel comfortable is a water source. Most human habitation patterns in the past have been clustered around bodies of water.

This is very cool theory. But first - do Bantu Pygmies and Greenlanders pace in their homeland? Second - what it has to do with polar bears?

Taking biological history of ecosystem habitation by organisms is a major concern of people working in zoological institutions. It is why gorillas should be kept in closed more secure areas with more overhead cover reminiscent of their native rainforest environment than chimps which can live in more fragmented forests. I actually expect polar bears to be more attracted to white surfaces, after all they have great camouflage against such backgrounds and their biology has probably evolved to exploit this for maximal evolutionary success. In other words cues provided by the environment either consciously or unconsciously tells the animal to move into these areas when it is advantageous, if they cannot do so they may even experience stress. The reason you may not see them preferentially utilizing these backgrounds in captivity is because they are not in a “hunting modeâ€Â.

Putting polar bear on white surface you probably do it a disservice, because white areas reflect light and may be hotter to polar bear.

Rigid behavioral adaptation to environment, as I told you, is hardly visible in carnivores. Anecdotally, polar bears put in brown bear enclosures with enjoyed climbing trees. So much about adaptation to environment.

Wild polar bears readily shun white wilderness to colorful rubbish tips. Actually, San Diego zoo considered once to build part of polar bear exhibit as rubbish tip and fill it with enrichment. The plan was dropped for obvious reasons.

Lincoln Park Zoo actually gave their polar bears access to their holding area 24/7. This reduced their stereotypical behaviour as would be expected if a primary reason they exhibited such behaviour in the first place is because they are wide-ranging in the wild and want to exert more control over their movements and environment in captivity.

I guess sleeping area was rather small addition of space compared to decrease of steretypy.

Another anecdote. Pair of polar bears which paced all day, stopped pacing when fed in the morning instead of evening. Not building expectation towards the end of the day - worked.

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Actually most of the individuals sampled for frequency of stereotypical behavior came from small species because of the very large samples of foxes and martins from a couple of fur farms. Even in these conditions these carnivores had reduced levels of pacing compared to polar bears and lions in Zoos! If there is something about the environment of fur farms that is less stressful than Zoo's than that is particularly disturbing !
Secondly, a sample size of 425 is actually large because individual species weren't analyzed on a one by one comparison, but rather the group of 425.
Are you aware (Jurek7) that the anecdotal studies you so treasure have even smaller statistical samples than this study? If you shoot down this study for sample size reasons are you not forced to do the same with anecdotal papers, but in an even more profound manner?

Every bear will pace, but polar bears exhibit more pacing and increased infant mortality than other species.

Polar bears may congregate around dark rubbish bins because they are left with no other source of food or probably more likely because feeding from these areas is more energetically efficient than hunting seals. This does not prove that they don't prefer lighter environments. As for light reflection darker surfaces actually increase ambient air temperature. Try standing over dark asphalt when there are no cars around.


Statistical programs do not produce bias's it is the data you input into them that results in inappropriate trends. What do you claim is the bias for data on infant mortality?

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Most animals are fed at scheduled times of the day, including smaller species. Do they not experience the same kind of anticipation that polar bears do?

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Snow leopards are actually "most active in the early morning and late afternoon"(Toriello, K. 2002. "Uncia uncia" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed March 15, 2008 at ADW: Uncia uncia: Information.).
For lions "Hunting typically takes place at night and into the hours of the early morning"(Harrington, E. and P. Myers. 2004. "Panthera leo" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed March 15, 2008 at ADW: Panthera leo: Information).
This is obviously the time when they exhibit their greatest levels of locomotory behavior, so lions are probably more prone than snowleopards to exhibit stereotypical behavior during the night.

 

[Taccachantrieri]

The human example was given to show that even in a species (Homo sapiens) that exhibits incredible behavioral diversity and flexibility there is a preference for certain types of environmental conditions amongst the majority of the population. Local adaptations can somewhat change this condition.

 

[Jurek7]

Actually most of the individuals sampled for frequency of stereotypical behavior came from small species because of the very large samples of foxes and martins from a couple of fur farms. Even in these conditions these carnivores had reduced levels of pacing compared to polar bears and lions in Zoos! If there is something about the environment of fur farms that is less stressful than Zoo's than that is particularly disturbing !

Rather, fur mink and foxes are domesticated breeds. Presumably, they become selected for tolerance to such conditions.

Including them is very inappropriate, IMO.

Are you aware (Jurek7) that the anecdotal studies you so treasure have even smaller statistical samples than this study? If you shoot down this study for sample size reasons are you not forced to do the same with anecdotal papers, but in an even more profound manner?

Published study has to keep own standards, anecdotes another.

Anecdotes I put mostly for interest. But some things in my anecdotes were found to be general rules in serious scientific studies. And certainly, other anecdotes are starting points for more study.

Polar bears may congregate around dark rubbish bins because they are left with no other source of food or probably more likely because feeding from these areas is more energetically efficient than hunting seals. This does not prove that they don't prefer lighter environments. As for light reflection darker surfaces actually increase ambient air temperature. Try standing over dark asphalt when there are no cars around.

Because you quote evolutionary ecology and psychology, you might be interested in one thing. Very specialised ambush predator immediately turns into forager for small food items. Says much about behavioral plasticity, not?

Statistical programs do not produce bias's it is the data you input into them that results in inappropriate trends. What do you claim is the bias for data on infant mortality?

Infant mortality... Unlike humans, where we expect 99,5% of newborns to reach adulthood, in carnivores many newbords are born naturally sickly and females naturally neglect some young. Then zoo is faced with choice - let the infant die or hand rear it into sickly adult.

Did authors correct for natural infant mortality?
And for zoos decision to invest effort in young, esp. hand-rear vs naturally rear?

Infant mortality is related to finding place for young. Thats why carnivores with EEP, where all young are valuable, show average lower infant mortality. Lion and polar bear enclosures are at carrying capacity. Therefore you see most births in earlier years (with poorer medical care) and currently, decisions to euthanise or let cubs be neglected by mother.

Compare Basel zoo euthanasia of 2 of 4 lion cubs in 2007 and Nurnberg zoo maternal neglect of polar bear cubs in 2007.

***

This thread takes too much time. I will no longer comment on this.

These authors produced other papers, some stating (more correctly IMO) that stereotypy depends mostly from individual and should be tracked by finding individual reasons and correcting them.

And generally, it is good that people work on this topic. I hope future papers will benefit from experience on that one.

cheers,

 

[Taccachantrieri]

Actually an interesting point about the study by Clubb and Mason is that a preview of it appeared a few years ago in Nature. Since then 24 authors have cited that article in their own peer reviewed scientific articles. None that I know of dispute it. In fact, it has spurred further research that assumes the validity of Clubb and Mason's trend. For instance Ronald R. Swaisgood1* and David J. Shepherdson (2005) who both work at Zoos wrote in Zoo Biology "These large-bodied animals tend to have large home ranges, however, a factor known to correlate with stereotypy performance in carnivores [Clubb and Mason, 2003]". essentially these authors as well as many others have lots of faith in this article. Clubb and Mason's full article was published in a respected peer reviewed scientific journal. The implications of this article are not something that AZA and other organizations embrace. They have lots of money and scientists at their disposal, but so far not one has published a peer reviewed article disputing the results of Clubb and Mason. This doesn't mean that their results are true beyond every reasonable doubt, but it certainly doesn't mean that their article is "trash" as you so inelegantly put it.

Jurek7 a lot of your comments so far illustrate to me quite plainly that you have not read this article. Perhaps I shouldn't include citations to articles that the public doesn't have access to. In the article by Clubb and Mason they very clearly control for natural wild rates of infant mortality in the first 30 days of life. It is certainly not as common in the wild for polar bears to eat or not care for their young as it is in captivity.

Arctic foxes have not been domesticated yet, they haven't been in captivity for any longer than many Zoo held species like lions and meerkats. A hundred years or even a few hundred are not sufficient to completely domesticate a species even one with relatively short generation times. Even if Clubb and Mason had excluded fur farm animals they would have about 300 individuals for their analysis on stereotypical behavior, and the results would have been the same.

Certainly I do not need to post about all the scientific articles robustly supported that tell you that carnivores that have larger home ranges display implastic behaviors and other biological features that makes them better suited for roaming, and experiencing varying stimuli. It is interesting for one thing that even black bears that feed off garbage maintain home ranges of over 15 square kilometers.

What species that was once a very specialized ambush predator very quickly turned into a forager on small food items?

Zoos are much more likely to hand raise and remove young from polar bears than meerkats and arctic foxes! After all baby polar bears generate a lot of publicity! If anything without human intervention polar bear infant mortality would be higher! How many polar bears per year succesfully breed and rear their young to adulthood in captivity?

Individual differences in susceptability to stereotypical behavior are important, but how can Zoos select the individuals they want to display? However, they can certainly select which species they want to display. I think it would be very prudent for Zoos to factor in species suspectibility to abnormal behaviors that can scar visitors entire experience, when selecting which species they want to display. I am not even saying that Zoos can not have polar bears, but rather there has to be a lot of good reasons to justify keeping them in light of how poorly they do in captivity.

If Zoos want to display animals that exhibit natural behaviors than how can they easily do that for a species that spends a good deal of it's time roaming and navigating through unfamiliar areas?


Scientific Approaches to Enrichment and Stereotypies in Zoo Animals:
What’s Been Done and Where Should We Go Next?
Ronald R. Swaisgood1* and David J. Shepherdson2
Zoo Biology 24:499–518 (2005)