take part in Behavioural study

[Ned]

Now here's a thorny subject that no doubt will rattle some people but it's something I'm very interested in. We can't get away from the fact the some animals, carnivores generally, pace in captivity. Some people don't see it as a problem, they consider it different to the kind of stereotypical behaviour (such as swaying in elephants or weaving in bears) that is seen in under-stimulated animals. I personally take this point of view, however, the behaviour bothers me because of the public perception of it; stand any length of time watching a pacing cat and you'll hear comments as to how bored the animal is or how sad the situation is. For a long time I've had a desire to study the behaviour (in fact many years a go I did a collage study into pacing in zoo animals. The study was flawed by the fact that the female lion in the study group had given birth and the male was very agitated, pacing and roaring constantly.) and it occurred to me that zoochat might be the perfect tool for collecting data. We zoos enthusiasts visit a lot of zoos and are in a position to quickly amass many hours of observations simply through our visits. By doing so we can increase our understand of pacing behaviour which might be of benefit with regards to a) reducing the behaviour through better design / husbandry techniques, and b) explaining the behaviour to members of the public.

I haven not come up with a definite design for this proposed study as I thought I'd see what the response was like but here are some rough ideas, the study would be exclusively looking at carnivores and I have five hypothesis which I'd like to test, they are; a) felids pace more than canids, b) carnivores kept in social groups pace less than those kept under solitary conditions, c) most pacing occurs along enclosure boundaries that adjoin public areas d) there are different types of pacing behaviour e) enclosure size is correlated to frequency of pacing. (The first four hypothesis are my own the fifth was studied some years ago, the paper would have been published around 2003).

I'd like to test these hypothesises through observations which is where zoochatters come in. there would be no need to go to the zoo especially for the study (unless you wanted to) and it wouldn't take up any more of your time than you'd wanted it to. I will produce an observation form (or maybe just instruct participants as to what info I need) and send it to anyone interested in taking part. I will analyses results when they are returned and anyone helping will receive feed back from the study.

That's about as far as I've thought about the subject so I will wait for feedback and if anyone is interested in helping please PM me. Thanks.

 

[zooboy28]

By doing so we can increase our understand of pacing behaviour which might be of benefit with regards to a) reducing the behaviour through better design / husbandry techniques, and b) explaining the behaviour to members of the public.

I haven not come up with a definite design for this proposed study as I thought I'd see what the response was like but here are some rough ideas, the study would be exclusively looking at carnivores and I have five hypothesis which I'd like to test, they are; a) felids pace more than canids, b) carnivores kept in social groups pace less than those kept under solitary conditions, c) most pacing occurs along enclosure boundaries that adjoin public areas d) there are different types of pacing behaviour e) enclosure size is correlated to frequency of pacing. (The first four hypothesis are my own the fifth was studied some years ago, the paper would have been published around 2003).

I think your hypotheses are very interesting, and that you have justified the study well (could probably get some zoos (or zoo friend/volunteer groups)on board with those benefits). I think you may be able to answer a number of your hypotheses (a, b, e) by meta-analysis, there seems to be a number of small-scale studies online. Zoo animal studies are well suited to meta-analyses studies. Hypothesis C is interesting, I have never noticed pacing specifically along public boundaries, it normally seems to be around the whole exhibit, or at least around certain pathways within the exhibit, but not just along the front. Hypothesis E would be best studied where an animal/group has two different sized enclosures (outdoor/indoor/holding) visible to observers and the pacing habits in each can be directly compared (although there may be other issues there - do animals pace more in indoor enclosures than outdoor ones?).

I'd like to test these hypothesises through observations which is where zoochatters come in. there would be no need to go to the zoo especially for the study (unless you wanted to) and it wouldn't take up any more of your time than you'd wanted it to. I will produce an observation form (or maybe just instruct participants as to what info I need) and send it to anyone interested in taking part. I will analyses results when they are returned and anyone helping will receive feed back from the study.

I would think that you would want observations over an entire day (and ideally several entire days) to get a good idea of an animals pacing behaviour, so maybe contacting zoo volunteer groups or zoochatters willing to spend an entire day observing would give more useful data. However, other forms of observational data may work, I would be interested what sort of methods you were thinking of.

Good luck with your study

 

[Ned]

Thanks for you're comments, very useful, particularly your comments about indoor areas. This brings up the issue of quality between indoor and outdoor areas as more effort seems to be put into creating stimulating outdoor areas. Also outdoor areas are effect by weather.
I'm also leaning towards whole day studies across several days at different times of year.
Again, thanks, I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[Peter Dickinson]

Within the wild cats will naturally pace their territorial boundaries from time to time. In captivity the enclosure sizes are much decreased so pacing may be identified by some as stereotypical (and in some animals it may be) but observed differently when the same behaviour is carried out over a much longer distance in a larger enclosure.
In general cats will pace in anticipation of feeding time and so may pace longer on a 'starve day' or the day following it. Pacing though will not in general take place all day but only a small percentage of it. All cats are individuals and so will behave differently and will be influenced by weather, seasons, scents, oestrous and just looking at things they are interested in.
True enough, most pacing will take place when there are vistors in the zoo because that just happens to fall within the period that most 'influencers' will occur.
In good modern, well designed and enriched cat enclosures it would be rare to see stereotypical pacing in large cats. No doubt some will disagree.