Hello everyone, and welcome to the next week of your MOOC in Animal Behavior and Welfare here at the University of Edinburgh. This week, we're going to be looking at the behavior and welfare of wild animals that are managed under human care. For simplicity, we'll refer to them as wild animals in captivity and I'll talk a little bit later about why we use that term. Today, we'll be looking at animals that are managed within the zoo context. And animal welfare is a fundamental part of what all good zoos do. The role of the modern zoo involves education, conservation, and research. And animal welfare is an essential foundation for these activities. We can't produce good conservation programs where animals are engaging in natural breeding activities or are fit for reintroduction into the wild if the welfare of those animals is not excellent. We also cannot educate the public about natural wild animal behaviors if animal welfare isn't ensured and those animals are not exhibiting those behaviors in the captive setting. Good animal welfare is also essential for ensuring that good and valid research data is collected. If animals are physiologically stressed or emotionally stressed, then they're not going to give us good research data to collect. And so we can see that good animal welfare is the cornerstone of all of the activities that good zoos may be engaged in. [SOUND] We can provide good welfare by taking a behavior-based husbandry approach to how we manage animals. This means that we don't focus on what we're providing, we're focusing on what the animal's behavior is telling us that it needs by recognizing that all of the animals behaviors are meaningful and, therefore, helpful in informing us of what an animal may need. Behavior based husbandry incorporates all elements of good animal welfare, good health, psychological well being, and natural behavioral expression. Behavior-based husbandry considers not just elements, such as enclosure design or enrichment, but also human animal relationships, the animal's choices with regards to its environment, mating opportunities or social interactions, and a level of control over its environment and its daily routines. Positive human animal interactions are the foundation of providing good welfare for the animals that we manage. If we consider that these animals rely on us to provide for all of their needs. Food, shelter, enrichment, mating opportunities and companionship, we can understand that if we are aggressive, unpredictable, or negative in our interactions to our animals, we can create significant stress for them. Perhaps we're having a bad day or we're worried about something in our lives. That may be the case, but our animals do not understand that. And if we are abrupt, unresponsive, or short-tempered with them, our behavior can create anxiety for them. It is important to recognize that not all stress is negative. Continuous or high level stress from which an animal cannot escape can be negative, and may mean that an animal is no longer able to cope with its captive environment. On the other hand, an environment which does not offer any kind of challenge may be safe for an animal, but can also be both physically and mentally frustrating. Just as we humans engage in interesting and exciting activities, such as sports or socializing, to stimulate our minds and bodies, it is important that we provide animals with similar challenges. Opportunities for mating, enrichment, and social interaction can all provide positive, stimulating and short-term stress, which may be beneficial for our animals. Operant conditioning is increasingly popular in captive wildlife facilities to facilitate the husbandry procedures and support the human and animal bond. In order to train animals, most facilities employ a positive reinforcement methodology, recognizing that punishment and negative reinforcement often end up creating unnecessary anxiety and fear in order to force particular behaviors. In these videos, we can see direct punishment of an elephant hit with a stick and negative reinforcement of elephants in a circus, where the trainers are using hand held spikes to force the elephants into position. Positive reinforcement rewards the desired behaviors and so, if delivered properly, should not be stressful for the animal being trained. Whilst operant conditioning may provide cognitive enrichment for our animals, it's important that in order to do so, it is properly delivered. And the animal is adequately rewarded for its efforts. Any operant conditioning or training program must be both progressive and enjoyable in order to be enriching for the animal. Training programs, which are repetitive, boring, or which create frustration for the animal may have a negative welfare impact. The management of training sessions is important. By engaging interactions with our animals, we must recognize that we may create disruption to their daily routines and normal social interactions. Separating an animal from its conspecifics for training may create stress, anxiety, or frustration in the individuals not selected to receive the additional attention and food rewards that training programs confer. Additionally, if training programs are not well-planned or structured or delivered, they may create frustration or confusion. And this can lead to a negative experience for both the animal and the trainer. It is also important to understand that interactions with our animals should be much broader than just intimate in training sessions. In this video, we see a socially isolated chimpanzee. He has lived alone since its mate died a few years before, and since then his social interaction has been limited to his keepers. As the keeper focus is on cleaning, feeding, and basic husbandry, and they have had limited training in animal behavior, they have, so far, been unable to recognize his need for social interaction. We can see a visiting applied ethologist, who understands his social cues, and is responding to his communication and desire for social interaction, engaging in play behavior with him. For social animals, such as a chimpanzee, this type of social interaction is vitally important to ensuring that the animal does not suffer. Similarly, here we see a singly housed gibbon, who's on the floor of her enclosure and pressed against the barrier, attempting to solicit contact for social grooming from humans. As the barrier is very narrow, we had to use a stick to provide her with tactile contact. Throughout the process, she turned and presented each side of her body. Tactile grooming like this is essential for social primates. But it is important that we consider social interactions and how our own behavior may impact the emotional states of all of the species that we keep in captivity. Environmental or cognitive enrichment is often seen as a panacea for many behavioral problems. But whilst they can be very useful, it needs to be applied strategically with clear goals in mind and a recognition of possible limitations. For example, in this photograph, the bear has been provided with an enriched environment. It has been given a tire, a type of occupational or physical enrichment. But I'm sure that we can all recognize that regardless of this enrichment, this environment is still totally unsuitable for this animal. In this case, the environment has been enriched with a log pile and a bowl, but still remains barren and is completely unsuitable to meet the psychological and physical needs of this species. Enrichment comprises many different categories and where practical a complex variety enrichment categories should be applied. These categories include physical enrichments, such as bedding material, branch work, burrows, nesting boxes, pools, substrates, and appropriate vegetation. Occupational enrichment, these are natural or non-natural objects that can be manipulated, such as toys or traffic cones. Feeding enrichment, this is the provision of food related activities, novel food items and devices, or the scattering of food. Sensory enrichment, the provision of novel or familiar scents, sounds, visual, or tactile stimuli. >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> Cognitive enrichment, items that present mental challenges, and engage the animal in problem-solving often for a reward. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> And social enrichment, provision of intra or interspecies social stimuli, training and positive human-animal relationships. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> For enrichment to be successful, we need to consider what needs we are trying to meet. The Shape of Enrichment, an organization dedicated to developing and delivering zoo animal enrichment and Disney's Animal Kingdom have both developed strategic approaches to developing goal-oriented enrichment programs. And I'd suggest that you check out their websites. This is an example of goal-orientated enrichment. This browse hanger was developed for moloch gibbons to provide both cognitive enrichment, and promote natural foraging behavior. Sometimes, an overly simplistic approach can be taken towards goal orientated enrichment. A classic example is that of live feeding. Some people believe that providing a domestic prey animal to a predator within a confined environment supports the predator's natural behaviors. However, when we consider the various complex stages of predation, including prey finding through olfactory or visual activity, stalking and pouncing or striking, we can see that actually the killing of a chicken by tiger does not offer much of a cognitive or physical challenge, and is unlikely to be particularly enriching. Even in the case of reptiles, the provision of live prey simply only replicates the strike and the constrict aspects of the hunting sequence. And these behaviors can easily be provided for by offering warm, humanely killed carcasses, which elicits the same responses in the predator without the negative welfare experience for the prey animal. Attempts to provide predators with genuine simulated hunting experiences are much more challenging. This lion rover was developed by Mark Kingston Jones to mimic natural predatory behaviors in a pride of captive lions. And whilst not perfect, it can be controlled by the keepers to offer the lions enrichment based on prey location, stalking, and chasing. The benefit of a goal-oriented enrichment program is that it considers the needs of the individual, rather than taking a scattergun approach to enrichment. Enrichment items are presented, assessed, and reviewed to ensure they are meeting the goal. In this example, we see two young bear cubs rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam, where they were destined for bear farms as part of the bear bile trade. These young cubs have already experienced much trauma, maternal separation, transport, and significant human interactions. And so it is important the new experiences provide positive learning opportunities for them. We can see in this video that Misty, the female cub, is very confident and curious to explore her new bubble bath. Her brother Rain, however, is a little more anxious and quite startled to see his sister looking so strange. By monitoring this interaction, we can assess their individual behaviors and responses, and modify their enrichment to ensure that it does not cause anxiety or stress, but instead remains a source of pleasure and supports their environmental exploration. Positive human-animal interactions can lead to improved public engagement and education. And improved welfare and enrichment supports a greater range of natural animal behaviors. But offering our animals a variety of opportunities, they can choose their preferred activities. And this choice and control over their daily activities is likely to result in improved welfare. At all times, it is important that we are aware of how what we do may affect our animals.
