Island Life: Use of Activity Budgets and Visibility to Evaluate a Multi-Species Within-Zoo Exhibit Move

• Published in: Animals (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 16; p. 2123
• Main Authors: Finch, Katherine, Waterman, James O, Cowl, Veronica B, Marshall, Ashleigh, Underwood, Lydia, Williams, Leah J, Davis, Nick, Holmes, Lisa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 19.08.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: animal management; Animal welfare; Animals; Behavior; Budgets; Climbing; Conspecifics; Data collection; enclosure design; Environmental changes; evidence based; Flooring; Helarctos malayanus; Islands; Knowledge bases (artificial intelligence); Macaca nigra; Monitoring; Monkeys & apes; natural behaviours; Orangutans; Pongo abelii; Primates; Relocation; Social factors; Social interactions; Tapirus indicus; Translocation; Visibility; zoo; United Kingdom > UK; animal welfare; natural behaviours; animal behaviour; enclosure design; evidence based; zoo; animal management
• ISSN: 2076-2615; 2076-2615
• DOI: 10.3390/ani12162123

Modern zoos strive to construct habitats which both enable and encourage animals to engage in species-specific behaviour, without compromising their visibility to visitors. Here, we present the findings of a within-zoo move to a custom-built exhibit ( at Chester Zoo, UK) with respect to the behaviour of four mammal species; the Sumatran orangutan ( ), crested macaque ( ), Malayan tapir ( ) and the Malayan sun bear ( ). We used full activity budgets along with Compositional Data Analysis (CoDA) to gain insight into how the move to a more naturalistic exhibit influenced behaviour. Engagement in abnormal behaviour remained low during the study period for all four species, suggesting no adverse responses to the change in environment. Following the move, both the non-human primate species spent more time engaged in positive social interactions with conspecifics, highlighting the importance of social support during enclosure moves. Time spent visible to the public was largely unaffected by the enclosure move for the Sumatran orangutan, whilst the movement to a new environment increased visibility for the Malayan sun bear and decreased visibility for the crested macaque and Malayan tapir. We demonstrate the value of monitoring behaviour throughout the translocation of zoo-housed species and outline the positive behavioral impacts of providing individuals with naturalistic, species-appropriate environments.