Evaluation of Development and Performance of Abnormal Behavior in Captive Primates
Henry, Tateh Ngulefac (2019)
Henry, Tateh Ngulefac
2019
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019082717985
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019082717985
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This study was carried out to evaluate the development, performance and the effect of captive environmental features on the performance of abnormal behaviour.
The study population was made up of 6 species of primates with 71 individuals made up of 49 males and 22 females. The convenience sampling method was used to select species while observation was by intervals (10am — 3pm) using instantaneous scans every 15 minutes. Three measures of behaviour were constructed (diversity, prevalence and frequency) for analyses.
It was observed that all species presented a total of 27 behavioural abnormalities (such as floating limb, self-clasping, self-biting, stereotypic pacing, bang self against surface, clap, fumble nipple, groom stereotypically, self-hit, pat genital, pluck hair, pluck hair of other, poke anus, poke anus of other, poke eye, coprophagy, face rubbing, teeth exposure, genital display, masturbation, grin, structure-biting, structure shaking, Wall liking, spinning, drink urine, drink urine of other) with the most prevalent being genital display(54.9%) followed by poke anus(28.2%) and masturbation(28.2%), with 67% of total population performing an abnormal behaviour. Males are more vulnerable in captivity than female with our result showing 75.5% and 72.7% respectively as far as sexes are concern. The factors influencing the development and performance of abnormal behaviour were identified as group size and composition (100% for singly housed, male- female pairs and single sex, and 67.9% for groups), enclosure complexity and substrate (100% for barren but enriched enclosures with hard substrate and 79% for complex enclosure with soft substrate) and enclosure size (100% for enclosures 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11; 62.5% and 58.3% for enclosures 2 and 12 respectively), although all these factors did not affect the frequency at which abnormal behaviours were performed.
Our results support a conclusion that, more attention should be paid to the captive environment to encourage naturalistic behaviour in captive animals.
The study population was made up of 6 species of primates with 71 individuals made up of 49 males and 22 females. The convenience sampling method was used to select species while observation was by intervals (10am — 3pm) using instantaneous scans every 15 minutes. Three measures of behaviour were constructed (diversity, prevalence and frequency) for analyses.
It was observed that all species presented a total of 27 behavioural abnormalities (such as floating limb, self-clasping, self-biting, stereotypic pacing, bang self against surface, clap, fumble nipple, groom stereotypically, self-hit, pat genital, pluck hair, pluck hair of other, poke anus, poke anus of other, poke eye, coprophagy, face rubbing, teeth exposure, genital display, masturbation, grin, structure-biting, structure shaking, Wall liking, spinning, drink urine, drink urine of other) with the most prevalent being genital display(54.9%) followed by poke anus(28.2%) and masturbation(28.2%), with 67% of total population performing an abnormal behaviour. Males are more vulnerable in captivity than female with our result showing 75.5% and 72.7% respectively as far as sexes are concern. The factors influencing the development and performance of abnormal behaviour were identified as group size and composition (100% for singly housed, male- female pairs and single sex, and 67.9% for groups), enclosure complexity and substrate (100% for barren but enriched enclosures with hard substrate and 79% for complex enclosure with soft substrate) and enclosure size (100% for enclosures 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11; 62.5% and 58.3% for enclosures 2 and 12 respectively), although all these factors did not affect the frequency at which abnormal behaviours were performed.
Our results support a conclusion that, more attention should be paid to the captive environment to encourage naturalistic behaviour in captive animals.