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Assessing Giants
Brian Joseph Greco
其他書名
Using Epidemiology to Enhance the Welfare of Zoo Elephants
出版University of California, Davis, 2016
ISBN13693107149781369310719
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=udhGswEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋Addressing questions about zoo elephant welfare is timely and relevant. Elephants are highly intelligent social mammals of conservation importance, making them some of the most challenging to manage and controversial zoo animals. Despite recent changes in zoo elephant management intended to enhance welfare, for example the use of naturalistic enclosures and positive reinforcement training, evidence suggests that zoo elephant welfare is not optimal. Although zoo elephant welfare has been studied, prior zoo research was constrained by statistical limitations, making it difficult to generalize the results to larger zoo populations. My dissertation chapters are an important part of a large scale, multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary, epidemiological welfare assessment of 255 elephants housed in 68 Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited zoos. Since lack of research on management practices is one of the major impediments to assessing zoo animal welfare, Chapter 1 focuses on the analysis of elephant feeding, training, exercise, husbandry, and environmental enrichment programs and uses these to generate variables for use in subsequent epidemiological analyses. Chapters 2 and 3 examine stereotypic behaviors (SB), abnormal behaviors which are important indicators of compromised welfare in managed animals because of their association with the restriction of normal behavior, negative subjective states, and central nervous system dysfunction. Chapter 2 tests the management variables described in Chapter 1, as well as housing, life history, and demographic variables, using epidemiological methods to determine which factors are most associated with an elephant performing SB at higher rates. Chapter 3 expands upon Chapter 2 by characterizing the prevalence of major forms of SB in elephants and then uses epidemiological methods to assess the factors associated with one of those forms, pacing. Both studies point towards an elephant's social environment as having the most important impact on SB, with factors describing enclosure complexity also playing an important role. When viewed as a whole, my dissertation answers many questions about zoo elephant management and SB, and provides insights into possible mitigation strategies to reduce SB and other welfare challenges in zoo elephants. It also provides a framework for epidemiologically assessing the welfare of other zoo, laboratory, and agricultural animals.