Lions (Panthera leo) are popular zoo animals and obligate carnivores. In the past, zoos focused on the nutritional aspect of feeding, whereas today they aim to encourage naturalistic feeding. AZA’s Lion Care Manual recommends a...
Captivity may have adverse effects on captive great apes, who would spend much more of their time engaged in foraging and other activities in the wild. Enrichment interventions have the potential to alleviate the adverse...
Zoos are urged to implement enrichment programmes that include constant feedback to increase efficacy. However, such work is time consuming for zookeepers. The goal of this case study was to establish an enrichment programme in...
The introduction of an unfamiliar animal to a new individual or group can be highly stressful for any animal. Various studies have tried to determine the best method for introducing unfamiliar animals to each other...
This cross-sectional study investigated the use of infrared thermography as a diagnostic tool for pododermatitis in captive greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus). Photographs and thermal images were obtained for 775 feet from 408 flamingos held at...
Orang-utans are the largest mainly arboreal animal: wild orang-utans rarely come to the forest floor. In contrast, the locomotion behaviour of captive orang-utans encompasses more time on the ground and they spend less time on...
Various body condition scoring (BCS) methods have been developed as management tools in zoo animal husbandry. In contrast to BCS for farm animals, where visual and palpable features are used, these protocols are mainly restricted...
Stereotypies in captive animals have been defined as repetitive, largely invariant patterns of behavior that serve no obvious goal or function. Stereotypies are commonly attributed to boredom or stress and are typically treated by enriching...
The use of odors is a popular form of sensory enrichment, yet few studies have investigated the longer lasting effects of biologically relevant chemical signals like pheromones. Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are unique because they...
Long-term, multi-institutional assessments have become a reliable tool for evaluating patterns of wounding in zoo-living primates, with results informing on best practices for species-specific care protocols and population management strategies. For western lowland gorillas (Gorilla...