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Title: An investigation into the behaviour of captive sealions
Author: Frances Nutbeam
Establishment: Sparsholt College
Summary: This study compared the behaviour of both Patagonian and Californian sealions for 5 hour periods over two days at each of 7 collections. Behaviours were recorded every minute using scan sampling methods. Results showed that there was a significant difference in behaviours between collections, between males and females and between trained and untrained sealions. Results were not significant between the two species.
Complete article:
The aim of this study was to compare the types of behaviour of sealions at 7 collections, Dudley (3 Patagonian, untrained), Chester (3 out of 6 Californian used, trained), Whipsnade (3 Californian, trained), Twycross (2 Patagonian, untrained), Welsh Mountain Zoo (5 Californian, trained), Chessington (7 Californian, trained) and Colchester (5 Patagonian, trained).
Types of behaviour were compared between collections, between males and females, between trained and untrained sealions and between species. The frequency of behaviours was also compared, as well as the effects of housing, husbandry and training on aggression and stereotypic behaviours, along with enclosure utilization. For analysis, the behaviours were grouped together to include locomotion, resting, aggression, social interaction and trained behaviours.
Results showed that locomotory behaviours were exhibited the most and that the sealions spent 79% of their time in the pool. Overall, all behaviours were significantly different between collections. The significant difference between sexes was exhibition of stereotypic behaviours, and between trained and untrained; significant differences were locomotion, resting, social, aggression, training behaviours, offshow and stereotypic behaviours. Of these latter differences in behaviour, trained animals showed lower incidences of aggression and stereotypic behaviours. There were no significant differences between the species.
Specifically, Colchester Zoo’s sealions performed 67% of locomotory behaviours and 21% of social interactions. The averages of these were 50% and 11% respectively for all sealions combined so we were above average for these species-typical behaviours. Colchester Zoo sealions did not exhibit any stereotypic behaviours.
Conclusions from this study show that training is very important in reducing stereotypical behaviours and that differences between collections can be attributed to frequency of feeding, enclosure size, and number of animals. The captive welfare of sealions was improved with larger groups, large deep pools and for those fed at frequent intervals. Husbandry protocols can also be applied to both Californian and Patagonian sealions as the differences between species were not significant
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