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Title: The effect of visitor presence on the behaviour of a captive pack of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus).
Author: Eleanor Lake
Establishment: Hartpury College
Summary: It is important to understand the effects of visitors on animals in zoos for two main reasons. Firstly, visitors have been found to be a source of stress and so decrease animal welfare. Secondly, visitor presence has an impact on the outcome of zoo research, affecting the reliability of the results.
The effects of visitors on primates have been widely studied, and more recently other zoo-housed species have been investigated. Many of the studies are contrasting in their results but the majority suggest that visitors have a stressful influence on captive animals. Visitor effects have been classed into three categories; that they act as stressors, as enrichment, or they have no effect at all. This study investigated visitor effects on the behaviour of 6 hunting dogs at Colchester Zoo.
Complete article:
This study observed the behaviour of six captive-housed African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus, on weekends and weekdays. The aim was to see whether there was a difference in behaviour between weekdays, where there were low visitor numbers, and weekends, when there were higher numbers of visitors. The null hypothesis stated that there will be no significant difference in the behaviour of the wild dogs between weekends and weekdays.
Data was collected over three weekends and four weekdays in winter from 7th January to 20th January 2007, resulting in eight days total. Observations were recorded by scan sampling every minute for one hour using instantaneous recording. Number counts were also made of visitors at the enclosure and gate admissions analysed.
Results showed that visitor gate admissions were significantly higher on weekends than weekdays, as were average visitor numbers at the enclosure. No significant change was seen in the subject’s behaviour between weekends and weekdays. A significant difference was seen in the time subjects spend inside in levels of visitor density. This may be down to coincidence, or it could be an indication that increased visitor numbers do have a slight effect. Overall findings support the visitor attraction hypothesis, but not the visitor effect hypothesis.
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