Effects of enrichment devices and performance on the behavior of dolphins in captivity
Date Issued
2013
Date
2013
Author(s)
Wu, Yen-Chieh
Abstract
Zoos and aquarium have put many efforts on developing tools for assessing the welfare of captive animals. Animal behavior is often the most obvious way to indicating if an animal is unable to cope with environmental stress. There are two major parts of this thesis. The first part investigated the effect from the environmental stressors from performance as well as from space and food support. The second part tested environmental enrichment effect by providing artificial devices. Study was executed at Far Glory ocean park, Hualien, Taiwan, from July 2012 to March 2013. In the first part (chapter 2), the changes of dolphins’ behaviors and sound, especially the stereotypic behavior were recorded and compared before and after performance. Behavioral sampling followed instantaneous and scan sampling, and sound data was recorded by underwater hydrophone. I found that dolphins with performance seldom showed stereotypic behaviors. Visitors’ crowdness seem had neutral effect with dolphins. When the time was closing to show start, 50% of dolphin individuals increase solitary swimming and decrease synchronous swimming, while dolphins’ whistle types showed siginificantly higher diversity after the performance in the afternoon, and could be related with dolphins’ expectating the performance. In addition, comparing the space dimension and regular diet records of Far Glory ocean park with reference of other aquaria, I found this park’s physical condition is slightly over the world average standards. So, I conclude that the stressors from the performance as well as food and space should not bring significant impact on these captive dolphins. In the second part, I used enrichment devices to test the changes on stereotypic behavior of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and Risso’s dolphin (Grampus griseus). I found that by giving enrichment devices, dolphins could significantly reduce 67.6±14.4% of stereotypic behavior. And 40% of individuals showed a preference to the devices with angled shapes, it was related to the way how they manipulated the devices.
Subjects
動物福利
瓶鼻海豚
環境豐富化
瑞氏海豚
刻板行為
壓力
Type
thesis
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