What are environmental challenges in nature?
Intrinsic and natural.
What are environmental challenges in captivity?
- Few or none.
- Too many.
- Good or bad?
Why do animals explore?
- To gather information about the environment necessary for survival.
- map building
- habituation - To exert control over the environment.
- Animals voluntarily seek challenges.
How does environmental challenges affect behavior?
They are an integral part of behavioral development and well being.
What can happen in the absence of environmental challenges?
- May engender apathy.
- An enduring sense of boredom.
- Increased risk of stereotypic behavior.
What is the definition of enrichment?
IMPORTANT - KNOW THIS
Environmental enrichment is the alteration of animals’ microenvironments to provide them with the opportunity to perform species-specific behaviors that we perceive as positive, while reducing abnormal behaviors.
What happens to animals raised in barren environments?
- Decreased brain weights.
- May be overwhelmed by novelty or change.
- May redirect exploratory behavior on inappropriate objects (tail biting piglets).
What happens to animals raised in enriched environments?
- Investigate novel objects more thoroughly.
- Escape from predatory attacks more quickly.
- Have more versatile behavioral repertoires.
- More flexible in dealing with environmental challenges.
What are the extremes of environmental stimuli?
- Too little = apathy.
- Too much = fear.
What does the effect of environmental stimuli depend on?
Animals previous experiences.
-ex: pigs raised in barren environment may stress and die when overloaded with stimuli during transport.
What are the environmental differences between birds raised in enriched environments vs barren environments?
Enriched
- Quicker to approach novel objects.
- Shorter bouts of interaction with object.
- Reduced fear of strangers.
What is contrafreeloading?
Animals will work to earn their food even when they can obtain it for free.
What abnormal behaviors can a barren environment lead to?
- Sterotypies: repetitive, “functionless” behavior.
- Self-injurious: hair pulling, self biting, mutilation.
- Redirected: lack of foraging opportunity can cause tail biting in pigs.
What affect can a barren environment have on the health of an animal?
Diseases of captivity, not seen in the wild.
What is stereotypy?
- Persistent, unvarying repetition of seemingly functionless behavior.
- Displayed by over 85 million farm, laboratory and zoo animals worldwide.
ex: pacing polar bear in a zoo.
What are the three different types of stereotypy?
- Oral
- cribbing in horses.
- tongue rolling in cattle. - Locomotor
- pacing in confined animals.
- tail chasing in dogs. - Hallucinatory
- fly biting in dogs.
- shadow chasing in dogs.
What can happen along with stereotypies?
Most (~ 68%) situations that cause stereotypies also decrease welfare.
What can happen to non-stereotyping or low-stereotyping individuals in sub-optimal environments?
They could well have have the poorest welfare.
- passive coping: inactive, seen in submissives.
- active coping: active, seen in confident animals.
What are stereotypies are warning sign of?
- Potential suffering, but never use as the sole index of welfare.
- non-stereotyping or low-stereotyping individuals should not be overlooked or assumed to be fairing well.
What should you not do when addressing stereotypies?
-Assume enrichments are failures if behavior isn’t immediately reduced.
-Try to reduce only with punishment or physical prevention.
~must treat their underlying motivation for behavior.
How are stereotypies treated?
- Environment enrichment: preferred treatment.
- Reinforcement of alternative behaviors.
- Genetic selection: high and low fp (feather picking) poultry in 7 to 10 generations.
- Pharmacology: serotonin enhancing drugs, opiate antagonists.
- Punishment: remote, rarely used alone.
Sometimes stereotypies cannot?
go away!
What is SIB?
Self Injurious Behavior
- hair pulling
- self biting
How common is SIB in monkeys?
About 10% of captive, individually-housed monkeys engage in SIB
