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Maintaining Behavioural Diversity in Captivity for Conservation: Natural Behaviour Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

L A Rabin
L A Rabin*
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA
*
Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints: L A Rabin, Animal Behavior Graduate Group, c/o Department of Psychology, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; email: larabin@ucdavis.edu
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Abstract

Behavioural management in zoos is often practiced within the confines of environmental enrichment, a well-known method which attempts to increase the welfare of captive animals. For the successful conservation and reintroduction of threatened or endangered species, however, it is also important to manage behaviour in such a way as to maintain behavioural diversity. The development of natural behaviour management (NBM) programs is advocated in this paper. These programs will act to maintain behavioural diversity in captivity and will encourage behaviour to be displayed in appropriate contexts through exposure of captive animals to naturalistic stimuli. The importance of developing appropriate antipredator and predation behaviours will be discussed in order to demonstrate how NBM strategies differ from, and can even conflict with, environmental enrichment strategies undertaken for welfare reasons.

Keywords

animal welfareantipredator and predation behaviourcaptive breedingex situ conservationpredator/prey recognitionenvironmental enrichment
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 2003 , pp. 85 - 94
Copyright
© 2003 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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