American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) weight gain in captivity and implications for captive reptile body condition
The body condition of an animal is an indicator of health status and is dependent upon many factors, some of which can vary between wild and captive settings. Despite this, there have not been many studies on how captivity affects body condition relative to wild animal populations. This study explores the body condition of captive […]
Commonalities in Management and Husbandry Factors Important for Health and Welfare of Captive Elephants in North America and Thailand
This review paper is a synthesis of results from multiple studies that we have conducted over the past several years using similar methodologies to identify factors related to welfare of captive populations of elephants in North American zoos and Thailand tourist camps. Using multiple conservation physiology tools, we found that, despite vastly disparate management systems, […]
The Elephant Welfare Initiative: a model for advancing evidence‐based zoo animal welfare monitoring, assessment and enhancement
The Elephant Welfare Initiative (EWI) is an effort supported by a community of member zoos with the common goal of advancing evidence‐based elephant‐care practices that enhance welfare. The idea for the EWI came about following the completion of a large‐scale North American elephant welfare study, which demonstrated that daily practices, such as social management, enrichment […]
Development and Implementation of Baseline Welfare Assessment Protocol for Captive Breeding of Wild Ungulate-Punjab Urial (Ovis vignei punjabiensis, Lydekker 1913)
To ensure that captive breeding and other associated programs are more robust and sustainable, it is of utmost importance to ensure optimum welfare. Although it is well known that standard welfare is crucial for successful captive breeding, there is still a lack of welfare assessment protocols for wild species. The current study aimed to develop […]
Stress hormones and mate choice
A few recent studies have suggested that glucocorticoid stress hormones can play a role in sexual selection. In terms of mate choice, these studies have shown that individuals can exhibit preferences for mates with either low baseline or peak glucocorticoid levels. This appears to occur because stress hormones can be key mediators of many condition-dependent, […]
Integrating stress physiology, environmental change, and behavior in free-living sparrows
As weather deteriorates, breeding animals have a diverse array of options to ensure survival. Because of their mobility, birds can easily abandon territories to seek out benign conditions away from the breeding site. The timing of abandonment, however, may have repercussions for territory size, mate quality, reproductive success, and survival. There is a large body […]
Evaluation of an alternative to feeding whole frozen fish in belugas (Delphinapterus leucas)
Abstract Feeding fish to captive piscivores can be challenging owing to cost, availability, variability in nutrient, and caloric composition, as well as handling and storage concerns. This trial evaluated the response of three belugas to being fed Fish Analog, an alternative to frozen fish. Body condition, gut transit time, serum chemistry and metabolic hormone analytes, […]
Non-lethal effects of predators on body growth and health state of juvenile lizards, Psammdromus algirus
Predation risk does not necessarily increase predation rates because prey may be able to behave differentially to cope with higher predation risk. However, antipredatory behaviors may be costly, leading to negative, although non-lethal, effects of predators on prey. We examined in outdoor enclosures whether an experimental increase in predation pressure, which did not increase direct […]
Behavioural type, status and social context affect behaviour and resource allocation in cooperatively breeding cichlids
Individuals often show consistent differences in behavioural traits that may belong to a behavioural syndrome. Aggressive propensity is usually an important component of consistent behavioural types, potentially generating benefits in resource competition with conspecifics that may be traded off against costs in other contexts (e.g. acquisition of mates or coexistence with group members). Such trade-offs […]
Stress responsiveness, age and body condition interactively affect flight initiation distance in breeding female eiders
Predation may drive differential selection among personality types, but the mechanism linking personality with predation risk is poorly understood. One such mechanism may be provided by stress hormones (corticosterone in birds), which are linked to boldness towards predators. However, because of feedbacks between boldness and future fitness expectations, the relationship between boldness and stress physiology […]