Never be mute about bird welfare: Swanning around with environmental enrichment
Environmental enrichment (EE) is commonly provided to animals managed under human care, being beneficial to behavioral diversity and improving animal welfare. Use of EE appears to be particularly beneficial to individual wild animals spending a short period of time in captivity, for example, as part of conservation or rehabilitation programs. This paper documents a case […]
Evaluation of the time-activity budgets of captive ducks (Anatidae) compared to wild counterparts
Ducks are commonly housed in captive environments where their abilities for flight are constrained, either temporarily or permanently. The use of flight restraint in modern animal management is contentious and ethically questioned yet any associated impacts on behaviour remain poorly documented and evaluated. Comparison of information on wild ecology and activity of free-living individuals with […]
Evaluation of the time-activity budgets of captive ducks (Anatidae) compared to wild counterparts
Ducks are commonly housed in captive environments where their abilities for flight are constrained, either temporarily or permanently. The use of flight restraint in modern animal management is contentious and ethically questioned yet any associated impacts on behaviour remain poorly documented and evaluated. Comparison of information on wild ecology and activity of free-living individuals with […]
Welfare Assessment for Captive Anseriformes: A Guide for Practitioners and Animal Keepers
Welfare assessment is a tool to both identify welfare challenges and to evidence where current husbandry practices support positive welfare outcomes. Such tools are becoming more available and can be amended based on the nature of the facility and needs of taxonomic groups. Currently, welfare assessment has a strong mammalian theme, and some behavioural measures […]
Welfare Assessment for Captive Anseriformes: A Guide for Practitioners and Animal Keepers
Welfare assessment is a tool to both identify welfare challenges and to evidence where current husbandry practices support positive welfare outcomes. Such tools are becoming more available and can be amended based on the nature of the facility and needs of taxonomic groups. Currently, welfare assessment has a strong mammalian theme, and some behavioural measures […]
Duck’s Not Dead: Does Restocking With Captive Bred Individuals Affect the Genetic Integrity of Wild Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) Population?
The genetic integrity of natural populations can be threatened through large-scale introduction of farmed stocks with different genetic or geographic origin. Huge numbers of farm-reared mallard (Anas platyrhynchos, Anatidae) have been introduced into the wild in many European countries since 1970. Czech breeding facilities currently produce around 200–300,000 ducks annually, exceeding wild numbers by around […]
Energetic constraints and parental care: Is corticosterone indicative of energetic costs of incubation in a precocial bird?
Abstract Suppression of the adrenocortical response (e.g., corticosterone release) to an acute stressor is a physiological adjustment thought to decrease the likelihood of avian parents abandoning their nests. However, some periods of parental care, like incubation, are energetically costly, thus corticosterone could increase during these stages to allow incubating parents to utilize energy reserves. Wood […]