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Preference assessments in the zoo: Keeper and staff predictions of enrichment preferences across species
Author(s) -
Mehrkam Lindsay R.,
Dorey Nicole R.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
zoo biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1098-2361
pISSN - 0733-3188
DOI - 10.1002/zoo.21227
Subject(s) - biology , preference , ungulate , environmental enrichment , animal husbandry , animal welfare , ecology , statistics , mathematics , neuroscience , habitat , agriculture
Environmental enrichment is widely used in the management of zoo animals, and is an essential strategy for increasing the behavioral welfare of these populations. It may be difficult, however, to identify potentially effective enrichment strategies that are also cost‐effective and readily available. An animal's preference for a potential enrichment item may be a reliable predictor of whether that individual will reliably interact with that item, and subsequently enable staff to evaluate the effects of that enrichment strategy. The aim of the present study was to assess the utility of preference assessments for identifying potential enrichment items across six different species—each representing a different taxonomic group. In addition, we evaluated the agreement between zoo personnel's predictions of animals' enrichment preferences and stimuli selected via a preference assessment. Five out of six species (nine out of 11 individuals) exhibited clear, systematic preferences for specific stimuli. Similarities in enrichment preferences were observed among all individuals of primates, whereas individuals within ungulate and avian species displayed individual differences in enrichment preferences. Overall, zoo personnel, regardless of experience level, were significantly more accurate at predicting least‐preferred stimuli than most‐preferred stimuli across species, and tended to make the same predictions for all individuals within a species. Preference assessments may therefore be a useful, efficient husbandry strategy for identifying viable enrichment items at both the individual and species levels. Zoo Biol. 34:418–430, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.