Enrichment of the foraging behavior of Cebus apella in faunistic park, Argentina

CARTA, S; ANDINO, N; BENINATO, V; GIANNONI, S

Mendoza

Congreso; 10th International Mammalogical Congress; 2009

Is widely knowledge that is necessary conduct studies on identifying psychological needs of animals in captivity in order to working with animal managers to provide objective data for the improvement of animal management. The performance of abnormal behaviors, as stereotypies, is interpreted to reflect a lower level of well-being and an inadequate environment. Also, inactivity and high aggressiveness are currently considered indicative of lower level of well-being. In this study was assessed the environment enhancement of Cebus apella in order to promote their well-being in the Faunistico Park, San Juan. We registered, by focal and scan sampling, the behavior of four specimens of C. paella during three phases: before carry out enrichment (first phase), another stage was performed immediately after enrichment (second phase), and the last stage was to two months to enrich the environment in order to know the effectiveness of an environment enhancement program (third phase). The individuals of C. paella spent more time foraging when the enrichment was sustained in the time i.e. in the third stage of enrichment while we found intermediate investment of time after enrichment (second phase) and the lesser time was found before enrichment (first phase, (F (2,1415)= 28.98; p= 0.00001). With respect to aggressiveness and anxiety, we found that the investment of time in both behaviors was significantly lowest at third phase compared to second and first phases (F (2,1415)= 5.22; p= 0.00547; F (2,1415)= 4.09; p= 0.01684, respectively). In the third stage we find a significantly less time spent in abnormal behaviors (F (6,2826)= 6.28; p= 0.00001). This study is in agreement with several studies that suggest that enrichment can promote an increase in activity and a reduction in abnormal behavior.