Hello everyone my name is Dr Paul Rose and in this short presentation I would
like to explain about the links between the performance
of abnormal repetitive behaviours that we see in many forms of animal when
housed human care and their links to animal welfare and
why we need to consider what abnormal repetitive behaviour means
when it comes to ensuring we provide states for
positive welfare in the wild many species of animal
perform complex feeding foraging
homeostatic maintenance and reproductive behaviours
that take up a large part of their time. Animals are highly evolved to ensure
that the behaviours they perform provide them with fitness benefits
therefore the performance of many of these behaviours
ensures they have a heightened welfare state
the individual is highly motivated to perform the activity
and therefore the environment that the animal is provided with in captivity
should enable the performance of the majority
of these key adaptive behaviours.
However we can see instances in many species of animal when they are
housed in human care where the individuals perform strange
or unnaturally looking behaviours that apparently lack a function
and these forms of abnormal repetitive behaviour
should be considered within the context of the individual's own needs,
its evolutionary ecology and the type of management or husbandry
the individual is under, and we need to look at the performance of such
behaviours if we are to fully understand animal
welfare.
Abnormal repetitive behaviours can be split into two basic categories,
those of a repeated goal orientated behaviour,
such as impulsive or compulsive feather picking
that we see in many species of parrot when housed in captivity,
and those of a repeated motor function, which we often term as stereotypic
behaviours, for example the classic pacing of big
cats that we can see in zoos.
However it's not just zoo animals that perform
abnormal repetitive behaviours, these are seen across
agricultural situations, in many domestic pets
and also in laboratory housed animals too.
And although ARBs are generally defined as behaviours that are invariant and
repetitive in performance we should consider the functionless
nature of ARBs when we're looking at their definition.
Previous work has focused on key species
that perform abnormal repetitive behaviours
commonly in managed situations, for example
the polar bear, and some authors in the past have argued
that ARBs are suggestive of a coping function,
the animal is performing this behaviour because it alleviates the physiological
stress response, it lowers the hypothalamic pituitary
adrenal axis and consequently the animal can
cope with heightened levels of arousal within its current situation
the evidence across taxonomic groups and across stereotypic
or Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour performance is limited
but we know there is an ecological link between the natural history of some
species and the prevalence of stereotypy or
Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour performance in captivity.
There is published work that explains the hypothesis
and arguments around the coping function in much more detail,
we know in situations such as the polar bear that I have just shown you
that the ecological needs of the animal, the large size of its home range and the
complexities of many of its normal behaviour patterns,
i.e. hunting or foraging strategies, are incredibly difficult to replicate
in a managed environment, consequently the prevalence of stereotypic or
Abnormal repetitive Behaviour in such species may be indicative
of their failure to cope when managed, because the animal is in the environment
that is not suitable for it. I.E. regardless of the enclosure
complexity or the husbandry or management regime
the polar bear is under it is simply not behaviourally flexible
enough to change its activity patterns to deal
with this new man-made environment, which is not the
Arctic Circle that it has evolved to deal with.
We should also consider natural behaviours
and their performance be that repetitive or highly invariant, such as this
head-bobbing courtship display in these two mallard ducks. This is not a
stereotypic or Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour, this is part of the animal's
natural courtship display which eventually leads to copulation.
It is important that we fully understand the ethogram
of the species we are investigating if we are to work out the function
or apparent lack of function of the behaviours the animal performs.
Because many normal behaviour patterns are performed in a stereotyped or
repeated way, we have to use this as our
differentiation between our stereotypic or Abnormal
Repetitive Behaviours, and normal parts of the animal's time
activity budget. Those behaviours that are part of the
animal's normal time activity budget have an end goal to the individual
that provides a fitness, an adaptive, or a homeostatic benefit, consequently
they are naturalistic or normal behaviour patterns.
The characteristics of the individual are also
key to our understanding of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour,
the individual's previous experiences as well as its current environment
will shape and trigger any abnormal behavioural responses
to the environment that it is in. This is illustrated by this video of these
pacing jaguars, the fact that these animals can see conspecifics
through a visual barrier may be the trigger for the Abnormal
Repetitive Behaviour, the mirrored pacing that is seen by
these two animals. Consequently when it comes to our
understanding of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour and animal welfare
how the individual is dealing with its current situation
is crucial if we are going to further work out
what the ARB performance means, and therefore that leads us back to our
original, universal definition of animal welfare:
"the state of the individual as it attempts to cope with its environment".
It is important that we remember that it
is not just "higher mammals", such as these
jaguars, that can perform Abnormal Repetitive Behaviours,
even in what we may term lower vertebrates, such as this flatfish, invariant
repetitive behaviour patterns that give us an idea
of a poorer welfare state can be performed,
just in the same way as we saw in the jaguars
so this animal is performing this repeated, invariant movement
around part of its enclosure, and in some situations
such as this ray, this behaviour can lead to pathology and we can see the
marks on the skin of this animal that have
been caused by the interaction with the animal surroundings.
If we look more closely at individual
physiology and individual behavioral needs
deciphering Abnormal Repetitive Behaviours
can become clearer for certain types of animal.
In many species of browsing herbivore, such as this giraffe
a lack of leaves provided in its natural diet
and a lack of browsing opportunities to perform the same types of action
of collecting and processing food as we see
in wild giraffe leads to these oral stereotypic behaviours.
Mouthing or tongue playing behaviours that can occur around various features
of the animal's enclosure, and these abnormal oral stereotypic
behaviours can also occur when individuals will
play with pieces of forage or pieces of twigs
or leaves or even the insides of their mouths,
wrapping their tongues around their teeth, which is indicative
of this behaviour becoming highly ingrained in that individual's daily
activity pattern.
We never prevent an animal from
performing an Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour
we change its management, we change its husbandry
so the need for the behaviour is no longer there.
For example in the case of these ruminant herbivores,
such as the giraffe, we provide them with the abilities to browse and forage
in a natural way, we provide them with an outlet for
rumination, chewing the cud, you can see in this
video here a group of extremely relaxed, extremely
contented giraffes, that have been housed in a zoo that have
been provided with forage, which they are now chewing.
This rumination behaviour is crucial to the attainment of positive
welfare states in ruminant herbivores, without the
ability to chew the cut, to perform natural digestive
physiological processes, the animal will resort to the
performance of stereotypic oral types of behaviour.
And this is because the animal may be lacking choice and control
over its behaviours and that lack of choice and control
comes from key facets of its environment that the animal feels unable to deal with.
Use of environmental enrichment provides
choice because the animal can do more and choose where it performs that
behaviour. Use of environmental enrichment provides
control because the animal feels more autonomous
within its environment based on the actions it can
perform; i.e it has an outlet to perform a wider
range of actions that it wishes to do at certain times of
the day. It's important to remember that
environmental enrichment is not a substitute
for poor management activities. Environmental enrichment is an important
aspect of positive animal welfare but it cannot compensate for
inappropriate care that results in poor welfare in the
first place.
Environmental enrichment need not be complicated
and need not be expensive to perform, small changes or alterations to an
animal's enclosure or immediate environment, as in the case
here with a range of substrates provided to
this pair of cranes enhances the foraging activities that
the animals can perform. More control and more choice over the
types of behaviour the animals can perform
in different areas of their environment at different times of day.
And when we come to further understand the ethogram of the animal
we can change our enclosure design more markedly
and we can provide biologically-relevant features
of that enclosure that enable the performance of a wide range of
activities with key adaptive benefits.
These antelope are sitatunga, a semi-aquatic species
from Africa, hence they like spending time in water,
providing large bodies of water within the animal's enclosure
enables it to perform a range of homeostatic,
maintenance behaviours, as well as natural social activities that would naturally,
in the wild, take up a large proportion of the
animal's day. This change to the environment and
change of the enclosure, alongside of the use of wild information
is crucial if we are to further advance captive care.
It's important to remember that even if we do provide
an enriched naturalistic environment and we provide a complex social group
animals may still perform Abnormal Repetitive Behaviours.
In the case of this flock of macaws we have some individuals in the group
with immaculate plumage and we have others
there where there is evidence of feather plucking,
and this comes down to the individual nature of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour
and the individual abilities at coping within the environment that the animal
is provided with. This individual nature of animal welfare
compels us to look more closely at how individuals do cope with the
environment they are in so we can tailor make husbandry or
management strategies for them that enable them to perform naturalistic
or normal behaviour patterns and reduce any abnormal repetitive or stereotypic
behaviours.
Attainment of positive animal welfare and the performance
of naturalistic behaviour patterns that can be indicative
of positive animal welfare are under the control of multi-factorial
conditions. These two Chilean flamingos look
incredibly healthy, they have vibrant pink plumage that's in
excellent condition.
But even within the same
social group, within the same enclosure and of birds under the same daily care
from keepers, with the ability to have veterinary
interventions when needed, we can see differences in how animals
present.
It might look that these two individual
flamingos are superbly "happy", superbly contented
and have everything that they need,
based on their outward external characteristics.
But within the same group we can see
a rather poorer looking individual, one that clearly
is in need of some extra care and some extra attention.
Individual states of animal welfare change
from positive to negative.
Welfare is experienced on a sliding scale,
it is not something that an animal has,
it is something that an animal experiences.
This change in animal welfare experience can explain the differences
in the conditions of the flamingos in those past photos,
we should not be so basic as thinking that performance
of natural behaviour means the animal's welfare is always good
and we also should not be so basic as thinking
the performance of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour
means the animal's welfare is always bad.
This sliding scale of coping,
the individual differences in how animals interact with each other
and how they interact with their environment will ultimately affect the
behaviours they perform, and consequently the welfare state they
are experiencing at that moment in time.
This presentation has shown you the difficulties
in deciphering animal welfare using the performance of
Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour.
Whilst the performance of abnormal behaviour
patterns can give us an insight into animal
welfare, we must be very careful with how we
determine the causes of that abnormal behaviour, as well as our
judgements on individual animal welfare states.
Animals in poor physical condition may not
have always been that way and there may not be
performance of Abnormal Repetitive Behaviour
related to that poor physical condition.
Likewise individuals in excellent
physical condition may not always have brilliant animal
welfare states.
We must consider the animal's
environment, we must consider the animal's natural
behaviour patterns, and we must consider it evolutionary
ecology as well as the things it is trying to do
with its time under its current conditions for us to
get as full a picture as possible of its
welfare state and why that might mean its performing
behaviours in a particular manner and in a
particular way.