Dither: A unifying model of the effects of visitor numbers on zoo animal behavior.

Autor: Krebs BL; San Francisco Zoological Society, San Francisco, California, USA., Eschmann CL; San Francisco Zoological Society, San Francisco, California, USA., Watters JV; San Francisco Zoological Society, San Francisco, California, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Zoo biology [Zoo Biol] 2023 Mar; Vol. 42 (2), pp. 194-208. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 25.
DOI: 10.1002/zoo.21736
Abstrakt: Interest in the impact of human presence on the behavior and well-being of zoo and aquarium animals is increasing. Previous work has conceptualized the presence of zoo visitors as having one of three impacts on the behavior of animals in zoos: positive, negative, or neutral. Research suggests the same species may exhibit all three responses under different conditions, calling into question whether the positive/negative/neutral framework is the most useful way of considering visitor impact on animal behavior. Here we present a model of visitor effects that unifies these three predictions. Our model suggests that zoo-goers may provide a "dither effect" for some animals living in zoos. We posit animals may show nonlinear behavioral responses over a range of visitor densities, effectively exhibiting changes in both comfortable and anxiety-like behaviors under different levels of human presence. We tested this model during two COVID-19 related closures at the San Francisco Zoo, studying seven species for evidence of nonlinear relationships between visitor numbers and animal behavior. Our results support the dither effect acting in several species observed.
(© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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