Behavioral persistence in captive bears: a critique
| Autor: | Gary J. Galbreath, Andrew R. Criswell |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2005 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Ursus. 16:268-273 |
| ISSN: | 1938-5439 1537-6176 |
| DOI: | 10.2192/1537-6176(2005)016[0268:bpicba]2.0.co;2 |
| Popis: | Vickery and Mason (2003) sought to establish a causal relationship from stereotypy behavior to abnormal behavioral persistence in field experiments with 6 Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) and 6 Malayan sun bears (Ursus malayanus). For that study, stereotypy behavior was defined as ".. . actions that were repetitive, invariant, and without obvious function" (Vickery and Mason 2003:37). Abnormal behavioral persistence was characterized by bears who continued to respond to a previously learned, rewarded task after having been deprived of that reward. Among 12 bears studied, Vickery and Mason reported a statistically significant correspondence between abnormal behavioral persistence and stereotypy behavior. Furthermore, they claimed that among the 29 bears from their first-year study, time spent in captivity correlated with greater degrees of stereotypy behavior and thus greater aberrant behavior. These findings led Vickery and Mason, in turn, to question the potential success of reintroduction programs with bears held captive for substantial time periods. "In the wild, where behavior must be adaptive and flexible to meet fluctuating conditions, such behavioral deficiencies could help account for reduced survivorship of reintroduced subjects" (Vickery and Mason 2003:35). In their view, the presence of stereotypy behavior and its associated abnormal behavioral persistence might render captive bears unable to adapt quickly to environmental change when reintroduced to the wild. Reintroduction is such a potentially important conservation tool that findings questioning its efficacy or limiting its implementation must be carefully examined. With this in mind, we have scrutinized Vickery and Mason's results and report here our serious concerns regarding their methods and the conclusions derived from them. We first claim that the relationship |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|