Do Salamanders Use Post-Confinement Stress Feeding Behavior?

The issue on whether or not to keep animals in captivity has been debated heavily for a long time. With species such as the panda on the verge of extinction to mistreatment of marine mammals in theme parks such as Sea World, keeping wild animals under the care of humans has been a struggle and a highly controversial topic. Even though many people believe that animals should not be kept in captivity because humans are incapable of fully understanding and providing specific needs for wild animals, certain animals can be kept happy and healthy in captivity, and these animals are an important educational tool for teaching people of all ages about biology, biodiversity, and the ecosystems of the world.

Attention Getter: Imagine living in a space about a third the size of this room. You also share this space with 3 other people. This is what animals deal with when living in zoos and aquariums.

A short documentary film, ‘Zoochosis’, highlights odd behaviors captive animals can exhibit. These unnatural behaviors are repetitive, such as rocking, vomiting, head-bobbing, pacing, and other repetitive actions. Although the cause is still unknown, many experts believe one of the reasons for this disorder is extreme stress (Ramos). When animals are placed in enclosures with animals they aren’t compatible with, it can often lead to aggression and hostility. This is an unhealthy and stressful environment for the animals and, if stress is the cause of zoochosis, can lead to the unnatural behaviors.

Every animal has needs. These needs, such as the biological needs to eat and sleep, as well as others, like the need to think, explore, and freely express normal behaviors, drive everything that we, as animals, do. Our needs likewise contribute to our health; they aim to benefit our well-being in some way, leading us to have a more positive welfare, which allows us to adapt to changing situations and stress less. Thus, in the interest of captive animals, an essential task for zoos and aquaria is to meet all of their animals needs, so those animals can adapt, stress less, and have a more positive welfare. However, many zoos and aquaria are now realizing that this task is harder than it seems, as while they must meet animals needs for good physical health, they also must meet animals psychological, social, and cognitive needs.

Captively reared hellbenders are returned to southeastern Ohio streams at around three years of age. Some of these hellbenders, as they wait for their return to home, are cared for by high school seniors in the small animal care lab at Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, Ohio. The technical school, in partnership with the Toledo Zoo, contains a small bio-secure room which contains around thirty forty gallon tanks, each containing anywhere from three to seven hellbenders based on age and size. Maintained daily, excluding weekends, the amphibians are monitored closely by both students and staff alike.

Imprisoned animals are unable to have control over their natural environment because they are estranged from their natural dwellings for a long time. The book titled Animal Madness: Inside their Minds by Laurel Braitman (2015) exposes the tragic destiny of the wild animals in zoological gardens who suffer psychologically by developing abnormal behaviours such as pacing, circling, bar biting, self-mutilation and neck twisting. These abnormal behaviours are interpreted as ‘zoochosis’, and the caged animals have an immense tendency to form this abnormality due to their boredom, frustration and lack of

My hypothesis was that, “If the Ring Tailed Lemur spends a third of their time on the ground foraging for food, then if we study them for an hour in captivity, they should spend approximately the same amount of time foraging for food.” This hypothesis was proven correct by the data of the Ring Tailed Lemurs at the Bronx Zoo. The lemurs at the zoo spent around one third of the time on the ground. The amount of time that the lemurs spent on the ground was 33% of the time that the lemurs were on the ground. In the Bronx Zoo the lemurs spent thirteen thirty sixths of their time which is 36% of their time on the ground. Even in captivity the Ring Tailed Lemurs spent most of the time in the trees and less time on the ground foraging for food.

Specific Purpose Statement: To allow my audience to consider the advantages and disadvantages of confinement feeding versus non-confinement feeding of animals and allow them to understand the practices as well as what the future holds for both sides.

To begin with, the emotional implications of captivity have been documented extensively; illustrated not only through observation, but through biological research as well. Weighing twelve pounds, the “brains

This episode features Stanford University’s Neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky, who has a high understanding of stress and how it affects our not just our health, but our bodies. The main point Robert is conveying to the audience states that stress leads to serious health consequences, such as high blood pressure, weakened immune system, fatigue, development of fat and even the shortening of life expectancy. Robert Sapolsky researches the science behind human stress by exploring non-human primates, the baboons in their natural habitat in Kenya, Africa. After thirty years of research, Sapolsky believes that baboons are apparently the perfect source of exemplifying human stress because they are naturally aggressive toward one another, including their offspring, and the pain and stress factors appear to be the same in humans; especially dealing with stressful jobs and verbally abusive bosses. In the baboon’s case, if you are a full-controlled male, you can expect lower stress levels, and if you are the submissive, abused baboon, the stress level can be much higher. The only way Robert can take a look at the serious health consequences related to human stress in the baboon is by taking the unsuspecting submissive monkey’s blood and examining the stress hormones in the lab. The results of a submissive baboon revealed high blood

The zoo is packed with children, running everywhere. They laugh and smile as they watch the animals at the zoo sleep. What these children do not realize is that these animals are dying on the inside. Animals that live at the zoo are extremely depressed. These animals can suffer severe psychological disorders from being out of their natural environment. But others argue that keeping these animals in captivity will help keep endangered species alive. However, the disadvantages of keeping animals in captivity are becoming more and more serious, and more people are beginning to believe that animals should not be held captive. Animals should not be kept in captivity because of the negative impact it can have

When animals are experimented upon the effects of captivity and lab conditions can be profound on animals. The subjects are often confined to areas that are smaller than what they would be used to if left in their natural habitat. This doesn’t allow them to travel as they would naturally in the wild. These animals don’t get the exercise that they need. Many animals are also taken away from their mothers a lot earlier than they would naturally leave their moms in the wild. When animals are taken earlier from their mothers than they should be, it often results in destructive behaviors and adverse effects on the brains of the animals. Lab mice are usually taken away from their mothers early. These mice become very aggressive as they grow up and

They need the necessary social interactions, physical touch, and activity to be healthy. However, the longer these animals are trapped in these cages, the more they developed certain neurotic behaviors. For example, they began to make these erratic movements within their cages, constant rocking, head banging, and self-mutilation. The senses of the primates are distorted in these double sealed cages. They can only hear the humming of air pumps into their enclosures and the sound of their fellow primates banging against the cages.

There are many regulations and procedures in order to correctly keep animals in captivity; many of which focus on the safety of the viewing public, the staff involved, and the welfare and safety of the animals in question. Appropriate enclosure design is critical to all three parties.

2B). We estimate from similar behaviour in captive juveniles (Airapetyants and Fokin 2003) that these wild juveniles investigating the immediate surroundings around the cavity were approximately 40 to 45 days old. In this period, juveniles showed a cathemeral activity pattern (Fig. 3B) meaning that they were not only active in daytime but also during the night (Figs. 2C), with a higher night time activity (10 photographs of during the day and 39 times during the night). In the same period, juveniles showed trimodal activity peaks around 3:00, 12:00, and 19:00 o’ clock (Fig. 3B).