Husbandry training (HT) is done to facilitate healthcare, treatment or animal research with zoo animals. At the Omuta City Zoo, HT of masked palm civets (Parguma larvata) is used to aid the taking of blood samples. With HT the burden on the animal can be remarkably reduced without the use of anesthesia. However, it is necessary to devise a blood sampling method using HT that reduces stress on the animals as much as possible. To devise such a stress-reducing method, quantitative assessments related to stress are needed. As heart rate increases with stress, we attempted to devise a non-invasive method for measuring heart rate. The attachment of sensors not only stresses the animal but also requires much effort from keepers. Therefore, a laser Doppler blood flowmeter (LDF) was embedded in the HT board, and an LDF and an algorithm to eliminate body motion artifacts were used in measurement attempts. As a result, a clear pulse wave was detected in some sections, and heart rate was calculated from the pulse wave.

Husbandry training (HT) shapes specific actions of animals to facilitate healthcare. The challenge of HT is that the learning of the specific actions requires zoo-keepers to grasp the stress states. Here we suggest non-wearable pulse rate measurement system, as pulse rate indicates stress state. The system uses laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) with an algorithm to eliminate body motion artifacts. In the algorithm, the cutoff frequency is an important parameter. For the masked palm civet (Parguma larvata) during HT, sensor signal was recorded. We applied 100 Hz, 12 kHz, and 15 kHz cutoff frequencies to the same sensor signal and calculated blood flow signals. When pulse waveforms were confirmed, blood flow signals of 100 Hz and 12 kHz indicate a strong peak at 3.2 Hz (192 beats/min) in the frequency analysis. When pulse waveforms were disturbed, blood flow signal of 15 kHz indicates the strong peak at 3.1 Hz (186 beats/min).