Animal keepers at zoos and wildlife rescue centers often possess in-depth knowledge of the health and behavior of the individuals under their care. While it is often not feasible for keepers to regularly collect behavior data through formal scientific methods, efforts should be made to find alternative means to capture this knowledge. We investigated the use of keeper feedback to study the behavior of sloth bears at the Agra Bear Rescue Facility (ABRF; Agra, India). We prepared a survey with 5 questions focused on behaviors indicative of playfulness, boldness, aggressiveness, and the tendency to express self-directed behaviors (SDB). We asked keepers to rate bears on a Likert scale from 1 (least likely to exhibit a behavior) to 5 (most likely) for 44 adult female bears (5-21 years of age). We validated this method by comparing keeper ratings of SDB with formal behavior observations, finding that time of day had an influence on the accuracy of keeper assessments. We found a significant negative correlation between housing bears in larger groups (>15) and SDB. In addition, we correlated ratings given by keepers for all study behaviors. Social play had significant negative correlation with aggression toward people. There was no correlation between social play and aggression toward other bears, possibly due to the existence of cohesive social groups in group housing or high dimensionality of the data. We found that keeper feedback is an efficient tool to gather behavior data on captive sloth bears and recommend its use in future studies. K E Y W O R D S enrichment, self-directed behavior (SDB), social interactions, stereotypy, questionnaire

One of the common challenges for wildlife rehabilitators and conservationists is dealing with displaced young animals, needing intervention and help.  Most commonly, such displaced animals are moved to zoos or rescue centers where they are hand-raised.  In some cases, the hand-raised animals are rehabilitated back in the wild following suitable protocols.  For young animals that are not injured or ill, however, reuniting them with their mothers in the wild might be the best option.  There are few reports on such reunion efforts.  We report successful reunions of 26 Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus kittens with their mothers in the period of six years in the Junnar Forest Division, Maharashtra, India.  The kittens found by the villagers were examined for injuries or signs of sickness, and physiological parameters were recorded.  If found healthy, they were placed in a plastic basket at the same location in the evening of the same day for a reunion with their mothers.  In all cases, the mother cat was in the vicinity and took the kittens away after a brief period.  The success of reunion effort was confirmed by direct observation or vocalization of the kittens combined with the presence of pugmarks of an adult cat at the site, or just by the presence and appearance of pugmarks.  The results of our efforts show that displaced kittens of small wild cats can be successfully reunited with their mothers, provided that the time gap between separation and reunion effort is minimized.

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