Behavioral Changes of Solitary Housed Female Pygmy Slow Lorises (Nycticebus pygmeaus) after Introduction into Group Enclosures

Abstract

Pygmy slow lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus) are threatened with extinction in the wild. Their nocturnal lifestyle and small size make them difficult to study in their natural habitat, but increasing evidence suggests that they are more social than previously thought. Our study was designed to assess the sociability of pygmy slow lorises by transferring six adult females from solo cages into environmentally enriched group home cages at the Japan Monkey Centre’s Slow Loris Conservation Centre. Two females were paired to create one group, while the other four were placed together in a second group. We compared their social interactions, activity budgets, and postural behaviors before and after social housing was initiated. We found that all-female slow loris groups had a high degree of sociality, preferred to stay close to each other, nested together every night, and spent less time in locomotion and more time grooming than when living alone. These results suggest that female pygmy slow lorises actively seek companions when available. The captive housing of all-female groups of lorises could lead to better husbandry practices and improved animal welfare by allowing them to have conspecific companions. We conclude that isosexual groups of pygmy slow lorises should be preferred over single housing when possible.

Group Reunion in Zoo European Wildcats Using Cat Appeasing Pheromone (CAP) and Gradual Release of the Animals in the Exhibit—A Case Study

“…At the moment, the low number of published papers dealing with (re)unions is unlikely to represent a high percentage of the actual cases of (re)unions taking place in zoological institutions worldwide. Moreover, published papers tend to deal mainly with highly charismatic social species (such as social primates, wild dogs and elephants [3,[12][13][14][15]), although solitary species can also be kept in groups or pairs in zoos, and such an approach has been found to be beneficial for at least some of them [8,[16][17][18][19]. For example, a quick search on Scopus (https://www.scopus.com/; accessed on 16 November 2021) with the introduction AND zoo AND cat AND social AND group as keywords rendered only one result: a paper on enrichment in tigers, including a general section on social housing [20], although two cases of a semiochemical being used during the introduction of tigers have been published elsewhere [2,21].…”

Reducing stress and stereotypic behaviors in captive female pygmy slow lorises (Nycticebus pygmeaus)

“…The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between stress hormones, housing conditions, and behavior among adult female pygmy slow lorises confiscated from illegal markets. A previous study revealed that females were more social than expected and that their behaviors significantly changed once paired; these changes should be reflected in their hormonal profiles (Alejandro et al, 2021). Additionally, one of our subjects displayed stereotypical behavior (see Section 2), allowing us to assess the impact of housing conditions on hormones and stereotypies.…”

“…The collection of fecal samples (see below), as well as behavioral data, continued throughout the study. Details of the pairing process, the history of SLCC, the behavioral and physiological responses of male pygmy lorises, and the behavioral changes for the female pairings have been reported in detail elsewhere (Alejandro et al, 2021; Yamanashi et al, 2021). This study conformed to “The Guide for Animal Research Ethics” of the JMC, the legal requirements of Japan, and the ASP Principle for Ethical Treatment of Nonhuman Primates.…”

“…Behavioral data were collected in 10 min continuous focal sampling sessions following Martin and Bateson (1993), where the four main activities were recorded; move, rest, groom, feed, and all other behaviors recorded ad libitum, described in detail by Alejandro (2021) and others. Postural behaviors were classified following Glassman and Wells (1984).…”

“…Pair group observations before social housing commenced were conducted from June through September (3 months) and from September to February (5 months) postsocial‐housing, while for the group of four, presocial‐housing was performed from November through December (2 months) and December through February (3 months) in the social‐housing condition. For behavioral data collection, we conducted instantaneous sampling at 1‐min intervals during the 10 min focal sampling, recorded their postures, and assessed sociality based on proximity (Alejandro et al, 2021). Other behaviors, such as stereotypies, were collected ad libitum.…”