Peer Review #1 of "Effects of personality and rearing-history on the welfare of captive Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) (v0.1)"

Abstract

Background The long-term success of ex-situ conservation programmes depends on speciesappropriate husbandry and enrichment practices complemented by an accurate welfare assessment protocol. Zoos and conservation programmes should employ a bottom-up approach to account for intraspecific variations in measures of animal welfare. We studied 35 (14:21) captive Asiatic lions in Sakkarbaug Zoological Garden, Junagadh, India to understand the implications of individual variations on welfare measures. We categorized the subjects based on personality traits (bold or shy), rearing history (wildrescued or captive-raised), sex, and social-grouping. We explored the association of these categorical variables on welfare indices such as behavioural diversity, latency to approach novel objects, enclosure usage and aberrant repetitive behaviours. Further, we assessed the interrelationships between different behavioural measures of welfare. Results Our results show that intraspecific variations based on rearing-history and personality traits consistently predict the welfare states of captive Asiatic lions. Asiatic lions with bold personality traits (M=0.50, SD=0.12, N=21) and those raised in captivity (M=0.47, SD=0.12, N=16) used enclosure space more homogenously compared to shy (M=0.71, SD=0.15, N=14) and wild-rescued (M=0.67, SD=0.15, N=19) animals. Behaviour diversity was significantly higher in captive-raised (M=1.26, SD=0.3, N=16) and bold (M=1.23, SD=0.26, N=21) subjects compared to wild-rescued (M=0.83, SD=0.35, N=19) and shy (M=0.73, SD=0.34, N=14) individuals. Aberrant repetitive behaviours (stereotypy) were significantly lower in bold (M=7.01, SD=4, N=21) and captive-raised (M=7.74, SD=5.3) individuals compared to wild-rescued (M=13.12, SD=6.25, N=19) and shy (M=16.13, SD=5.4, N=16) lions. Sex and social-grouping of subjects did not Deleted: grouping 46 Deleted: (categorical variables) 47 Deleted: compared 48 Deleted: effect 49 Commented [JV1]: Effect is causal language. You did not manipulate the factors so you cannot talk about cause and effect.