Utilizing Scents as Environmental Enrichment: Preference Assessment and Application with Rothschild Giraffe

Fay, Caitlin; Miller, Lance J.

doi:10.12966/abc.08.07.2015

Cited by 25 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…For example, Fernandez et al (2004) used the procedure to determine food preferences of five cotton-top tamarins. Similar studies documented browse preferences for five colobus monkeys (Tovar et al, 2005), preferences among three species of bamboo in a pair of giant pandas (Tarou et al, 2005), preferences for training or enrichment in wolves (Dorey et al, 2015), object and interaction preferences and enrichment efficacy in Galapagos tortoises (Mehrkam and Dorey, 2014), scent preferences in giraffes (Fay and Miller, 2015), preferences for potential enrichment items with several species of zoo-housed animals (Mehrkam and Dorey, 2015), and with domestic cats and dogs in other applied animal settings (Vicars et al, 2014; Vitale Shreve et al, 2017). However, apart from Mehrkam and Dorey (2014), these studies did not attempt to evaluate the relationship of enrichment selection through preference assessments to the success of subsequent enrichment introductions, and none of the above studies directly compared preference order to their resultant enrichment effectiveness.…”

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confidence: 72%

Selecting and Testing Environmental Enrichment in Lemurs

Fernández

Timberlake

2019

Front. Psychol.

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Environmental enrichment has become a standard tool for improving the welfare of animals in zoos. Two critical steps in the manipulation of environmental enrichment are (1) selection of objects/procedures and (2) evaluation of their effects. In this study, we examined the selection and evaluation of feeding enrichment for four species of lemur. Experiment 1 used a paired-choice preference assessment to divide eight food items into high- and low-preferred categories. Experiment 2 separately assessed the effects of high- versus low-preferred items (placed in bamboo dispensers) on the behavior of two of the species in the preference assessment. Both high- and low-preferred items increased general activity and overall enclosure use, with high-preferred items having a greater effect than low-preferred items on most measures. The results suggest that preference assessments can serve as useful tools in selecting potential enrichment and that enrichment testing is important in evaluating the significance of these preferences.

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confidence: 72%

Selecting and Testing Environmental Enrichment in Lemurs

Fernández

Timberlake

2019

Front. Psychol.

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“…These methods could also be used to test how animals' selection behavior is modulated by relative preferences for the paired stimuli (sensu Sánchez-Amaro, Peretó, & Call, 2015) or their preferences for nonfood items (e.g., group mates, enrichment devices; sensu Adams & MacDonald, 2018). Knowing not just what animals prefer, but how motivated they are to obtain certain items, is key when working in a captive context, in terms of both maximizing welfare and enhancing experimental protocols (e.g., Fay & Miller, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of touchscreens for testing primate food preferences and valuations

et al. 2018

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Typically, animals' food preferences are tested manually, which can be both time-consuming and vulnerable to experimenter biases. Given the utility of ascertaining animals' food preferences for research and husbandry protocols, developing a quick, reliable, and flexible paradigm would be valuable for expediting many research protocols. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy of using a touchscreen interface to test nonhuman primates' food preferences and valuations, adapting previously validated manual methods. We tested a nonhuman primate subject with four foods (carrot, cucumber, grape, and turnip). Preference testing followed a pairwise forced choice protocol with pairs of food images presented on a touchscreen: The subject was rewarded with whichever food was selected. All six possible pairwise combinations were presented, with 90 trials per pairing. Second, we measured how hard the subject was willing to work to obtain each of the four foods, allowing us to generate demand curves. For this phase, a single image of a food item was presented on the touchscreen that the subject had to select in order to receive the food, and the number of selections required increased following a quarter-log scale, with ten trials per cost level (1, 2, 3, 6, 10, and 18). These methods allowed us to ascertain the subject's relative preferences and valuations of the four foods. The success of this touchscreen protocol for testing the subject's food preferences, from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint, suggests that the protocol should be further validated with other foods with this subject, with other subjects, and with other test items.

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“…Third, we highlight challenges in the process of creating effective scent‐based tools, and reinforce the notion that post‐production management of these tools must explicitly account for the contextual conditions that most often promote success. While our focus is primarily to explain variability in the nature of responses by prey to predator scents – specifically with respect to creating attractants and repellents that can be used in wildlife management and conservation biology – our framework also provides information on other practical uses of scent including zoo‐enrichment scents (Fay & Miller, ; Samuelson et al., ) appeasement and anti‐anxiolytic pheromones (Landsberg et al., ; Osella et al., ), and other behavioural‐modification cues to influence the mood or emotional state of many terrestrial animals (DePorter, ), including humans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biologically meaningful scents: a framework for understanding predator–prey research across disciplines

et al. 2017

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Fear of predation is a universal motivator. Because predators hunt using stealth and surprise, there is a widespread ability among prey to assess risk from chemical information -scents -in their environment. Consequently, scents often act as particularly strong modulators of memory and emotions. Recent advances in ecological research and analytical technology are leading to novel ways to use this chemical information to create effective attractants, repellents and anti-anxiolytic compounds for wildlife managers, conservation biologists and health practitioners. However, there is extensive variation in the design, results, and interpretation of studies of olfactory-based risk discrimination. To understand the highly variable literature in this area, we adopt a multi-disciplinary approach and synthesize the latest findings from neurobiology, chemical ecology, and ethology to propose a contemporary framework that accounts for such disparate factors as the time-limited stability of chemicals, highly canalized mechanisms that influence prey responses, and the context within which these scents are detected (e.g. availability of alternative resources, perceived shelter, and ambient physical parameters). This framework helps to account for the wide range of reported responses by prey to predator scents, and explains, paradoxically, how the same individual predator scent can be interpreted as either safe or dangerous to a prey animal depending on how, when and where the cue was deposited. We provide a hypothetical example to illustrate the most common factors that influence how a predator scent (from dingoes, Canis dingo) may both attract and repel the same target organism (kangaroos, Macropus spp.). This framework identifies the catalysts that enable dynamic scents, odours or odorants to be used as attractants as well as deterrents. Because effective scent tools often relate to traumatic memories (fear and/or anxiety) that cause future avoidance, this information may also guide the development of appeasement, enrichment and anti-anxiolytic compounds, and help explain the observed variation in post-traumatic-related behaviours (including post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD) among diverse terrestrial taxa, including humans.

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Utilizing Scents as Environmental Enrichment: Preference Assessment and Application with Rothschild Giraffe

Cited by 25 publications

References 17 publications

Selecting and Testing Environmental Enrichment in Lemurs

Selecting and Testing Environmental Enrichment in Lemurs

An assessment of touchscreens for testing primate food preferences and valuations

Biologically meaningful scents: a framework for understanding predator–prey research across disciplines

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