Includes stereotypies, self-injurious behavior, hair pulling (alopecia), barbering, feather pecking, tail biting, etc.
The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a relatively rare mammal in zoological collections with only nine zoos in the United Kingdom holding colonies of varying sizes at the time of study. This study aims...
Overexpression of abnormal behavior among captive primates indicates poor management practices. The type, frequency, and contributing factors of abnormal behaviors vary highly across individual animals in captive settings. This study explored if sex, rearing history...
Kolmården djurpark keeps one of the most northern living giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis groups in the world, and this comes with its challenges. For a long part of the year, the outside temperature is too cold...
Abnormal behaviour has been related to differences in cognitive function and reduced animal welfare. However, these associations are understudied, and little is known about how various forms of abnormal behaviour affect learning performance, stress responses...
A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of feather damaging behavior (FDB) and evaluate the related risk factors among companion psittacine birds in Iran. For data collection, a structured questionnaire was prepared and...
Abnormal repetitive stereotypic behaviours (SBs) (e.g. pacing, body-rocking) are common in animals with poor welfare (e.g. socially isolated/in barren housing). But how (or even whether) poor housing alters animals’ brains to induce SBs remains uncertain...
Captive animal welfare research focuses on husbandry, enrichment, enclosure space, visitor effects, and opportunities for species-typical behavior (e.g., foraging, territoriality, and social interaction). And yet, one of the most biologically relevant opportunities for species-typical behavior...
All zoos grapple with challenges of keeping captive animals engaged in natural behaviors, especially for bears which prove to be among the more challenging species to keep stimulated. In captivity, a common indicator of poor...
Stereotypic pacing in zoo-housed carnivores has been intensively researched for decades, revealing that it is a subtly complex behavior with a highly variable etiology. While pacing can be an indicator of poor welfare, it can...
Contrafreeloading (CFL) is a concept that describes the preference of an animal to work for food even when identical food is freely available, and reflects an intrinsic motivation to engage in foraging-related activities. However, altered...