Media reports about fatal work accidents in zoos caused by zoo animals seem to appear in increasing numbers all around the world. In many cases the cause of such an accident can only be clarified by a detailed reconstruction of the event in combination with the autopsy results. This applies particularly in cases where no eyewitnesses were present. This report is about the case of a musk ox that killed its keeper, in which the fatal accident could be completely reconstructed.
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Behav Processes
January 2025
University of Coimbra, Department of Life Sciences, Calçada Martim de Freitas, 3000-456, Coimbra, Portugal; University of Coimbra, Research Centre for Anthropology and Health, Department of Life Sciences, Calçada Martim de Freitas, 3000-456, Coimbra, Portugal.
Zoo animals are regularly exposed to a plethora of sensorial stimuli beyond their control, which can adversely impact their behaviour and welfare, including unfamiliar faces, excessive noise and intrusive visitor interaction. Zoos have implemented various measures, such as enrichments and regulation of visitor behaviour, to mitigate these effects. However, guided tours have not been used to simultaneously control visitor behaviour and maintain animal welfare.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Primatol
January 2025
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.
Studying nocturnal behavior is crucial for understanding the full scope of a species' behavioral flexibility so as to inform the conservation of wild populations and the care of captive individuals. However, this aspect of primate behavior is understudied, especially in great apes, which exhibit some of the widest documented behavioral diversity and flexibility. Our investigation is among the first to systematically compare the 24 h activity patterns and behavioral activities of captive chimpanzees (Saint Louis Zoo, USA) with those of wild chimpanzees (three sites across the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo) and a published data set of the nocturnal behavior of all chimpanzee subspecies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcology
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation (Ministry of Education), China West Normal University, Nanchong, China.
Understanding the patterns and drivers of species range shifts is essential to disentangle mechanisms driving species' responses to global change. Here, we quantified local extinction and colonization dynamics of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) using occurrence data collected by harnessing the labor of >1000 workers and >60,000 worker days for each of the three periods (TP1: 1985-1988, TP2: 1998-2002, and TP3: 2011-2014), and evaluated how these patterns were associated with (1) protected area, (2) local rarity/abundance, and (3) abiotic factors (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConserv Biol
January 2025
Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Survival and cause-specific mortality rates are vital for evidence-based population forecasting and conservation, particularly for large carnivores, whose populations are often vulnerable to human-caused mortalities. It is therefore important to know the relationship between anthropogenic and natural mortality causes to evaluate whether they are additive or compensatory. Further, the relation between survival and environmental covariates could reveal whether specific landscape characteristics influence demographic performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Helminthol
January 2025
Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Seville, Seville, Spain.
Currently, there is limited available information on the epidemiology of parasitic infections in captive non-human primates (NHPs) and their zoonotic potential. However, numerous cases of helminth infections in NHPs have been documented in several zoos around the world, with one of the most prevalent being those of the genus The main objective of this study is to investigate the occurrence of infection by spp. in primates from zoological gardens in Spain and to ascertain, at the species level, the specific species harbored by these hosts by using mitochondrial and ribosomal markers.
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