Environmental enrichment is a well-known technique, which has been used to enhance the welfare of captive animals. The aim of this study is to investigate how three different forms of intrinsic enrichment, namely, a hay ball without scent, a hay ball with catnip, and a hay ball with cinnamon, influenced the behavior of six cheetah and two Sumatran tigers at Fota Wildlife Park, Ireland. Enrichment-directed behaviors, as well as pacing, locomotion, inactive, and exploratory behaviors were investigated. The results indicated that the three forms of enrichment had similar effects, in terms of enrichment-directed behavior, with cinnamon resulting in the highest levels of enrichment-directed behaviors. The cinnamon treatment resulted in a significant decrease in pacing behavior when compared with baseline observations. No evidence of habituation (i.e., a significant reduction in enrichment-directed behaviors) was observed for any of the three enrichments. This means that these low cost, easy to apply, practical forms of enrichment could be frequently applied for these species as part of an enrichment regime.
As práticas de enriquecimento ambiental visam a melhoria das condições de bem-estar dos animais mantidos em ambientes restritos, sejam estes de laboratório, produção, silvestres ou os de companhia. A presente revisão aborda desde o aspecto histórico das práticas de enriquecimento, os avanços e crescimento científico, suas classificações e aplicações de técnicas para felinos domésticos e silvestres, assim como expõe questões que ainda necessitam de investigação e melhor abordagem para atingir e proporcionar de maneira mais completa e efetiva, melhores condições de bem-estar para os animais em cativeiro.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.