Daily salivary cortisol levels in response to stress factors in captive common bottlenose dolphins (<i>Tursiops truncatus</i>): a potential welfare indicator

Monreal‐Pawlowsky, Tania; Carbajal, Annaïs; Talló-Parra, Oriol; Sabés-Alsina, M.; Monclús, Laura; Almunia, Javier; Fernández-Bellón, Hugo; López-Béjar, Manel

doi:10.1136/vr.103854

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Cetacean species kept in zoos around the world have recently been the focus of increased welfare discussions and research (Clegg et al, 2015; Brando et al, 2016; Butterworth, 2017; von Fersen et al, 2018), acting as proxies for the general debate on animals displayed in zoos. Regarding bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ), studies are starting to suggest single potential welfare indicators such as synchronous swimming (Clegg et al, 2017a), play (Serres and Delfour, 2017), and cortisol measurement (Ugaz et al, 2013; Monreal-Pawlowsky et al, 2017; Mercera, 2019). As with other socially complex animals such as primates (Morgan and Tromborg, 2007; Buchanan-Smith et al, 2013; Schino et al, 2016), close social bonds seem to promote positive welfare in dolphins, but on the same token social stress has strong potential to reduce welfare (Waples and Gales, 2002; Clegg et al, 2017a, b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dolphins’ Willingness to Participate (WtP) in Positive Reinforcement Training as a Potential Welfare Indicator, Where WtP Predicts Early Changes in Health Status

Clegg

Rödel

Mercera³

et al. 2019

Front. Psychol.

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Welfare science has built its foundations on veterinary medicine and thus measures of health. Since bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) tend to mask symptoms of poor health, management in captivity would benefit from advanced understanding on the links between health and behavioural parameters, and few studies exist on the topic. In this study, four representative behavioural and health measures were chosen: health status (as qualified by veterinarians), percentage of daily food eaten, occurrences of new rake marks (proxy measure of social activity), and willingness to participate (WtP) in Positive Reinforcement Training sessions as qualitatively measured by their caretakers. These data were collected multiple times a day, every day over the course of a year from a multi-facility, large sample size (ndolphins = 51), allowing powerful analyses of the relationships between measures. First, it was found that dolphins with a higher WtP score also had a significantly better health status, ate a higher percentage of their daily food, and a lower occurrence of new rake marks. In addition, the WtP score was significantly lower up to 3 days before the weekly veterinary diagnosis of a decrease in health state; the percentage of daily food eaten and new rake mark measures did not show any significant change before such a diagnosis. These results suggest that WtP in training sessions is a potential behavioural measure of dolphin welfare, and an indicator of early changes in the dolphins’ health state. We therefore suggest measurement of WtP as a more practical and non-invasive tool to support veterinary care and general management. More work needs to be conducted to elucidate the influence of social behaviour on health, and to identify other potential welfare indicators, but this long-term study has shown that qualitative measures can be both practical and valid when assessing dolphin welfare.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dolphins’ Willingness to Participate (WtP) in Positive Reinforcement Training as a Potential Welfare Indicator, Where WtP Predicts Early Changes in Health Status

Clegg

Rödel

Mercera³

et al. 2019

Front. Psychol.

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“…There are no studies cited showing that killer whales in facilities show an elevated stress response as evidenced by cortisol levels, analyses of ACTH, or any other stress biomarkers relevant to the HPA axis in killer whales ( Figure 1 B). Marino et al do cite a single study that showed elevated cortisol levels in bottlenose dolphins during a day with unusual loud noise and vibrations from drilling the walls surrounding the dolphins’ pools [ 132 ]. However, the point of that study was to test cortisol levels due to “the acute stress response” of this unusual situation compared to “regular days in the dolphinarium”.…”

Section: Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bias and Misrepresentation of Science Undermines Productive Discourse on Animal Welfare Policy: A Case Study

Jaakkola¹,

Bruck

Connor

et al. 2020

Animals

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Reliable scientific knowledge is crucial for informing legislative, regulatory, and policy decisions in a variety of areas. To that end, scientific reviews of topical issues can be invaluable tools for informing productive discourse and decision-making, assuming these reviews represent the target body of scientific knowledge as completely, accurately, and objectively as possible. Unfortunately, not all reviews live up to this standard. As a case in point, Marino et al.’s review regarding the welfare of killer whales in captivity contains methodological flaws and misrepresentations of the scientific literature, including problematic referencing, overinterpretation of the data, misleading word choice, and biased argumentation. These errors and misrepresentations undermine the authors’ conclusions and make it impossible to determine the true state of knowledge of the relevant issues. To achieve the goal of properly informing public discourse and policy on this and other issues, it is imperative that scientists and science communicators strive for higher standards of analysis, argumentation, and objectivity, in order to clearly communicate what is known, what is not known, what conclusions are supported by the data, and where we are lacking the data necessary to draw reliable conclusions.

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“…Indeed, this bias was demonstrated by the fact that 26.4% (n = 79) of marine mammal welfare articles from the literature review focused on captive animals. Studies on marine mammal welfare in captivity have been increasing over the last 10 years [77,78], and using dolphins as an example, there is now existing research on positive welfare indicators [79][80][81][82][83][84], negative welfare indicators [82,[85][86][87], and a comprehensive assessment framework [88]. Physiological and health-related welfare parameters such as stress hormones [86,89,90], blood profiles [91,92], and pulmonary function [93] have also been examined in captive animals.…”

Section: The Translation Of Welfare Science Information To Marine Mam...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing the Awareness of Animal Welfare Science in Marine Mammal Conservation: Addressing Language, Translation and Reception Issues

Clegg¹,

Boys

Stockin

2021

Animals

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Integrating welfare principles into conservation strategy is an emerging synthesis that encourages consideration of individual animals’ quality of life in research, policies and law. However, these principles have gained limited traction in marine compared to terrestrial animal conservation. This manuscript investigates several factors that may be contributing to this disparity. In order to gauge current understanding of animal welfare science principles by marine mammal researchers and other stakeholders, a “Welfare in the Wild” workshop was convened at the 32nd European Cetacean Society conference (La Spezia, Italy, April 2018). The workshop was attended by 30 participants who completed pre- and post-workshop surveys on animal welfare principles. The survey results highlight a range of different views about exactly what animal welfare science is and how it can be applied to marine mammals. Specifically, participants’ definitions appeared to vary depending on the type of employment or research they engaged in, indicating a need for an interdisciplinary common language. Secondly, we analysed the peer-reviewed literature in order to ascertain where marine mammal publications exploring welfare were being published. From 1950 to July 2020, a total of 299 articles featured both marine mammal taxa (one or more) and the word welfare in the title, abstract or keywords. This represents just 0.96% of the total peer-reviewed published papers on marine mammal taxa (n = 31,221) during the same period. When examining articles published within “Welfare and Ethics” (n = 6133) and “Aquatic-focused” (n = 139,352) journals, just 1.2% (n = 71) and 0.04% (n = 57) of articles, respectively, featured the word welfare when examining marine mammals. With the aim of exploring how explicitly including welfare evaluations in marine mammal research and management can benefit conservation outcomes, we framed our workshop and quantitative literature review findings to provide practical solutions to the language, translation and reception issues of this burgeoning cross-disciplinary collaboration.

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Daily salivary cortisol levels in response to stress factors in captive common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): a potential welfare indicator

Cited by 14 publications

References 20 publications

Dolphins’ Willingness to Participate (WtP) in Positive Reinforcement Training as a Potential Welfare Indicator, Where WtP Predicts Early Changes in Health Status

Dolphins’ Willingness to Participate (WtP) in Positive Reinforcement Training as a Potential Welfare Indicator, Where WtP Predicts Early Changes in Health Status

Bias and Misrepresentation of Science Undermines Productive Discourse on Animal Welfare Policy: A Case Study

Increasing the Awareness of Animal Welfare Science in Marine Mammal Conservation: Addressing Language, Translation and Reception Issues

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