Dolphin Welfare Assessment under Professional Care: ‘Willingness to Participate’, an Indicator Significantly Associated with Six Potential ‘Alerting Factors’

Abstract

In dolphinaria, dolphins and their trainers build relationships and bonds due to the nature, closeness and repeatability of their interactions, hence training sessions are deemed appropriate to evaluate dolphin welfare. Qualitative Behavioural Assessments (QBAs) have been used to study human–animal relationships and are included in several animal welfare assessments. We introduce here the first QBA aiming to analyse dolphin–trainer interactions during training sessions in terms of dolphin welfare. Our results show that “Willingness to Participate” (WtP) was significantly associated to six other parameters: high-speed approach, high level of excitement, high number of positive responses to trainers’ signals, rare refusal to perform certain behaviours, rare spontaneous departure behaviours and fast approach once the trainer entered into the pool. Therefore, we suggest using WtP and those “alerting factors” when assessing dolphin–trainer interactions under professional care. The evaluation should also consider the time of day, the dolphin’s age, trainer experience level, the nature of the training sessions and to a lesser extent the sex of the dolphins, as contributing and modulating factors. The factor eye contact has been used in various HARs studies and has been proven to be a valid indicator in welfare research works, hence potentially deserving further research. These results demonstrate the pertinence and feasibility of this approach, the ease of use of this methodology by professionals in zoo/aquarium settings and the appropriateness of the obtained results within the holistic frame of animal welfare.

Activity Budget Comparisons Using Long-Term Observations of a Group of Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) under Human Care: Implications for Animal Welfare

“…Thus, changes in the animal's welfare state can be detected in time. Due to the manifold ways in which individuals respond and adapt to potential stressors, behavioral assessments should always be paired with additional measures, e.g., willingness to participate [40], measuring glucocorticoid metabolite levels, and monitoring daily food intake, or breathing rate [26], to create a holistic view of each individual's wellbeing over time and during extraordinary events.…”

“…The analysis of the keepers' daily records of training performance and the calculation of the average trainer rating confirmed important assumptions based on our behavioral observations. Training performance, or Willingness to Participate (WtP), during daily training routines have already been shown to be valid-and especially early-indicators when it comes to evaluating an animal's health or welfare state [31,40]. A recent study with bottlenose dolphins highlights that WtP even proved to be a more sensitive indicator compared to conservative measurements, such as daily medical examinations or food intake [19].…”

“…An important first step was taken by Clegg et al [37] with the presentation of a welfare assessment tool that was specifically developed for dolphins under human care, which included some behavior-based measures (e.g., the expression of socio-sexual behaviors and the absence of stereotypical behaviors). Other studies have incorporated different individual behaviors, such as affiliative behavior [38], play behavior [39], or the dolphins' Willingness to Participate ("WtP"; [31,40]) in daily training sessions. One of the most important behaviors to be validated as a reliable indicator of positive welfare was found to be affiliative contacts [36], such as pectoral fin rubbing [41,42] or synchronous swimming [43].…”

Behavioural Diversity Study in Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Groups and Its Implications for Welfare Assessments

“…Even if all observers were familiar to their dolphin groups and had previous and numerous experiences in collecting behavioral data for research studies, we cannot avoid interobserver variability. However, the EAAM Welfare Committee intends to set up a dolphin welfare assessment for caretakers to conduct in the facility they work in: this study and others [35,[45][46][47] show their feasibility and appropriateness. We suggest focusing in the future on individuals to study their behavioural diversity according to various parameters known to affect their welfare (e.g., noise/social play [40], personality [93], unusual events and social separation [41]).…”

“…Researchers have analysed the effects of human-controlled period schedules [37]; participation in dolphin-human interaction programs [38] and in education programs [39], environmental changes and anthropogenic factors [40]; body contact and social interactions [41]; dolphins' cortisol salivary level [42][43][44]; and their willingness to participate in training sessions [43,44]. Several positive welfare indicators have been validated and/or deserve further investigation: synchronous swimming [44,45], willingness to participate in trainings [45,46], social interactions and body contact [47,48], social play [40] and anticipatory behaviour [49,50]. During the last decades, dolphinaria have been working on improving animal welfare in their habitats, including specific environmental enrichment programs in alignment with European legislation [51] and international WAZA recommendations [15].…”