Monitoring the Behavior and Habitat Use of Animals to Enhance Welfare using the ZooMonitor App

Abstract

Regular monitoring of the behavior, habitat use, and appearance of animals can provide valuable insight into their welfare. These ongoing data can help identify meaningful trends that can be acted upon to enhance welfare, and potentially reveal individual preferences and patterns that can facilitate care tailored to the individual. To provide a low cost, flexible, user-friendly tool for staff to conduct systematic behavioral monitoring, Lincoln Park Zoo, with development support from Zier Niemann Consulting, created the ZooMonitor app. With ZooMonitor, users can record the behavior and habitat use of animals using standardized animal behavior recording methods as well as log individual characteristics such as body condition or coat/feather quality. These data can be recorded using computers or tablet devices, and data are uploaded to a cloud server where the user can conduct automated reliability tests to check observer consistency and generate built-in reports such as activity budgets and heat maps showing how animals use their available space. To demonstrate the use of ZooMonitor in an ongoing monitoring program, two case studies from Lincoln Park Zoo are presented: 1) promoting increased foraging and broader habitat use of pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis); and 2) tracking feather condition changes in a flock of domestic chickens (Gallus gallus). These examples highlight the importance of standardized monitoring and use of digital tools like ZooMonitor to enable science-based husbandry practices and promote positive welfare for animals in human care.

Evaluating the Behavior and Temperament of African Penguins in a Non-Contact Animal Encounter Program

“…We used two observation protocols: one to record behavior when encounters were not occurring (i.e., for the pre-/post-observations and their corresponding matched control periods) and one to record the birds’ behavior while encounters were occurring. All data were collected by a single observer (the first author) standing in the public viewing area on a handheld tablet using the behavioral recording app, ZooMonitor [31,32].…”

Sound at the zoo: Using animal monitoring, sound measurement, and noise reduction in zoo animal management

“…Multiple zoos and aquariums have developed their own assessment tools and programs. These include EthoTrak® (developed by the Chicago Zoological Society), EthoSearch (developed by Lincoln Park Zoo and partners), ZooMonitor (developed by Lincoln Park Zoo and partners) (Wark et al, ), WelfareTrak® (developed by the Chicago Zoological Society and partners) (Whitham and Wielebnowski, ), and the geriatric animal quality of life assessment process developed by San Francisco Zoo's Wellness and Conservation Center (Watters et al, ). Some species‐specific welfare monitoring programs are also being designed based on multi‐institutional studies that tested multiple parameters on a single species or taxa, such as the Elephant Welfare Initiative (Meehan, Mench, Carlstead, & Hogan, ) and C‐Well® (Clegg, Borger‐Turner, & Eskelinen, ).…”

The Social Rank of Zoo-Housed Japanese Macaques is a Predictor of Visitor-Directed Aggression

“…Behavioral data were collected by trained observers using the ZooMonitor software [33,34] on handheld tablet devices in the North and/or South viewing shelters along the East side of the habitat (Figure 1). Ten-minute observation sessions were conducted several times per day on most weekdays, and were nearly equally distributed between 10:00 and 16:00 from January 2017 to January 2018.…”