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Writer's pictureRaymond Vagell

TABA 2024

Brief stop at Texas last weekend to represent my department and lab #PruetzLab for the annual Texas Association of Biological Anthropologists (TABA) meeting at Texas State University.


TITLE: 

Not All Those Who Pace Are Stressed: Pacing In Captive Ruffed Lemurs (Varecia spp.) Could Be An Excitement Response Towards An Enrichment


ABSTRACT:

Pacing, often associated with poor welfare in captive animals, could be an affective state where animals project their excitement towards an object. We tested this hypothesis by offering captive ruffed lemurs (Varecia spp.) (N = 6) a preferred enrichment item, in this case a cognitive touchscreen apparatus (SMARTA). We predicted that the presence of SMARTA would elicit pacing and its intensities would decrease in the absence of SMARTA. During the experimental condition, subjects were separated from SMARTA in an adjacent enclosure for 5 minutes where SMARTA was visible to them before having access to it. For the control condition, the same subjects were separated in the adjacent enclosure for 5 minutes but neither saw not interacted with SMARTA. A Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test was used to compare the pacing intensities in subjects during experimental (x͂ = 156s) and control (x͂ = 45s) conditions. The intensities of pacing significantly increased when SMARTA was present compared to when SMARTA was not, W = 0, z = -2.20, p = < 0.05. However, the absence of SMARTA did not extinguish pacing behavior. Results using these preliminary data suggest that some subjects might be seeking SMARTA when it was visually absent or as a result of being shifted into the enclosure in general. Thus, pacing behavior might not only be a response to poor welfare but an affective state, be it positive or negative.




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