Old World Monkeys in Mixed Species Exhibits - Factors influencing the success of old world monkeys in mixed species exhibits.

Thesis number: 594000, Van Hall Larenstein University for Applied Sciences. 38 Seiten.

Summary:

In zoos there is a lack of space for old world monkeys as enclosures become bigger and more naturalistic, because of the advances in enclosure design. A potential solution is housing old world monkey species in mixed species exhibits. The main question to research this potential is: Which of the TAG recommended captive old world monkey species are successfully kept in mixed species exhibits and which factors influence this success? Information to answer this question was gathered by means of a literature research and a questionnaire sent to European zoos keeping old world monkeys in mixed species exhibits. Every situation was reported as successful or not and then factor spossibly influencing this success were determined. These were determined by looking at how often they were applied and then at the success and failure percentage with application and non‐application. Possible factors were niche occupation, habitat, social structure, species ratio, age class, breeding, size of the enclosure, escape routes, visual barriers, separation period and method of introduction. Finally intervention was researched on how and when it should be applied. In total 71 mixed situations were gathered. These consist of 131 combinations (every animal mixed with a TROWM counted separately, even though in the same exhibit). There are 17 combinations of TROWMs with TROWMs, 51 combinations of TROWMs with non‐recommended (OW) Ms and 63 combinations of TROWMs with other animal species. Of the 71 mixed situations found, 60 are successful. The factorssize of the enclosure, escape routes, spe cies temperament and individual personality show to have an effect on the success of the mixed situation. Of these escape routes was determined by its high percentage of success when applied and a high failure percentage when not applied. The factors sufficient space, individual personality and species temperament are most often mentioned by the zoos as being important to the outcome of a mixed situation. Niche occupation, habitat, age class and breeding have no effect on the success of a mixed exhibit and social structure, visual barriers and species ratio could not be determined to have an effect on the outcome of a mixed situation.Separation periods and introduction methods are applied in nearly all cases but both in successful and unsuccessful ones. These factors are probably used as a way of preventing conflicts, but could not be proven to actually do this. Application of intervention was only reported by two institutions. Intervention was applied when aggression or stress occurred. For resolving aggression a firehose was used and for resolving stress the species were temporarily separated. 19 of the 24 TAG recommended old world monkey species have a higher success than failure percentage in mixed species exhibits.4 others were not mixed at all and of only one the failure percentage was higher than its success percentage. Together with the overall high success percentage of the mixed situations, mixed species xhibits seem a valuable solution to the space issues of this taxon.

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