Journal
ZOO BIOLOGY
Volume 31, Issue 2, Pages 235-241Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/zoo.20403
Keywords
resource defense; environmental enrichment; foraging behavior; gorilla
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Three feeding enrichment treatments were tested in an outdoor yard used by six Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). In Yard-toss, forage was thrown by hand over one third of the yard. In Set-up, forage and browse were hand-scattered throughout the yard. Set-up Enriched was similar with the addition of either a hay- and forage-filled feeder or forage-filled boomer ball(s) suspended from a climbing structure. Each treatment was presented on 5 d. Behavior was recorded for 30 min before (baseline) and 30 min after the start of each treatment. All treatments led to more foraging and less inactivity compared with baseline (P<0.05), but Yard-toss was the least effective, likely because resources were clumped and monopolized by dominant animals. In Set-up Enriched, dominant animals had the greatest increase in foraging (P=0.03), partly because they generally monopolized the suspended items, but this allowed others to forage at ground level. This separation of the animals likely explains why Set-Up Enriched led to more foraging than all other treatments (P<0.05). Findings show that for these hierarchical animals, enrichment resources are most effective when distributed widely, including vertically, and that enrichment strategies must take social structure into account. Zoo Biol 31: 235-241, 2012. (c) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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