January-March 1993, Volume 4, Number 1, ISSN: 1050-561X
Contents
The Science of Animal Well-being by Ian J.H. Duncan
Using Training to Enhance Animal Care and Welfare by Gail Laule
Protecting Laboratory Animals by U.S. Public Health Service
Ian J.H. Duncan
Department of Animal and Poultry Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada NIG 2WI
(The author is a Professor of Poultry Science)
(Animal Welfare Information Center Newsletter, 4(1):1, 4-7.
January-March 1993)
[Editor's Note - The following article is from the keynote
address presented at the combined meeting of the American Society
of Animal Science and the International Society for Applied
Ethology, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 8-11,
1992.]
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and privilege for me
to address you this evening.
I want to spend my time trying to convince you that ethology
the study of animal behavior is science. It uses the scientific
method, and it is a branch of science that can really contribute
to animal production.
It should be remembered that ethology is a very young
science. Ethology came of age in 1973 when Karl von Frisch,
Konrad Lorenz, and Niko Tinbergen were awarded the Nobel Prize
for Medicine or Physiology. Ethology, therefore, is still in its
infancy and many mechanisms remain to be elucidated. Even with
further knowledge, the possibility of modelling behavior in terms
of input-output equations, such as has been done in nutrition and
environmental physiology, seems remote.
Let me change tack for a minute and pose this question
which I lifted from an advertisement for a recently published
book "What is the most complex material object in the universe?"
The answer: "Your brain!"
It has been calculated that the human brain contains 1011
neurons, that there are 103 synapses per neuron, and that there
are 2 states per synapse. This means that the total number of
possible brain states is 2 x 1014! And that is the reason why it
is unrealistic to expect nice clean-cut models of behavior; the
enormous complexity of the organ underlying behavior, the central
nervous system, precludes it.
Of course the brain is not just an amorphous mass of
neurons; it is organized, and is a system of specialized
subsystems. However, even simplified interactional models of
brain function (e.g., Bindra, 1976) show that it is extremely
complex.
At this combined meeting of the American Society of Animal
Science and the International Society for Applied Ethology, there
will be many papers dealing with animal behavior. I would like
to whet your appetite by describing very briefly three examples
of excellent applied behavioral research. They are particularly
interesting because of the implications of the results for other
branches of animal science.
My first example concerns the research of Ian Taylor who did
his graduate work at the University of Illinois. Ian (Taylor et
al.,1988) did a very thorough survey of feeders for sows and
found that they were very inefficient. This resulted in large
amounts of food being spilled and also in injuries to the animals
using the feeders. Ian then filmed at high speed the heads of
sows as they were feeding in an unencumbered situation. He then
very carefully analyzed the film frame by frame and digitized the
positions of certain key anatomical features. This allowed him to
calculate the envelope of space that the sow requires as she
feeds.
Ian went on to design a sow feeder (and other swine feeders,
using similar methods) based on the information gained from the
behavioral observations. These feeders waste 0.5 percent of food
compared to the traditional range of wastage of 2-17 percent.
Consider the improvement to productivity of this sort of saving
achieved simply through careful observation of how animals
behave. These improved feeders also do not injure the animals.
My second example is the work of Temple Grandin (Grandin,
1983) who designs handling facilities for animals. Her
cattle-handling facilities are based on a fundamental knowledge
of animal behavior. The visual field of the species involved,
the flight distance of animals, what they perceive as
frightening, the angle at which they move away from a frightening
stimulus these and many more factors go into designing this sort
of facility. The benefits are enormous: the whole unit works
more smoothly and efficiently, the quality of meat is higher, and
the downgrading is less. All this through the application of
fundamental principles of animal behavior.
My third example is taken from the work of Anne Marie de
Passille. Anne Marie has being doing some intensive research on
sucking behavior in calves, and I wish to describe just one small
part of her work (de Passille et al., 1991). The calves are kept
in individual pens and fed a set amount of milk from buckets.
Immediately after feeding, one group is allowed to suck on solid
rubber teats for a few minutes. This results in an increase in
the levels of several of the digestive hormones such as insulin,
gastrin, and cholecystokinin. We often see examples of hormones'
driving behavior - but here it is the performance of the behavior
that is affecting the hormones. The implications are that we may
get a more efficient digestive process by allowing calves to suck
even if it is non-nutritive sucking. And this is quite apart
from any welfare implications.
I hope that these three examples have shown you that there
are a variety of ways in which studies of behavior can have
beneficial application in animal production. In connection with
Anne Marie's research, I mentioned animal welfare, and I now wish
to talk about that in more detail.
Problem 1 - What is animal welfare?
Some time ago, Marian Dawkins and I suggested that it was
impossible to give "animal welfare" a precise scientific
definition. We thought that a loose working definition would be
one that encompassed the ideas of the animal in mental and
physical health, the animal in harmony with its environment, the
animal being able to adapt to its environment without suffering
and that we should also take the animal's feelings into account
(Duncan and Dawkins, 1983). A loose working definition of
"suffering" is a wide range of unpleasant emotional states.
More recently, the idea has emerged that welfare is mainly
(Dawkins, 1990) or solely (Duncan and Petherick, 1989, 1991)
dependent on what the animal feels.
Scientific evidence on the welfare of farm livestock is
urgently required so that rational decisions can be made on intensive
production systems and practices. Many different
classes of evidence have been investigated with a view to
identifying reliable indicators of reduced welfare. Productivity
indicators have proved unreliable, and biochemical and
physiological indicators have not lived up to their early
promise. There has, therefore, been increasing interest in the
use of behavior to assess welfare. The idea of being able to
assess the welfare of animals by looking at their behavior is an
appealing one: the technique is non-invasive, it could be
available in the field without specialized equipment, it might
give an instantaneous indication of welfare, and behavioral
changes might precede some of the other indicators of reduced
welfare.
Problem 2 - Welfare involves science, ethics, and aesthetics.
We need to acknowledge that welfare problems can be only
partially solved by scientific answers. Once the facts are known,
society also needs guidance in making ethical decisions. There is
probably no difficulty if it is shown, say, that a husbandry
system leads to a great deal of distress. However, there will be
many cases in which there are both welfare costs and benefits to
the animal, and these will be problematical. It is also likely
that aesthetic judgments enter into the decisionmaking process.
Thus, I think that it offends some people aesthetically to see
cattle kept in feedlots without access to grazing and chickens
kept in cages, no matter what science has to say about animal
welfare under these conditions.
Problem 3 - How can welfare be assessed?
I would now like to lead you through three examples of ways
in which behavior has been used to assess the welfare of poultry.
Case 1 There has been a general criticism voiced that "Hens in
battery cages will be frustrated." How can this be investigated
scientifically?
Many years ago, I set out to investigate this question. The
approach I took was to subject chickens experimentally to many
different frustrating situations and to make a list of all the
behavioral responses that they showed (Duncan, 1970). I
frustrated the birds' tendencies to feed, to nest, to behave
sexually, to incubate eggs, and to brood chicks in many different
ways. The behavioral responses that the birds made were very
limited. Hens which were mildly frustrated experimentally showed
an increase in displacement preening (Duncan and Wood-Gush,
1972a). If the frustration was severe, they showed stereotyped
back-and-forward pacing (Duncan and Wood-Gush, 1972b). If two or
more birds were frustrated simultaneously, the dominant birds
showed an increase in aggression towards the subordinates (Duncan
and Wood-Gush, 1971). There was also evidence that severe
frustration was very aversive to the birds (Duncan and Wood-Gush,
1974). Rather surprisingly, the symptoms of severe frustration,
stereotyped back-and-forward pacing, and increased aggression,
with one exception, are not commonly seen in battery cages. It
can be concluded that, generally speaking, caging per se does not
lead to severe frustration. Displacement preening is seen in
battery cages, which suggests that a state of mild frustration is
fairly common under commercial conditions. However, it is also
commonly seen under natural conditions and seems to be the birds'
way of responding to everyday problems.
The exception mentioned above is that certain strains of
hens in battery cages show stereotyped back-and-forward pacing
(Wood-Gush, 1972) and increased aggression (Hughes, 1979) during
the prelaying phase when they appear to be frustrated because
they cannot find a suitable nest site.
From these results, I would argue that the main cause of
reduced welfare in battery cages is frustrated nesting behavior.
There is now some intensive research going on in the U.K., both
at Bristol and Edinburgh, to try to incorporate a nesting site or
sites into the battery cage.
Case 2 Feather pecking and cannibalism have been problems in
poultry production for many years. The industry's solution is to
de-beak or beak-trim the birds. Is this a problem for the birds?
There is no doubt that an outbreak of feather pecking and
cannibalism in a group of chickens greatly reduces their welfare.
The injuries inflicted can be horrific and can lead to death.
The procedure called de-beaking or beak-trimming, in which about
a third of the upper beak and a small part of the lower beak are
removed with a sharp heated blade, is very effective in
preventing the worst of the damage. It would, therefore, seem
that there are great welfare benefits to be gained from this
procedure. However, there is now good morphological,
neurophysiological, and behavioral evidence that beak trimming
leads to both acute and chronic pain. The morphological evidence
is that the tip of the beak is richly innervated and has
nociceptors or pain receptors (Breward, 1984). This means that
cutting and heating the beak will lead to acute pain. In
addition, it has been shown that as the nerve fibers in the
amputated stump of the beak start to regenerate into the damaged
tissue, neuromas form (Breward and Gentle, 1985). Neuromas are
tiny tangled nerve masses that have been implicated in phantom
limb pain (a type of chronic pain) in human beings. The
neurophysiological evidence is that there are abnormal afferent
nerve discharges in fibers running from the amputated stump for
many weeks after beak trimming long after the healing process has
occurred (Breward and Gentle, 1985). This is similar to what
happens in human amputees who suffer from phantom limb pain. The
behavioral evidence is that the behavior of beak-trimmed birds is
radically altered for many weeks compared to that which occurs
immediately before the operation and compared to that shown by
sham-operated control birds. In particular, classes of behavior
involving the beak, namely feeding, drinking, preening and
pecking at the environment, occur much less frequently, and two
behavior patterns, standing idle and dozing, occur much more
frequently. The only reasonable explanation of these changes is
that the birds are suffering from chronic pain (Duncan et al.,
1989).
These facts taken together provide strong evidence that beak
trimming is not such a trivial operation as has previously been
thought. It almost certainly causes both acute and chronic pain.
There is, therefore, a welfare cost as well as a benefit in
carrying out this procedure. The same may hold true for other
surgical interventions that are commonly practiced in animal
agriculture, such as tail-docking, castration, de-horning, etc.
Many of these are carried out for welfare reasons, e.g., sheep
are commonly tail-docked to prevent blow fly strike, a condition
that reduces welfare enormously and causes high mortality.
However, it is seldom acknowledged that there may be a welfare
cost to the animal. There may be all sorts of welfare costs
apart from acute and chronic pain. To continue with the
tail-docking example, the animals may be frightened by the
procedure, there may be a social cost (perhaps because they
cannot signal to each other so effectively), or they may be
frustrated (because they cannot flick flies away).
I am suggesting that some sort of cost-benefit analysis
should be carried out on these procedures. This will not be
easy. Cost-benefit analysis is anything but an exact science.
Ernst Schumacher in his seminal book Small Is Beautiful, was very
disparaging about cost-benefit analysis. He said, Cost/benefit
analysis is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the
level of the lower and the priceless is given a price. It can,
therefore, never serve to clarify the situation and lead to an
enlightened decision. All it can do is lead to self-deception or
the deception of others; for to undertake to measure the
immeasurable is absurd and constitutes but an elaborate method of
moving from preconceived notions to foregone conclusions; all one
has to do to obtain the desired results is to impute suitable
values to the immeasurable costs and benefits (Schumacher, 1973).
I am not as negative as Schumacher but I do realize that there
are difficulties in making such an analysis. However, if we do
not admit that these routine surgical procedures have costs and
at least attempt the exercise, then we will continue to deceive
ourselves. Perhaps the exercise of acknowledging that there are
costs will be sufficient incentive to look for alternative
solutions.
Case 3 Do hens in battery cages "miss" items like a dust bath, a
foraging substrate, a sexual partner, etc?
In asking these questions, we are really trying to "get
inside the head" of the animals. We are trying to find out "how
they feel" about what we are doing to them. Of course, subjective
feelings are not directly accessible to scientific investigation.
In the case of human beings, it is possible to find out
indirectly how they feel by asking them, but how can we find out
how an animal feels? Fortunately, in the welfare debate, it is
not necessary to know exactly how an animal feels; even an
indirect measure of feelings, such as how positive or negative
these feelings are, would be extremely helpful. Perhaps animals
could tell us how they feel by what they choose; they might vote
with their feet. This rationale forms the basis of preference
testing, which has been used extensively in poultry science
(Duncan, 1992). In a preference test, the animal is given a
choice between certain aspects of its environment and it is
assumed that it will choose according to how it feels, i.e., in
the best interests of its welfare.
However, there are certain pitfalls that have to be guarded
against when using preference tests (discussed in more detail by
Duncan, 1992). When designing preference tests for animals, we
must also ensure that the choices made are not trivial. Likewise,
we must ensure that in a preference study the animal is not
choosing the lesser of two evils. If we know what the pitfalls
are, then we can take suitable precautions to avoid them.
One of the ways in which the strength of preference can be
measured is by finding out how hard the animal will work to gain
access to its preferred choice. We have borrowed a variety of
obstructive techniques from the psychology laboratory to find out
how important to the animal its choices are (Duncan and Kite,
1987). In these tests, the animal is taught to walk in a runway
towards the putative reward, which might be food, a dust-bath, a
companion, etc. Various obstructions, such as a weighted
push-door, are then placed in the runway between the animal and
the "reward," and we can see how hard the animal will work to
reach the goal (Petherick et al., 1990).
I hope I have convinced you that animal welfare can be
better understood (and therefore improved) by a rational
scientific approach. An understanding of behavior is going to
play a crucial role. I can assure you that the animal welfare
issue (a) will not disappear, and (b) cannot be solved by public
relations work alone. There is a danger that if this nettle is
not grasped, animal agriculture will be seen as ethically
challenged or morally handicapped.
The question can then be asked "Do we have the necessary
expertise working on this topic?" I have tried to assemble some
figures, compiled from organizational directories, for a few
Western countries. Figure 1 shows the number of applied
ethologists working full time with agricultural species in the
United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the
Netherlands at the end of 1991. I have tried to be as evenhanded
as possible, but these numbers should only be considered
approximate. They show that each of these countries has about
10-11 applied ethologists working with agricultural species,
apart from the U.K. which has about twice that number. However,
when these numbers are expressed according to the value of the
livestock industry, a rather different picture emerges. In Figure
2, I have shown the same numbers expressed according to $1
billion (U.S.) farm cash receipts for animals and animal products
generated during 1991. Once again these numbers should only be
considered approximate. It now appears that the United States has
a much lower research effort going into this area, only a tenth
of the effort being expended by some European countries.
Fig. 1 (left) Number of applied ethologists working with
agricultural species in 1991.
Fig. 2 (right) Number of applied ethologists per value of livestock
industry (per $1 billion farm cash receipts generated in 1991).
I would like to finish up with a quotation from one of my
favorite poets, the Irishman W.B. Yeats. In his poem, An Irish
Airman Foresees His Death, Yeats says:
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
To me, this summarizes the quintessential human
characteristic. Human beings can contemplate past events. They
can look into the future and foresee their own death. They can
make a balance. I believe that this is the "morally relevant
difference" between human beings and animals which the animal
rights movements fail to acknowledge. There is evidence that
animals can feel pain, and I think we have a moral responsibility
to eliminate or reduce pain in our animals. There is evidence
that animals can feel frightened and frustrated, and I think we
have an obligation to reduce these states of suffering as much as
possible. However, there is no evidence that animals have any
concept of their own mortality. Let me tell you that if I thought
they did, I would become a vegetarian tomorrow. I believe that
this is the unique human quality.
However, it brings with it a grave responsibility. It means
that we have to make decisions, we have to make the balance, we
have to carry out the audit, for the animals in our charge. I am
optimistic. I think that we can do it. But we will only do it
reasonably and rationally and defensibly, if first we carefully
gather the scientific evidence.
References
Bindra, D., 1976. A Theory of Intelligent Behavior. New York,
Wiley Interscience.
Breward, J., 1984. Cutaneous nociceptors in the chicken beak.
Journal of Physiology, London, 346: 56P.
Breward, J. and Gentle, M.J., 1985. Neuroma formation and
abnormal afferent nerve discharges after partial beak amputation
(beak trimming) in poultry. Experientia, 41: 1132-1134.
Dawkins, M.S., 1990. From an animal's point of view:
Motivation, fitness, and animal welfare. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 13: 1-9.
de Passille, A.M.B., R.J. Christopherson, J. Rushen (1991)
Sucking behavior affects the post-prandial secretion of digestive
hormones in the calf. Proceedings of International Congress
Society for Veterinary Ethology. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, Potter's Bar, Herts,
Great Britain, pp. 130-131.
Duncan, I.J.H., 1970. Frustration in the fowl. In: Aspects of
Poultry Behaviour (Eds B.M. Freeman and R.F. Gordon), pp. 15-31.
Edinburgh, British Poultry Science Ltd.
Duncan, I.J.H., 1992. Measuring preference and the strength of
preference. Poultry Science, 71: 658-663.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Dawkins, M.S., 1983. The problem of
assessing well-being and suffering in farm animals. In
Indicators Relevant to Farm Animal Welfare (Ed. D. Smidt), pp.
13-24. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Kite, V.G., 1987. Some investigations into
motivation in the domestic fowl. Applied Animal Behaviour
Science, 18: 387-388.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Petherick, J.C., 1989. Cognition: the
implications for animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour
Science, 24: 81.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Petherick, J.C., 1991. The implications of
cognitive processes for animal welfare. Journal of Animal
Science, 69: 5017-5022.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Wood-Gush, D.G.M., 1971. Frustration and
aggression in the domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour, 19: 500-504.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Wood-Gush, D.G.M., 1972a. An analysis of
displacement preening in the domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour,
20: 68-71.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Wood-Gush, D.G.M., 1972b. Thwarting of
feeding behaviour in the domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour, 20:
444-451.
Duncan, I.J.H. and Wood-Gush, D.G.M., 1974. The effect of a
Rauwolfia tranquillizer on stereotyped movements in frustrated
domestic fowl. Applied Animal Ethology, 1: 67-76.
Duncan, I.J.H., Slee, G.S., Seawright, E. and Breward, J., 1989.
Behavioural consequences of partial beak amputation (beak
trimming) in poultry. British Poultry Science, 30: 479-488.
Grandin, T., 1983. Welfare requirements of handling facilities.
In Farm Animal Housing and Welfare (Eds S.H. Baxter, M.R. Baxter
and J.A.C. MacCormack), pp. 137-149. The Hague, Martinus
Nijhoff.
Hughes, B.O., 1979. Aggressive behaviour and its relation to
oviposition in the domestic fowl. Applied Animal Ethology, 5:
85-93.
Petherick, J.C., Rutter, S.M. and Duncan, I.J.H., 1990. A
push-door for measuring motivation. Applied Animal Behaviour
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Schumacher, E.F., 1973. Small Is Beautiful. New York, Harper
and Row.
Taylor, I.A, S.E Curtis, M.R. Backstrom, and J.L. Groppel (1988)
Design of feeders for swine: kinematics, behavior, and
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sub-optimal stimuli in the fowl. Animal Behaviour, 20: 72-76.
Gail Laule
Director of Animal Behavior
Active Environments
(Animal Welfare Information Center Newsletter, 4(1):2, 8-9.
January-March 1993)
There is a growing trend in the zoological and laboratory
animal community to recognize the value of using operant
conditioning techniques as an animal care and management tool.
Animals have been trained for public exhibition for centuries,
but only in recent times has the versatility of training been
explored to any appreciable extent. The result has been a
variety of benefits for animals, caretakers, veterinarians, and
others concerned with the welfare of captive animals. This new
interest in training has grown concurrently with the interest and
attention surrounding the issue of psychological well-being. I
don't believe this is an accident. In fact, a strong case can be
made that training, from a physical and psychological
perspective, is "good" for animals. However, I am referring to a
specific type of training.
Positive Reinforcement
As consultants, we advocate and teach positive reinforcement
training. This type of training relies on the voluntary
cooperation of the animal to succeed. Unlike some methods,
positive reinforcement training does not require food
deprivation. Although animals are reinforced with rewards for the
desired response, they are fed their daily allotment of food and
rewards for training utilize that diet or extra treats.
Operationally, it means that we exhaust the positive alternatives
before any negative reinforcement is used. On the rare occasion
when an escape/avoidance technique is necessary, it is used
minimally and is balanced by a greater proportion of positive
reinforcement. Punishment is only used in a life-threatening
situation for a person or animal.
Positive reinforcement training is truly universal. Operant
conditioning provides the tools; how the trainer uses them
provides endless opportunities. We have used these techniques
with marine mammals, great apes and other primates, canids,
felids, ungulates, and others. The basic techniques remain the
same; however, adjustments are made for different species,
differences among individual animals, the environmental and
social situations they are in, and the specific operational
objectives.
If training has a down side, it is twofold. First, training
is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. Poorly
planned and implemented training can definitely create more
problems than it will solve. Secondly, training is time and
labor intensive, particularly in the initial stages of a project.
However, if viewed in the longterm, these drawbacks can be turned
into advantages. Having caretakers with training skills may help
alleviate future problem behaviors. And, training results, such
as animals voluntarily cooperating in veterinary procedures,
ultimately are time and labor saving.
For example, in a pilot program being conducted at the
chimpanzee breeding facility at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Science Park in Bastrop, Texas, urine collection training is
being pursued with all breeding-age female chimps (9). Currently,
urine from these females is collected once per cycle by
separating the female from her group and waiting for her to
urinate, which may take minutes to hours. Training a chimp to
urinate on cue may initially take several hours of time over
several weeks. However, investing those few hours to achieve
reliable collection in less than 10 minutes realizes tremendous
time savings over the life of that animal. With urine collection
simple and reliable, other research or medical opportunities also
become possible.
Training offers a wide array of benefits for animals and
personnel. Through the process of desensitization, animals are
conditioned to voluntarily cooperate in veterinary procedures
that can be negative events. Training sessions are spent pairing
positive reinforcement with these negative events, ultimately
making them less negative, less scary, and less stressful. Also,
when animals voluntarily cooperate, anesthesia becomes
unnecessary, and the frequency of these behaviors can be
increased for use on a preventive basis. Another, more subtle
benefit is the increase in choices and control that trained
animals' experience. Restraining an animal for a procedure, or
having an animal voluntarily cooperate during the procedure
without restraint, are two very different events, for both the
animal and personnel. One could argue that allowing animals
greater control over their lives contributes to psychological
well-being.
In practice, skillful use of training techniques has
resulted in animals that voluntarily move between areas or cages
in a reliable and timely manner; marine mammals that voluntarily
allow routine blood, stomach, fecal, urine, and blow hole samples
to be taken; and primates that cooperate in physical examinations
including offering body parts for inspection (Fig. 1) and
treatment of wounds, tolerating a stethoscope and thermometer,
and allowing blood sampling and injections (7, 11). Thus, the
potential is there to condition individuals of many species to
tolerate similar procedures.
Fig. 1 Through positive reinforcement training, this
chimpanzee voluntarily cooperates with veterinary examinations.
Aggressive Behaviors
Training has proven to be effective in addressing aggression
problems in social groups in a variety of species. One study
documented the reduction of aggressive behavior of one male
chimpanzee toward other group members during feeding time (1). By
reinforcing the dominant animal for allowing the others to have
their share of food and attention, both aggressor and subordinate
animals benefitted. He received special treats and attention for
his cooperation, and the others were able to receive and consume
their allotted food in a less stressful environment. We call
this technique cooperative feeding and have used it successfully
over the years in many situations, including working pairs of
male sea lions together, integrating subdominant dolphins into
groups, and preparing and implementing introductions with
gorillas and other primates (7, 8). It was also one technique
employed with a group of drill baboons to increase overall
positive social interactions and affiliative behavior within the
group (3, 4).
Positive reinforcement training with elephants, implemented
through a system we call protected contact, has resulted in a
dramatic reduction of aggressive behavior toward keepers (5, 10).
In this type of training, where trainers work with the elephants
through shields or barriers (Fig. 2) , aggressive behavior is not
punished, but simply ignored. At the same time, cooperative,
nonaggressive behavior is reinforced when it occurs. The system
does not rely on social dominance or escape/avoidance techniques,
Fig.2 "Protected contact" training allows trainers to work with
elephants in a cooperative manner.
but on the voluntary participation of the elephant. In fact, in
365 protected contact training sessions with four elephants, the
animals chose to work 99 percent of the time. The result is an
elephant that is motivated to cooperate with, rather than act
aggressively toward, the trainer.
Stereotypic Behaviors and Enrichment
Training offers techniques and strategies to address
neurotic or stereotypic behavior. By training a behavior that is
incompatible with the problem one, or a new behavior to replace
the undesirable one, or by simply raising the amount of activity
and stimulation for the animal, problematic behavior can be
reduced or eliminated. In the case of one bottlenose dolphin,
training strategies were successfully employed to reduce the
incidence of four behavioral problems: swallowing of foreign
objects, frequent regurgitation, biting trainers, and inability
to integrate into a social group (6).
In a recent study conducted at the M.D. Anderson chimp
facility, the issue of training as enrichment was explored.
Preliminary results indicate that training offers some benefits
for animals that are related to psychological well-being. For
example, three significant positive changes occurred during
training: reduced self-directed behavior, reduced inactivity, and
increased social play (2). To my knowledge this is the first
study of its kind, and we intend to do more.
Positive reinforcement training is gaining stature among
animal managers as a useful tool for enhancing animal health care
and husbandry needs. It is also more versatile and
multi-functional than may initially be perceived. Whether the
situation involves a solitary animal with limited sensory
stimulation, or a group of animals in the most naturalistic
environment imaginable, well planned and implemented training has
a place.
For further information, contact:
Active Environments
7651 Santos Rd.
Lompoc, CA 93437
Tel: (805) 737-3700 Fax: (805) 737-3705
References
1. Bloomsmith, M. et al. Using Training to Modify Chimpanzee
Aggression. 1992 American Association of Zoological Parks and
Aquariums (AAZPA) Central Regional Conference Proceedings,
Dallas, TX.
2. Bloomsmith, M. Chimpanzee Training and Behavioral Research: A
Symbiotic Relationship. 1992 AAZPA National Conference
Proceedings, Toronto, Canada.
3. Cox, C. Increase in the Frequency of Social Interactions and
the Likelihood of Reproduction Among Drills. 1987 AAZPA Annual
Conference Proceedings, Portland, OR.
4. Desmond, T. et al. Training for Socialization and
Reproduction with Drills. 1987 AAZPA National Conference
Proceedings, Portland, OR.
5. Desmond, T. and Laule, G. Protected Contact Elephant Training.
1991 AAZPA National Conference Proceedings, San Diego, CA.
6. Laule, G. Behavioral Intervention in the Case of a Hybrid
Tursiops sp. 1984 International Marine Animal Trainer Association
(IMATA) Annual Conference Proceedings, Los Angeles, CA.
7. Laule, G. and Desmond, T. Use of Positive Behavioral
Techniques in Primates for Husbandry and Handling. 1990 ZooVet
Annual Conference Proceedings, South Padre Island, TX.
8. Laule, G. and Desmond, T. Meeting Behavioral Objectives While
Maintaining Healthy Social Behavior and Dominance. 1991 IMATA
Annual Conference Proceedings, San Francisco, CA.
9. Laule, G. et al. Positive Reinforcement Techniques and
Chimpanzees: An Innovative Program. 1992 AAZPA Central Regional
Conference Proceedings, Dallas, TX.
10. Maddox, S. Bull Elephant Management: A Safe Alternative. 1992
AAZPA Central Regional Conference Proceedings, Dallas, TX.
11. Reichard, T. et al. Training for Husbandry and Medical
Purposes. 1992 AAZPA National Conference Proceedings, Toronto,
Canada.
Acknowlegements:
Work at the M.D. Anderson facility was supported by the NIH/DRR
grants R01-RR03578 and U42-RR03489.
A Statement from the United States Public Health Service
(Animal Welfare Information Center Newsletter, 4(1):11.
January-March 1993)
As a result of a recent lawsuit brought by two animal
protectionist organizations, a Federal court ordered the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reconsider its exclusion of
rats, mice, and birds from coverage under the Animal Welfare Act.
In the judge's opinion, "the USDA's decision not to regulate
these species sent a message that researchers may subject these
animals to cruel and inhumane conditions."
People who are familiar with the extensive system of U.S.
laws, regulations, guidelines, and principles that protect the
welfare of laboratory animals would not necessarily agree with
the judge's comment. The Public Health Service (PHS) wants to
reassure the American people that other laws exist to safeguard
the welfare of rats, mice, and birds, species that comprise about
90 percent of research animals.
According to the Health Research Extension Act, over 1,000
institutions receiving funds from the PHS to conduct animal
experiments are required to comply with the provisions of the act
and to follow the recommendations in the Guide for the Humane
Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Guide). The Guide was
prepared to assist researchers in maintaining high- quality care
for all commonly used laboratory animals. It includes the
Government principles for animal care and use adopted by all
agencies and institutions that conduct federally supported animal
research. This Guide also applies under another Federal law, the
Good Laboratory Practices Act. Research laboratories that
conduct studies using rats and mice are regulated by the PHS's
Food and Drug Administration and are subject to inspections.
In addition, most institutions that do not receive PHS funding
follow the Guide. For example, laboratory animal
breeders, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and commercial research
laboratories that may not be subject to USDA and PHS regulations
may voluntarily participate in a national program of
certification by the American Association for Accreditation of
Laboratory Animal Care. This private organization monitors
institutional animal care programs to ensure that they maintain
the standards set forth in the Guide.
Animal use is an integral component of biomedical and
behavioral research and testing. The vast majority of scientists
recognize that good science and good animal care go hand in hand
and would not tolerate or condone cruelty to, or inhumane
treatment of, any laboratory animal.
Go to:
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The Animal Welfare Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD 20705-2351
Phone: (301) 504-6212
FAX: (301) 504-7125
E-mail: awic@nal.usda.gov
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