Page 200 - Zoo Animal Learning and Training

172 9 Us and Them: Human–Animal Interactions as Learning Events

VetBooks.ir several thousand in the zoo each day) and Table 9.2 Behaviours we might see zoo animals
perform in the presence of unfamiliar people,
over a long period (up to eight or more
and our inferences about the learning processes
hours each day), they represent a significant
array of stimuli to which the animal can which have resulted in them.
respond, and we would expect that the ani­
mals learn various characteristics of these Behaviour observed Inferred learning
process
people and change their responses to them
accordingly. However, behaviours that we Getting used to people; Habituation
see directed at unfamiliar people, or which ignoring people; taking little
appear to be responses to them, can mostly or no notice of people.
only be inferred to be the result of learning. Soliciting food from people; Classical
Firstly, we are by no means sure what the attempting to interact with conditioning
baseline behaviours prior to learning about people; using people as a
source of positive stimulation
unfamiliar people should look like. and potentially ‘enrichment’.
Comparison with free‐living animals can be Avoidance of people and Operant
helpful, but these animals too have almost exposed public areas; hiding; conditioning
certainly come into contact with unfamiliar increasing aggression.
people previously, possibly in a way which is Behaving differently to different Discrimination
quantitatively and qualitatively different categories of people: keepers vs learning
from what happens in the zoo. Secondly, as visitors, men vs women, children
far as we are aware, no learning experiments vs adults, etc.
have taken place in zoos in which unfamiliar
people constitute the independent variable, 9.3.1 Learning to Disregard Visitors
so although we see what appear to be
learned responses to the presence of people, It is widely assumed that animals disregard
we have not seen the process which leads to zoo visitors and anecdotally most of us have
those responses. Thus it is possible that noticed that many animals in zoos appear to
some of the responses or discriminations take no notice of us as we walk past, or stand
that we see are unlearned species‐typical watching them. So we should ask whether
behaviours; an example is the way in which animals in zoos really do disregard visitors,
mangabeys direct different responses to and if so, whether this is due to learning. A
male and female members of the viewing number of empirical studies have investi­
public, referred to in Section 9.2. To what gated zoo animal responses to the mere pres­
extent they are the result of learning is ence of people, as well as their responses to
potentially important, both for reasons of visitors who are noisy, active, or who attempt
welfare (e.g. modifying what appear to be to interact with the animals. Several of these
adverse responses to people in order to have recorded little or no responsiveness to
improve welfare) and of conservation (e.g. people. For example, Choo et al. (2011) found
modifying responses back to a more ‘wild‐ that orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) at
type’ condition in animals which are due for Singapore Zoo did show some changes in
release into the wild). behaviour in response to the presence and
Keeping this in mind, we can list some of behaviour of the public, but that these
the behaviours that we are likely to see ani­ changes were much less severe than expected,
mals perform in the presence of unfamiliar which they suggested could be due to habitu­
people at the zoo, together with our infer­ ation to people. Similarly, Sherwen et al.
ence about the learning process which has (2014) found no change in their measures of
resulted in these (Table 9.2). Few of these meerkat (Suricata suricatta) responses to
have been studied systematically, and none visitors after the visitors had been asked to be
has been studied as a learning process. less noisy, and again suggested habituation as