Zoo Giraffe Welfare: A Literature Review and the Behavioral Effects of Guest Feeding Program

Giraffes are popular and widespread in zoos; however, many giraffes display stereotypic behaviors in these settings, suggesting that they have, at some point, experienced prolonged periods of poor welfare. The diversity of giraffe care practices across zoos, as well as potential associations with changes in welfare, have yet to be systematically evaluated. In Section 2 of this thesis, I propose an epidemiological framework for a large-scale study of giraffe welfare. The array of behavioral and physical health indicators known or hypothesized to be associated with giraffe welfare are reviewed, as well as the housing, husbandry and management factors known or hypothesized to influence these outcomes. Potential or established associations among welfare indicators and care practices are then highlighted. In Section 3, I present a zoo-level study of the behavioral effects of one of the specific management practices discussed in the preceding review, the guest feeding program (GFP), on the behavioral time budgets of a herd of five giraffes at a single zoo. Guest participation (Guests Per Hour; GPH) on the days of behavioral observation was determined by analyzing GFP revenue for those days. I used multivariate mixed models to test for hypothesized associations between behavior rate risks and the number of visitors patronizing the GFP, as well as the Hour of observation and Day of the week. The rate risk of Feed Station Engagement increased by 6.8% for every additional 10 GPH participated in the GFP. When giraffes were not engaged in the GFP, that same GPH increase predicted a 12.7% increase in Oral Stereotypy. This increase could be because: (1) encounters with zoo visitors are stressful; (2) engaging with a busy GFP interferes with the appetitive phase of feeding; and/or (3) oral stereotypies increase after meals because they support rumination and digestion. Oral Stereotypy rate risk also increased over 200% on weekdays compared to weekends, which suggests that these giraffes experienced a lack of engaging stimuli because of the infrequency of varied feeding opportunities when GPH was low across the entire day. Other behaviors in the time budget (Inactivity, Ruminating, Attentive and Feeding) did not change as a function of GPH. These findings suggest that behavioral performance of these giraffes is influenced by the operation of the GFP, and that zoos operating GFPs should develop and implement behavior monitoring programs to assess the effects of these programs.