Project Director

Gaudin, Timothy

Department

Dept. of Biological and Environmental Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Not long ago, Sasha walked onto grass for the first time in seven years. For Pasha, it was the first in six. The two jaguar inhabitants of the Warner Park Zoo, Sasha, a nine-year-old female, and Pasha, her eight-year-old half-brother, were transferred to a new enclosure on 12 November 1995. Prior to that date, they had been housed in a smaller cage with a cement floor. The new enclosure was a long-awaited improvement for the zoo, designed to house two of its most wellknown animals. It was expected that the new enclosure would promote more natural behavior in the two cats and provide a more educational, entertaining, and rewarding experience for zoo visitors. However, as of May 1996, the new enclosure had little effect on the jaguars' behaviors. Despite the more naturalistic surroundings, a large portion of the cats on-exhibit time was spent in mundane and mechanical pacing, seemingly unaware or unaffected by the natural conditions. It was apparent that the experiences of Sasha and Pasha from the past several years would continue to affect their current behavior. The goal of this project was to provide the Warner Park Zoo with concrete information on the behaviors of their two jaguars, Sasha and Pasha, as well as the effects of popular types of large cat enrichment on their individual behavioral patterns. The hypothesis of this experiment was two-fold: 1) that response to each enrichment form would be significant and would result in a decrease in pacing activity, and 2) a decrease in pacing would coincide with an increase in more natural, speciesspecific behavior.

Degree

B. S.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science.

Date

3-1997

Subject

Jaguar--Environmental enrichment; Zoos--Research--Tennessee--Chattanooga

Discipline

Behavior and Ethology

Document Type

Theses

Extent

i, 35 leaves

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Call Number

LB2369.5 .C334 1997

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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