E-Thesis 335 views 66 downloads
Going to the Zoo: Using Tags to Create Measures for Animal Health, Well-being and Welfare in a Managed Care Setting / ALEXANDRA ARKWRIGHT
Swansea University Author: ALEXANDRA ARKWRIGHT
DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.62710
Abstract
This PhD investigates how animal-attached motion-sensitive electronic tags might create behavioural biomarkers for animal ‘state’. Such biomarkers could indicate good health, disease, and injuries as well as positive and negative affective states. Success could have widespread implications for the w...
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Swansea
2023
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Wilson, Rory P. ; Garcia De Leaniz, Carlos |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa62710 |
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| Abstract: |
This PhD investigates how animal-attached motion-sensitive electronic tags might create behavioural biomarkers for animal ‘state’. Such biomarkers could indicate good health, disease, and injuries as well as positive and negative affective states. Success could have widespread implications for the well-being of numerous species in managed care by optimising welfare practices. This work primarily involved loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, in different states of health at the Arca del Mar rehabilitation centre, Oceanogràfic, Valencia, Spain, however the potential of tags for various aquatic, aerial and terrestrial species is also considered. Initially, the concept of tag-derived behavioural biomarkers for health (TDBBs) was established, examining data from ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ rehabilitating sea turtles to identify potentially useful metrics for specific injuries and/or diseases. Then, potential TDBBs for ‘healthy’ turtles and those with gas emboli were created, with variance in body attitude, number of 45° turns per hour and mean angular velocity per hour showing the most promise to differentiate the two groups. TDBBs were also explored for welfare, giving ‘healthy’ turtles nutritional enrichment, demonstrating that enrichment procedures do not always affect captive animal behaviour. To consider welfare implications of captivity, the movement behaviour of free-living and managed-care loggerheads was compared to determine wild-type and captive behaviour overlap. Findings revealed significant differences in the variance in pitch, heading and absolute angular velocity as well as the number of turns per hour. The final research topic considered trajectory step length data (the distances travelled in between turns), derived from tags deployed on nine wild species, for informing enclosure size for captive animals. The findings revealed that existing enclosure size guidelines regularly only permitted animals to undertake a very small percentage (often less than 3 %) of the step lengths recorded from free-living conspecifics. Last, the potential of TDBBs is reviewed, with limitations and future research discussed. |
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| Keywords: |
Animal behavior, archival tag, animal health assessment, accelerometer, magnetometer, rehabilitation, sea turtles |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |