Measuring Animal Personality for Use in Population Management in Zoos: Suggested Methods and Rationale
- 1 March 2011
- journal article
- editorial
- Published by Wiley in Zoo Biology
- Vol. 31 (1), 1-12
- https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.20379
Abstract
The concept that animals have personalities is gaining traction in the scientific community and is well established in zoos and aquariums. Applying knowledge of animal personalities has occurred more slowly and is most often only considered informally. However, animal personalities are likely to affect the welfare animals experience in captivity and thus should be of primary concern to zoo managers. In addition, animal personality likely affects the outcomes of zoo guest experiences and potentially guests' conservation-related behavior. With over 1,000,000 animals in the care of zoos internationally and hundreds of millions of visitors annually, it would be prudent and beneficial to maximize our use of animal personality data in zoos to effect positive conservation outcomes. Understanding how to broaden population planning techniques to include measures of animal personality and the important outcomes of welfare and education value is of prime importance to the zoo industry. In order to succeed, it is necessary to employ techniques that reliably assess animal personalities and provide measures that can easily be used in population planning models. We discuss the outcomes of recent workshops designed to determine the best techniques for measuring animal personalities in the zoo setting with the goal of incorporating personality into population planning. Zoo Biol 31:1;–12, 2012.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Rating vs. coding in animal personality researchZoo Biology, 2010
- Novel Environmental Enrichment May Provide a Tool for Rapid Assessment of Animal Personality: A Case Study With Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 2008
- Behavioral monitoring in zoos and aquariums: a tool for guiding husbandry and directing researchZoo Biology, 2008
- Integrating animal temperament within ecology and evolutionBiological Reviews, 2007
- A cross‐setting study of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) personality structure and development: zoological parks and Yerkes National Primate Research CenterAmerican Journal of Primatology, 2007
- The international personality item pool and the future of public-domain personality measuresJournal of Research in Personality, 2006
- The Ecology of Individuals: Incidence and Implications of Individual SpecializationThe American Naturalist, 2003
- From mice to men: What can we learn about personality from animal research?Psychological Bulletin, 2001
- Personality dimensions in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).Journal of Comparative Psychology, 1998
- Exhibit Design and Visitor BehaviorEnvironment and Behavior, 1988