Crescendo em cativeiro: padrão comportamental exibido por macacos prego juvenis em centros de resgate e zoológicos

Abstract

One of the hypothesis that aim to explain the long period of immaturity of primates relates the long development with the time necessary to overcome these morphological, physiological and social limitations through learning. The captive environment presents physical and cognitive challenges to animals different from that found in natural areas, and adult individuals living in captivity and zoos often have high rates of stress-related behavior when compared to free-living animals. The objective of this study was to describe the behavior of juvenile monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) of different ages (I, II and III) in different captive environments and their relationship with behavior indicative of stress. We tested the hypothesis that the development of these animals is affected by the differences in the physical complexity of the environments. The sample with n = 24 animals (juvenile 1 = 9, juvenile 2 = 9, juvenile 3 = 6 individuals, 17 males and 7 females) came from four behavioral databases already available by IDSS lab. In all cases they were performed focal with continuous or instantaneous records of the behavior of the animals. A total of 12 macro categories were compared and 203.57 observation hours of juvenile behaviors were analyzed. Our results pointed out significant differences between venues in the pattern of eating behaviors, social positive, social negative, inactivity, self-directed BPIS and scratching. We found higher (though not significant) rates of BPIS in more restricted environments. Moreover, juveniles in zoos and animals spent more time inactive and less involved in social interactions. This suggests that environmental restraint seems to cause less stress in juveniles than in adults. However, this type of venue may be detrimental to the practice of skills such as food handling behaviors and social interactions.