Lincoln Park Zoo

ABSTRACT Animals with disabilities play a vital role in society, offering powerful opportunities for representation and education. However, when their stories are inadequately or inaccurately represented, it can reinforce misconceptions and hinder public understanding of disability. While tools and frameworks exist to guide conversations about people with disabilities, there are no equivalent resources for discussing animals with disabilities. This gap poses a challenge for zoos and aquariums, where staff may work closely with animals who have disabilities but lack inclusive language and approaches to share their stories. To address this, a team of disability scholars and zoo professionals in the US, many of whom have lived experience with congenital or acquired physical or cognitive disabilities, collaborated to develop best practices for framing these conversations based on recommendations from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The adoption of this guide can enhance positive perceptions of animals and people with disabilities. Future work needs to assess how this tool could be used or modified to be more inclusive of an international audience.

Management of zoo animals relies on effective and reliable contraception. Deslorelin acetate implants (Suprelorin®) are routinely used as a contraceptive tool, therapy for reproductive disease, and to mitigate hormonally-based undesirable behaviors. Because this product was developed for use in dogs, the minimal effective dose and duration of action must be extrapolated to other species. Current dose recommendations from the Association of Zoo and Aquariums Reproductive Management Center are based on accumulated data from use in various taxa. The authors developed a novel liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry assay to measure deslorelin in serum; the method was validated for linearity, limits of detection and quantitation, precision, and specificity. This pilot study then evaluated the pharmacokinetics of deslorelin implants in vivo, using female domestic goats (Capra hircus; n = 3) each with a single 9.4-mg subcutaneous implant. Serum samples were analyzed at baseline and 31 designated time points (15 min-360 d) following placement. The average maximum serum concentration (Cmax) for deslorelin was 83 ng/ml, time to Cmax (Tmax) was 1.3 h, and a plateau phase extended from 30 to 360 d. Fecal estrogen and progestagen reflected anovulatory status following deslorelin placement in all three goats. This study demonstrates that the novel assay is able to successfully measure deslorelin acetate in serum, even to a sensitivity of 0.03 ng/ml. This study lays the foundation for future research regarding dosage recommendations for deslorelin implants in other species.

A surfactant is often present in a pharmaceutical formulationandcan accelerate the crystallization of the active component. We investigatethe effects of two common surfactants with different hydrophilic–lipophilicbalance, Span 80 and Tween 80, on the crystallization of posaconazole(POS) in its two polymorphic forms (I and II). At 0–10 wt %,the two surfactants similarly increase the growth rates of both polymorphs,but have different effects on their nucleation rates, without exhibitingthe proportional-modification behavior observed for many other amorphoussystems. The classical nucleation theory (CNT) can quantitativelydescribe the nucleation kinetics in the pure POS melt and in the surfactant-dopedmelts, where the surfactants are treated as ideal diluents of POS.The two surfactants’ effects on the nucleation rate form asingle trend in the CNT analysis, yielding the nucleus/liquid interfacialtension σ = 0.019 J/m2 for Form I and 0.012 J/m2 for Form II. The σ value of 0.019 J/m2 forForm I nucleating from a doped melt exceeds that for nucleating froma pure melt (0.012 J/m2), possibly reflecting a greaterstructural difference between a chemically pure crystal and an impuremelt. This work has provided a strong test of the CNT by applyingit to both pure and doped melts where the crystallization drivingforce is varied through temperature in the pure system and throughconcentration in the doped system, and yielded a simple picture fortwo chemically distinct surfactants on the crystallization in a polymorphicsystem.

Giraffes are one of the most commonly housed megafauna in zoos. Variation across zoos (e.g., geographic location, housing, and husbandry), may be expected to influence giraffe behavior. However, past studies have typically focused on a small number of zoos, limiting generalizable conclusions. Here, we expand upon a recent report on the behavior patterns of zoo-housed giraffes to evaluate the influence of several factors on giraffe behavior. Data were recorded on 66 individuals housed across 18 zoos over a one-year period (n = 8,330 10-min observation sessions). Generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze influences on the following behaviors: browsing, extractive foraging, other feeding, ruminating, oral stereotypies, inactive, and locomotion. Behaviors were first compared across outdoor and indoor housing conditions, then models were built for each behavior and housing condition to evaluate how multiple factors influenced behavior: organizational (habitat size, herd size, presence of public feeding opportunities); environmental (temperature, weather); temporal (time of day); and individual (age, sex). Behavioral differences between outdoor and indoor conditions were observed but were minimal. Overall, environmental and temporal factors influenced giraffe behavior the most, but all factors significantly influenced at least one behavior. Several findings are relevant for giraffe management. For example, giraffes living at zoos with public feeding opportunities spent less time browsing, more time in other feeding behaviors, and showed a trend of increased inactivity, suggesting these programs may negatively influence giraffe behavior. Oral stereotypies were negatively correlated with the time spent browsing or extractive foraging and temperature. This supports husbandry efforts to increase natural foraging behaviors in giraffes and highlights the need to better understand thermal comfort. The amount of outdoor space available was not associated with the time spent locomoting, countering common assumptions. Overall, these findings can begin to inform management decisions and guide additional investigations to identify specific, evidence-based husbandry recommendations.

Circadian rhythms are a mechanism by which species adapt to environmental variability and fundamental to understanding species behavior. However, we lack data and a standardized framework to accurately assess and compare temporal activity for species during rapid ecological change. Through a global network representing 38 countries, we leveraged 8.9 million mammalian observations to create a library of 14,587 standardized diel activity estimates for 445 species. We found that less than half the species' estimates were in agreement with diel classifications from the reference literature and that species commonly used more than one diel classification. Species diel activity was highly plastic when exposed to anthropogenic change. Furthermore, body size and distributional extent were strongly associated with whether a species is diurnal or nocturnal. Our findings provide essential knowledge of species behavior in an era of rapid global change and suggest the need for a new, quantitative framework that defines diel activity logically and consistently while capturing species plasticity.

Interpreting animal behavior in the context of welfare can be inherently challenging given the limited behavior data available for many species housed in zoos. Describing common behavior patterns may help animal managers by providing additional background when assessing the individuals in their care. Although valuable, these efforts require a large, collaborative approach and have, consequently, been rare. Here, we share the behavior patterns of zoo-housed giraffes, an iconic and commonly housed megafauna in zoos. Behavior data were evaluated for 66 giraffes living across 18 AZA-accredited zoos using the ZooMonitor Community platform. Data were recorded during 10-minute observation sessions. Observations were conducted during daytime hours over the course of approximately one year at each zoo (mean total observed time per individual = 23.2 hr). The most common behaviors observed were feeding/ foraging behaviors, which accounted for 38.6% of the mean visible time budget across giraffes. Time spent in these behaviors varied by individual and ranged from 14.3% to 69.3% of visible time. Stereotypic behaviors occurred in all study individuals, with oral stereotypic behaviors being most common. Although prevalent, stereotypic behaviors varied considerably across giraffes, with some individuals exhibiting these behaviors only on a few occasions to an individual that exhibited these behaviors once every few minutes. This study provides a robust evaluation of giraffe behavior across zoos to present a picture of their common behavior patterns in managed care. We hope these multi-institutional behavior patterns can provide perspective to aid animal managers in evaluating giraffes in their care.

While there is increasing recognition that social processes in cities like gentrification have ecological consequences, we lack nuanced understanding of the ways gentrification affects urban biodiversity. We analyzed a large camera trap dataset of mammals (>500 g) to evaluate how gentrification impacts species richness and community composition across 23 US cities. After controlling for the negative effect of impervious cover, gentrified parts of cities had the highest mammal species richness. Change in community composition was associated with gentrification in a few cities, which were mostly located along the West Coast. At the species level, roughly half (11 of 21 mammals) had higher occupancy in gentrified parts of a city, especially when impervious cover was low. Our results indicate that the impacts of gentrification extend to nonhuman animals, which provides further evidence that some aspects of nature in cities, such as wildlife, are chronically inaccessible to marginalized human populations.

Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) facilities closed to the public. Resulting cost-saving and safety measures led some facilities to temporarily cease or reduce animal breeding and/or transfers. We surveyed AZA facilities and Species Survival Plan® (SSP) Coordinators for AZA's cooperative population management programs to evaluate how widespread these decisions were, if impacts varied by taxa, and how the AZA community navigated related challenges during the pandemic. We found that 60% of responding facilities did not suspend breeding and 22% did not suspend transfers. About 50% of responding zoos increased their reliance on ground transportation to move animals, while aquariums reported no change to transportation methods. SSP Coordinators reported the main reason why breeding decreased, regardless of taxa, was due to canceled or delayed transfers. The reasons transfers decreased differed by taxa, such as limited financial resources and lack of access to air transportation. The majority of respondents for both surveys stated transfers were the greatest challenge they faced. To address this, facilities utilized alternative transportation methods and worked closely with nearby zoos and aquariums for the movement of animals, while SSP Coordinators issued alternative transfer recommendations. If another pandemic or other widespread facility closure occurs, our research highlights the importance of communication, collaboration, and flexibility to fulfill breeding and transfer recommendations to maintain sustainable zoo and aquarium populations.

How animals use the diel period (24-h light-dark cycle) is of fundamental importance to understand their niche. While ecological and evolutionary literature abound with discussion of diel phenotypes (e.g. diurnal, nocturnal, crepuscular, cathemeral), they lack clear and explicit quantitative definitions. As such, inference can be confounded when evaluating hypotheses of animal diel niche switching or plasticity across studies because researchers may be operating under different definitions of diel phenotypes. We propose quantitative definitions of diel phenotypes using four alternative hypothesis sets (maximizing, traditional, general and selection) aimed at achieving different objectives. Each hypothesis set is composed of mutually exclusive hypotheses defined based on the activity probabilities in the three fundamental periods of light availability (twilight, daytime and night-time). We develop a Bayesian modelling framework that compares diel phenotype hypotheses using Bayes factors and estimates model parameters using a multinomial model with linear inequality constraints. Model comparison, parameter estimation and visualizing results can be done in the Diel.Niche R package. A simplified R Shiny web application is also available. We provide extensive simulation results to guide researchers on the power to discriminate among hypotheses for a range of sample sizes (10-1280). We also work through several examples of using data to make inferences on diel activity, and include online vignettes on how to use the Diel.Niche package. We demonstrate how our modelling framework complements other analyses, such as circular kernel density estimators and animal movement modelling. Our aim is to encourage standardization of the language of diel activity and bridge conceptual frameworks and hypotheses in diel research with data and models. Lastly, we hope more research focuses on the ecological and conservation importance of understanding how animals use diel time.