Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:

  1. Recognize the meaning of, and be able to record, various types of body. language in zoo animals.
  2. Be aware of instinctive and learned zoo animal behavior.
  3. Be able to apply this knowledge for the safety of both keepers and animals.

Enabling Objectives:

  1. Be able to describe the difference between psychology and ethology.
  2. Understand the difference between instinct and learned behavior.
  3. Recognize the role of specific releasers in triggering particular behavior patterns.
  4. Look for and be able to recognize displacement activity and vacuum activity in zoo species.
  5. Be aware of how habituation of zoo species can make your work safer.
  6. Appreciate that among social species a distress call by one member may elicit attack by other members of the group.
  7. Be sensitive to the ways territories are defended.
  8. Be cognizant of and know how critical distance, breeding behavior and feeding behavior can impact your contact with zoo species.
  9. Recognize such innate forms of behavior as kinesis, taxes, instinct, reflexes and fixed action patterns and be aware of their survival value to organisms.
  10. Be aware of such learned behavior as imprinting, habituation, classical and operant conditioning, experience and insight or reasoning and know how these may influence your working with zoo animals.
  11. Recognize categories of behavior you might use in recording animal behavior.
  12. Be able to interpret animal's body language for representative species.
  13. Be aware of the tendency of certain territorial behavior patterns and know when they develop.
  14. Understand predator-prey relationships and how this knowledge can assist you in working with predators.
  15. Understand the benefits of social rank in some species groups.