Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

The Visitor Effect on Zoo Animals: Implications and Opportunities for Zoo Animal Welfare

"Chimpanzees are smart and incredibly strong.
From the people I knew decades ago at the zoo who were the primate division including the chimp show, they said that the chimps could be loving and brilliant but would never have one for a pet because even back then they said no matter how friendly they were to you, they could turn in an instant and wipe your face off your skull."

Your 'they don't like white' observation makes sense too.

2019 Jun; 9(6): 366.
Published online 2019 Jun 17. doi: 10.3390/ani9060366
PMCID: PMC6617010
PMID: 31212968

Sally L. Sherwen1,2,* and Paul H. Hemsworth2

[...]

...This paper reviews the literature on the implications and potential opportunities of human-zoo animal interactions on animal behaviour and welfare, with the aim of stimulating interest, understanding and exploration of this important subject. The literature to date presents a mixed range of findings on the topic. It is possible this variation in the responses of zoo animals to visitors may be due to species-specific differences, the nature and intensity of the visitor interactions, enclosure design, and individual animal characteristics. Analysing these studies and better understanding animal preferences and motivations can provide insight into what animals find negatively and positively reinforcing in terms of visitor contact in a specific zoo setting. This understanding can then be applied to either safeguard welfare in cases where visitors can have a negative impact, or, conversely, it can be applied to highlight opportunities to encourage animal-visitor interaction in situations where animals experience positive emotions associated with visitor interaction.

Keywords: zoo animal welfare, animal behaviour, visitor effects, human-animal relationships, stress physiology

Go to:

1. Introduction

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617010/

Didn't know you had been involved with a zoo, too.