Lisa Gordon

Get Homework/Assignment Done

Homeworkping.com

Homework Help

https://www.homeworkping.com/

Research Paper help

https://www.homeworkping.com/

Online Tutoring

https://www.homeworkping.com/

click here for freelancing tutoring sites

Environmental enrichment to improve the welfare of captive birds and fish.

2

Contents page

Page 3- Introduction

Pages 4-9 –Method

Pages 9-14 – Results

Page 14 – Discussion

Page 15 – References and Acknowledgements

3

Introduction

When affronted with any issue concerning animal welfare, most people already hold a strong opinion, it being emphasised on a frequent basis that it irks the general public to hear of mistreatment of captive animals, especially in laboratories. This study was based around the improvement of welfare for the animals in captivity in the University of Glasgow, namely zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and green swordtail fish (Xiphophorus hellerii). Both zebra finches and swordtail fish are widely used in labs all over the world for behavioural studies and research. Despite the fact these birds and fish have been reared in captivity they still have their natural behavioural requirements. These are animals being used solely for un-invasive behavioural studies. The study was split into two smaller projects, the effects of cage colour in zebra finches and the effect of different levels of vegetation in green swordtail fish. The standard cages for animals kept in laboratories are designed mainly for the convenience of humans - u. Usually small and white so that they are easier to clean, with basic food, water, substrate and perches.

Colour is a factor known to affect the behaviour of many different species, from mice (Sherwin & Glen 2003) to chimpanzees and gorillas (Wells, D.L, McDonald C.L and Ringland J.E et al. 2008) to humans (Stone, N.J and & English A.J 1998). It is this factor that has such an effect on mood, satisfaction and performance. White is a colour which most would find stressful, gleaming and clinical; bright and sore on the eyes. These birds would surely thrive better in a cage more attributed to their natural environment. Zebra finches originate in the grasslands and forests of Australia, therefore this project tested how the birds responded to natural colours (grey, green and brown). Zebra finches, when frightened or stressed will go to high perches and sit still, whereas when they are more relaxed they will flit about the cage, eating, drinking and preening their feathers. The project therefore tested how cage colour affected the routine behaviours of the birds, and whether they showed a clear preference for more natural colours over the usual white. the number of perch moves during 2 min. Observations and a spot check of their location every 30 secs will be recorded .

Fish welfare is a factor that is often overlooked due to their allegedly poor memory retention, and lack of appeal. Swordtail fish originate in North and Central America, they live in heavily-vegetated, swift-flowing rivers. The idea behind this aspect of the study was to determine what level of vegetation is best suited to captive swordtail fish and possibly other fish species. When the fish are stressed they franticly swim about the tank, in repetitive sequences. When calm they are more likely to be stationary or at least not moving around as much. The fish’s behaviour, in the form of their position in the tank and current action was therefore tested in relation to the light and vegetation levels in the tank.

4

Method

Bird experiment

Three standard white metal cages measuring 120 x 50 cm and 50 cm high, with ad libitum food, water, substrate and perches were set up, with an equal arrangement on each half of the cage. Each cage had half of its white interior covered by a different colour of card. Three colours of card were chosen in contrast to the clinical white; slate grey (fig 1:) Tiziano pastel paper (Antracite), pale green (fig 2: (Xerox symphony green), or brown (fig 3:) cage tray liner. The card was attached to the roof (48.5 x 50 cm), side (48.5 x 50 cm) and back wall (48.5 x 60 cm) of each half-cage using adhesive “Velcro spots”. These cages were the same in shape, size and design, with similar perches as those in which the birds were normally kept, with the exception of the number of birds sharing a cage; they were also the same as the ones in which the birds had been reared. The perches, food and water were placed equally on both sides, with one high and one low perch on each side.

Fig 1, Slate grey cage

5

Fig 2, brown cage

Fig 3, green cage.

6

The perches used were twist perches; these are a form of enrichment used to build up the foot muscles in the birds. They are only fixed at one end to the bars and therefore bounce when the birds land or take off (fig 4). The taper on the perches ensured that the birds used different muscles in the foot, depending on their position along the perch length.

Fig 4

On each day of recording, three zebra finches of the same sex were randomly chosen from a stock cage in the same room as the treatment cages. Their ring number, sex and cage of origin was recorded. These birds were stock birds and had not been previously used for research purposes; they were bred at the university, and had therefore been reared in those specific cages. One of the three birds was then placed in each of the three test cages and left for ten minutes to settle. After the ten minutes the birds were then observed for thirty minutes in total. During this time a spot check was made every two minutes to record their position and whether they were sitting or standing. Then a 90 s observation was carried out on a specific bird; during this period the number of perch changes and the different behaviours of the bird (e.g. perched, flying, eating, drinking...) were recorded. These 90 s observations rotated between the three birds, so that each bird was observed six times throughout the thirty minute observation period. The birds were observed from another room through a window so that their behaviour was not affected by human presence. This 30 minute observation commenced every day at 2:50pm, when the birds had just been caught, and was then repeated at 11.50 the next morning after the birds had been left overnight. The birds were then returned to their original cages. This process was then repeated every day, with different birds, varying in sex

7

Fish Experiment

Six tanks each with a capacity of nine litres were set up side by side, each with a different treatment (fig. 5, 6 and 7). The tanks each had a filter and a gravel substrate. The variables altered were the light available to the tank and the volume of vegetation. Three tanks had their lids covered with a thin black material in order to create a dark effect; the other three tanks had the normal artificial lighting of the room. The vegetation levels ranged from no vegetation at all to a half cover of vegetation to a full cover of vegetation. Half cover being one half of the tank, in that case the left side, there were 3 artificial plants making it dense with vegetation., f Full cover was when the tanks vegetation was dense throughout. Artificial plants were used so that there was no growth which could have caused inaccuracies due to different levels of plant life, the husbandry of these plants is less demanding than real plants and they are easy to sterilise in the event of the tank being stripped down. Three different type of plants were used, two of each of the three types of plant in the fully covered tank; one of each type of plant in the half covered tank and no plants at all in the bare tank. A card screen was placed between the tanks to prevent interaction between the fish. Another piece of card, divided into eight different zones, was attached to the back of the tank to aid in the measurement of fish position (see below). Zones 1-4 formed the top half of the tank, and zones 5-8 the bottom.

Fig 5. tanks 1 (light and half vegetation) and 2 (dark and no vegetation)

8

Fig.6 tanks 3 (dark and full vegetation) and 4 (light and no vegetation)

Fig 7, tanks 5 (light and full vegetation) and 6 (dark and half vegetation)

At the start of the observations six green swordtail fish, three males and three females, were randomly selected from single-sex stock tanks. They were then kept in two separate holding tanks (one per sex) in the same room when they were not in the treatment tanks. These fish had not previously been used for research purposes. On the first observation day a single fish was placed in each of the six tanks at 10.10 and left for 10 min to give them time to settle. After the ten minutes a 30 min observation was carried out at 10:20am, and again at 3:20pm when the fish had settled and were used to their environment. During observations a record was made every 30 s of the zone each fish was in and what its activity was, categorised as swimming, stationary or foraging. This generated 60 records of the position and behaviour of each fish from each 30 min observation

9

At the end of the second (afternoon) observation the fish were moved to the holding tank and left until the following morning, when they were placed in a different testing tank and the observations repeated. This was continued until all 6 fish had experienced all 6 treatments. They were then replaced with another batch of six fish, which also experienced each treatment.

Results

Zebra Finch ResultsFig. 8. Percentage of time that the zebra finches spent sitting or standing in relation to the colours present in the cage (either white, grey, green or brown).Data presented as mean values + S.E., based on 27 birds observed per treatment.

10

Fig. 8 shows that a higher percentage of time was spent sitting than standing in all of the three treatments, brown having the highest percentage of time sitting and green with the lowest.

Fig. 9. Percentage of time spent on the upper perches in relation to the colours present in

the cage (white, grey, green or brown). Data presented as in Figure 8.

Fig 9. shows that in both the grey and brown treatments a higher percentage of the time that was spent on the upper perches was in the coloured half of the cage, especially grey. In the green treatment the results were the complete opposite, with birds tending to be in the white half of the cage when on the upper perches

11

Fig. 10. Percentage of time spent on the lower perches in relation to the colours present in the cage (white, grey, green or brown). Data presented as in Figure X.

Fig . 10. shows that a much higher percentage of time was spent in the white half of the cage when the birds were on the lower perches in the green and grey cages. Results from the brown cage show that when the birds were on the lower perches they spent almost an equal amount of time in both the coloured and white halves of the cage..

Swordtail Fish Results

Fig. 11. Percentage of time that swordtail fish spent stationary in relation to the plants present in the tank (either full, half or no vegetation) and the level of illumination (dark or light condition). Data presented as mean values + S.E., based on 12 fish observed per treatment.

Figure 11 shows that the fish’s activity was similar in both light and dark conditions for full vegetation, and also for no vegetation. However, there was a large difference between the percentages of time spent stationary in the half-vegetated tank, with fish in the dark, half-vegetated tank spending more time swimming than stationary whereas the pattern was reversed when the tank was well lit.

12

Fig. 12. Percentage of time spent in the top half of the tank in dark conditions. For the half vegetation treatment the data are divided into the percentage of time spent in the open and vegetated parts of the tank (so that the total time spent near the surface is the sum of the two columns). Data presented as in Figure 11.

Fig. 13. Percentage of time spent in the top half of the tank in light conditions. For the half vegetation treatment the data are divided into the percentage of time spent in the open and vegetated parts of the tank (so that the total time spent near the surface is the sum of the two columns). Data presented as in Fig. 11.

13

Figure 12 and 13 show that the fish’s time spent in the top half of the tank was reduced in dark conditions. However for the half-vegetated tank the time spent at the top, in the open was very different, in the dark conditions more time was spent in the open half and in the light conditions more time was spent in the covered half. The percentage of time spent at the top in the fully-vegetated tank decreased slightly between dark and light conditions, with the fish having spent more time at the top in light conditions. There was also a small decrease in time spent in the upper part of the water column between light and dark conditions in the non-vegetated tank.

Fig. 14. Percentage of time spent in the bottom half of the tank in dark conditions. For the half vegetation treatment the data are divided into the percentage of time spent in the open and vegetated parts of the tank (so that the total time spent near the surface is the sum of the two columns). Data presented as in Fig. 11.

14

Fig. 15. Percentage of time spent in the bottom half of the tank in light conditions. For the half vegetation treatment the data are divided into the percentage of time spent in the open and vegetated parts of the tank (so that the total time spent near the surface is the sum of the two columns).Data presented as in Fig. 11.

In both Fig 14 and Fig 15 there was a small difference between light and dark conditions in the time spent in the bottom half of the tank for all three of the treatments. The fully-vegetated and non-vegetated tanks had very similar results for both dark and light conditions. There was a small variation between the results for the half-vegetated results in both dark and light conditions.

Discussion

It can be concluded from the swordtail results that the green swordtail fish spent the most time stationary at the bottom, in the fully-vegetated tanks, but there was little variation between light and dark conditions. A higher percentage of time was spent in the upper water column, in the non-vegetated tanks, especially in light conditions. The results show that a fully-vegetated tank is the preference for this batch of fish. It cannot be concluded whether the fish prefer light or dark conditions in the fully-vegetated tank. Improvements to the standard tank could involve high levels of vegetation with either dark or light conditions. In this experiment, each of the twelve fish were tested in every treatment tank, this increased the reliability of the results as it showed each fish’s reaction to all of the treatments. The results could have increased reliability by using a larger sample size, as 12 is a small number. This study was carried out in a small scale, there is are many more aspects of this study that could be looked at in more detail, such as varying the tank size, also how the vegetation treatment preferences differ with more fish.

It can be concluded from the zebra finch results that the birds spent more time sitting, on the lower perches in the white half of the cage. Also, it should be noted that on the upper perches the birds spent a higher percentage of time in the coloured half. Overall, the birds spent a larger percentage of time in the white half and so it can be concluded that the birds preferred the white half of the cage, this could be a preference for their usual environment as the birds were kept in white cages when not being observed. Improvements to the cage colour do not appear to be necessary, but further testing could be carried out to determine this idea further. When the birds were initially placed the treatment cages, they spent more time on the higher perches. These results could indicate that the birds preferred to be in the coloured half when stressed, but the white half when relaxed. A total of 27 birds were tested, this a relatively small sample size and could be increased to improve the reliability of the results. Based on studies of cage colour preference in mice (Sherwin & Glen 2003), and discussing it with one of my supervisors we came to the conclusion that it is possible that perhaps captive animal’s preference for cage colour can be influenced by the colour of cage

15

that they had been reared in. These Zebra finches had been bred and raised at the University, in the same cages as those that we tested them in, and so it is not possible to tell if any preference for white was due to the birds being more familiar with that colour. This may be the subject of carry this forward for further research in the future.

A lab coat was worn when working with the fish and birds and hands were washed after any contact with the animals. A trolley was used to transport tanks between rooms to ensure that the fish’s stress levels were reduced as much as was possible. All tanks were covered with a lid to prevent fish escaping.

References

Sherwin, C.M. and Glen, E.F. 2003. Cage colour effects of home cage colour on anxiety in laboratory mice. Animal Behaviour, 66, 1085-1092

Wells, D.L, McDonald C.L and Ringland J.E 2008. Colour preferences in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of comparative psychology, 122, 213-219

Stone, N.J and English A.J 1998. Task type, posters, and workspace colour on mood, satisfaction, and performance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 18, 175-185

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Prof. N.B Metcalfe for his help and support throughout the duration of this project. Thanks also to Graham Law for his help with the project and also the handling of the animals. This work was carried out at The University of Glasgow. Thanks to the Nuffield Foundation, especially Francis Chapman. Pictures by Graham Law and myself.