The Northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) (NBI) is one of the most threatened birds in the world. Intense conservation efforts have been undertaken and several research projects on the species are being done in Morocco and in Europe. Observing animal behaviour has been proved to be an efficient and non-invasive technique to assess the animal welfare, with the performance of a wide array of natural behaviours being one of the mostly used indicators of good mental and physical well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate the behaviour of a flock of 14 zoo-living NBI of different ages. The study focused on the variety of species-specific individual and social behaviours, in the light of reintroduction of the study juveniles in the wild. Per subject, 20 10-min. sessions were done. A continuous focal animal sampling method was used to collect individual and social behaviours. Behavioural data have been compared between adults and juveniles. Moreover, a Behavioural Variety Index (BVI) has been proposed and calculated based on previous literature describing natural ibis behaviours. The BVI might help in the evaluation of the variety of behaviours performed by each individual and the monitoring of the diversity of the behavioural repertoire of zoo animals. Our results showed that the birds performed species-specific behaviours and no abnormal behaviour was reported. Moreover, the BVI highlighted a good behavioural variety as each bird performed approximately 78% of the natural behaviours described in the Northern bald ibis and in close relative species. Our findings seem to suggest the presence of qualitative and quantitative similarities between the behavioural repertoires of the study ibises and those described in wild conspecifics, suggesting a good welfare of the colony. Finally, the BVI proposed in the current study seems to be a useful and practical tool to test behavioural diversity in zoo animals.

Asymmetries in the maternal behaviour and anatomy might play an important role in the development of primate manual lateralization. In particular, early life asymmetries in mother’s and infant’s behaviour have been suggested to be associated with the development of the hand preference of the offspring. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of behavioural asymmetries in different behavioural categories of mother-infant dyads of zoo-living Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus). The study subjects were 14 Barbary macaques involved in seven mother-infant dyads housed in Parco Natura Viva, Italy. For the mothers, bouts of hand preference for maternal cradling and infant retrieval were collected. For the infants, we focused on nipple preference and hand preference for clinging on mother ventrum. Moreover, we collected bouts of hand preference for food reaching in both groups. No significant group-level bias was found for any of the behavioural categories in either mothers or infants. However, at the individual level, six out of seven mothers showed a significant cradling bias, three toward the right hand and three toward the left hand. Moreover, all infants showed a significant nipple preference, six toward the mother’s right nipple, one toward the left nipple. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between the infant nipple preference and their hand preference for food reaching, suggesting that maternal environment rather than behaviour might affect the development of hand preference in Old World monkeys. Our findings seem partially to add to previous literature on perceptual lateralization in different species of non-primate mammals, reporting a lateral bias in mother-infant interactions. Given the incongruences between our study and previous research in great apes and humans, our results seem to suggest possible phylogenetic differences in the lateralization of mothers and infants within the Primates order.

We examined wider society’s ability to achieve biodiversity conservation and management targets using lemurs as a case study. We evaluated the impact on lemur conservation in situ by conservation initiatives led by European zoos in Madagascar exploring the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria’s Conservation Database projects in terms of performed actions and achieved goals as well as communication to the public. We found that zoo-led conservation initiatives may have a positive impact on the ground and tend to achieve most conservation goals related to wild lemurs. However, we suggest that such conservation programmes should underline that they target further lemur species beyond the flagship charismatic species and that enhanced communication efforts would be beneficial to further raise public awareness.