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Faculty Mentor

Lindsay Mahovetz-Myers, PhD

Faculty Mentor Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated the uniqueness and importance of wild type Southern Cassowary behaviors in relation to their rainforest ecosystem. The primary goal of this observational study was to determine if the behavior exhibited by a Southern Cassowary residing at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens was comparative to the observed behavior of wild Southern Cassowaries. The secondary goal was to observe individual behavioral traits of the focus individual, Brisby. It was hypothesized that Southern Cassowaries residing in captivity would still exhibit stereotypical behaviors similar to those residing in native rainforest habitats and the documented foraging behavior that supports the ecological seed dispersal effect of Southern Cassowaries in their native rainforest habitats. Brisby was monitored using all occurrences with some continuous random sampling of target behaviors on indiscriminate Thursdays. In support of the hypothesis Brisby did exhibit foraging behaviors but did not exhibit agonistic behaviors compared to wild Southern Cassowaries. There was a relationship observed in the behavioral categories, particularly the solitary category, where the greatest number of behaviors were documented. The differences in the time spent and amount performed between behaviors were observed with Brisby spending 53% of his time resting and 12% locomoting around the enclosure. Potential limitations of this study include observer effects and sample size. It is important to understand that animals in captivity are often influenced by surrounding enclosures and stimuli. These future studies should implement other types of behavior sampling such as interval sampling so that larger durations of the day can be observed.

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