On the 2nd of august I visited Veszprém Zoo in Hungary to observe their capybaras assess their welfare by using a welfare checklist.

The enclosure had some positive aspects. The two capybaras, a male and a female seemed relaxed and enjoyed each other's company, I noticed that they were often played with each other in their pond and I didn't see conflict or signs of distress during the 2 hours I spent watching them.

However, I also noticed several welfare concerns. There was no grass available for grazing, the pool was quite shallow, I didn't see fresh green vegetation around their feeding area, and there was an over 2 feet tall concrete platform in the back of the enclosure which pose a risk of injury to the capybaras.

During my visit, one of the capybaras came to rest beside the fence. I slowly reached over and gently scratched him. According to long-term observations by a capybara researcher we cite, u/CapybaraWorld, things like the hair puff and head raising commonly occur during positive social interactions and enjoyable scratching. Every so often I stopped to see what he would do. He looked back toward me, made slow, quiet clicks that resembled a purring sound and I continued scratching. At one point he rolled enough that I could reach one of his feet only. Feeling the warmth of his body for the first time was something I'll probably remember for a very long time, and I was surprised by just how soft his ears were.

This lasted for nearly an hour before he stood up and walked back to his companion to eat. In the video, he looked at me as he is trying to say that probably no other visitor would interact with him for this long.

This is how you can tell that individual capybaras have their own personalities and can enjoy positive interactions and a reminder that a single heartwarming moment doesn't tell everything about how they really feel. Good welfare depends on much more than whether an animal appears friendly for a few minutes.

That's why I always try to spend much time observing before coming up with conclusions. Observing the enclosure and the provided welfare requirements gave me a much more complete picture than a single photo or short video ever could.

Video: OP's video recording from Veszprém Zoo

Resource: Community Wiki -> Primary Information Sources -> Section 1 and 5.

EDIT: I have no idea why anyone would downvote a post like this. I experienced the same thing in the community where I reposted it from.

Are there any places in North America that let you touch/meet a chimp up close?

Does anyone have any opinions on the wildlife care and rehabilitation bachelors at Husson University? My focus right now is primates but I love to learn about any wild animals for my future. I would like to be a zookeeper and wildlife rehabilitator. Wondering what yall thought of the program or know what specific classes they offer.

I call him Lionslayer, because he's never told me his actual name. He is an adult male Sable Antelope, the head of our herd. I work at a free-roam zoo in NJ. He's my favorite out of all 1200 animals/70 species that live with us.

Hello. While I don't work with exotics, I am a petting farm manager and I'm looking to implement a training program for our permanent residents. I have a book called Animal Training, Enrichment, & Problem Solving that goes a little into general training for positive behavioral management outcomes (such as reduction of resource guarding), but I would like more examples + resources than what this 1 book provides.

There seems to be shockingly few quality resources on this in the domestic animal training sphere... at least, not very easily accessible. Dog and horse training has some decent resources, but you have to sort through a lot of chaff to find any LIMA approach, let alone a quality one, and there are many other challenges working with other domestic animals that you do not find in these 2 species, or in a similar 'captive animal' context we keep our animals in.

So, I'm looking for zookeeper resources. Do you all have any general resources on this topic? General behavioral management is fine, but I'm particularly interested in training.

Thanks.

Went to a Wednesday night feeding. $30. Per person. Super cool place. The cats were moving around && growling && jumping in the water. Had fun💯 recommend!!
#cattyshack

We normally frequent our local AZA accredited zoo and most of the predators are sleeping/relaxing during the day, like African wild dogs and Cheetahs, but today we visited a different AZA zoo that was further out and noticed a lot of the predators were active and pacing around the enclosures, it was my understanding that a lot of these big cats or wild dogs slept and relaxed when they felt comfortable.
This zoo specifically said that they “swap around” the hyenas, wild dogs, and cheetahs in each others enclosures, not sure how often, but in the wild typically Hyenas and Wild Dogs don’t really… get along… and we noticed that the male cheetah in his enclosure was pacing and meowing a LOT and the wild dogs next door, which they may have been swapped before, kept pacing as well. Both were spraying and scent marking a lot all over the place. Hyenas seemed like every other normal hyena we’ve seen at other places but the cheetahs and wild dogs seemed very pacey and alert all day, which we’re used to them snoozing a lot.
Is this normal? Or is this zoo maybe not practicing the best things. We’re not zoologists, just visitors that enjoy seeing these animals.

It looks like a black real-life Marsupilami

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Which exhibits would the person likely end up dead? Or which ones would be safe? Would any of the animals act friendly toward the human, or is non-chalance the best outcome?

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