Host: Primate Society of Japan
Name : The Congress Primate Society of Japan
Number : 34
Location : [in Japanese]
Date : July 13, 2018 - July 15, 2018
The lesser slow lorises are targets of various types of anthropogenic activities. Illegal pet trade is one of the biggest reasons of decline of this species and illegal smuggling is sometimes found in Japan. For these reasons, there are many confiscated lorises in Japanese zoos under impoverished conditions. Therefore, improvements in captive care of this species has become an important field of study. Previous works have reported that female same sex social groups have lower success rates, thus we intended to trial social housing with surplus females in a more enriched environment with close monitoring to avoid any potential problems. We documented activity budgets, postural and social behavior in six rescued female pygmy lorises moving from small individual cages (0.3m3) to more enriched, larger (16m3), social housing at Japan Monkey Centre. Daily 10-minute focal sessions for each female were taken from August 2017- March 2018 before and after group formations (106 hr.). To measure proximity, we divided the enclosure into quadrants: Far (>3m), Close (<1m), Social (arms-reach), and Nesting (sharing nest). We found that all individuals preferred to spend their time close to each other (X2= 18.0879, df = 3, p = 0.004). Moving time decreased significantly in the enriched social housing condition (V = 0, N = 6, p = 0.03), but no effect on other activities. Finally, postural behaviors did not vary, but quadrupedal postures decreased and sitting postures increased, posture frequently used while social grooming. Our findings might contribute to captive management and improvements on animal welfare concerns by documenting the success of female same sex groups.
