Cheetahs: Home Sweet Home
Posted at 3:42 pm October 27, 2008 by Ria BonerConstruction has come to an end over at one of the Wild Animal Park’s off-exhibit research station, and the dust has settled to reveal our brand-new iguana barn! It is a wonderful building with iguana rooms complete with heated floors so these desert-dwelling reptiles can feel right at home. A few more electric connections are needed but we should have our iguanas move in by the end of the year! So how are the cheetahs I call the “Q-boys” doing now that the commotion has settled down? (See Ria’s previous blog, Cheetah News on the Two ‘Q’s.)
It turns out that these brothers are no ‘fraidy cats when it comes to construction. After reviewing their cortisol levels, which increase during times of fear or stress, neither cat had consistently higher levels during the building of the barn. The cheetah keepers keep a log of possible stressful situations, and we did notice a few cortisol peaks that corresponded with certain spooky events. For example, when M’bari the lion moved to the research center, his roaring on the first day gave the cheetahs a bit of a fright and noticeable peaks in their cortisol levels. Another peak corresponded with tree trimming right around and above the Quint and Quando’s enclosure. Looks like the keepers are good at predicting what might scare a cheetah! That’s great, because they can then make husbandry decisions that keep these cats happy as can be!
The one thing we did notice about these cheetahs is that on noisier days the Q-boys did prefer to spend more time in the back of the enclosure, further away from the construction. Also, the cats tended to walk around less on loud days than they did on quiet days. Different animals have different ways of expressing stress, and while the Q-boys weren’t hiding under the bed (like you might expect from your cat at home), they did show subtle responses to the presence of construction noise. However, by using behavioral and hormonal information together, it looks like these cheetahs were not overly bothered by construction. Hopefully they can keep their courage for this Halloween!
Thanks again for reading my blogs from this summer! The San Diego Zoo’s Summer Fellows Program has been a wonderful experience through which I have learned so much. I look forward to using what I’ve learned to further contribute to wildlife conservation, and I am currently applying for doctoral programs to various schools to further contribute to the field of behavioral biology. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our research and that you continue your interest in conservation biology!
Ria Boner is a Neeper Summer Intern in the San Diego Zoo’s Behavioral Biology Division.
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October 27th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Rita, thank you so much for keeping us up to date on the Q’s. They certainly are laid-back boys to show such slight reactions to the construction and other noises. (Tho I think all our cortisol levels would rise significantly if a lion were suddenly to roar in, say, our back yards!).
All the very best of luck and happiness in your future education and career!