Hey UGAINers,
The topic for the meeting this week is on the Pros and Cons of Pet Clothing!
Our social media director and co-event coordinator, Daniella Citton will be talking about the different types of clothing options, as well as the advantages and disadvantages. We will also look at some of the advancements being made in pet clothing.
The meeting will be on November 16th from 6-7pm on Microsoft Teams! As always the meeting link can be found in our bio. Hope to see you there 🐶🐴🐈
March Photo Contest Submission
Midterms got me like...
trying to make it through feeling like I just got neutered
Submitted by Cass Bridge
Polar Bear Stereotypic Behaviour
For those of you in Animal Welfare, you'll remember Dr. Duncan talking about stereotypic behaviours that can be seen in many zoo animals. (For those of you not, they're behaviours that animals will do over and over again usually due to boredom, hunger, pain, etc. It's kind of like OCD in animals.)
The other day, I was at the Toronto Zoo and actually witnessed some of those behaviours! Here's a video of a polar bear repeating the same movements over and over again (although it's not the best quality...). I watch him do them for about 10 min and then we left, but after returning about 4hrs later, he was still doing them! Although disturbing, I also found it a bit interesting... I probably never would've known what these movements really meant had I not extensively learned about the welfare of animals. The other people watching him kind of realized that he was a bit upset, but probably didn't really understand why...
I was told that a likely reason why he performs these movements is because, since he was bottle-fed as a cub, he longs for interaction with humans and pretty much just wants to play with the people watching him. I wonder if he would do the same segments if there were no humans watching him...
I think that the distress that this bear was showing really solidifies how important it is to really take into consideration how the means by which an animal is raised in captivity will effect its welfare later in life. Unfortunately, the polar bear cub currently at the Toronto zoo is also being hand raised, however it's because the previous litter was actually killed by their mother. Although having the cub raised by humans may be the best thing to do for now, it's heartbreaking to think that the cub may start to show the same kind of stereotypic behaviours as its father.
