Zoochosis

There are over 10.000 Zoos in the world, in captivity, animals faces a number of challenges which 4,5 billion years of evolution did not prepare them for. The environment can sometimes lead to an animal feeling, bored, frustrated and stressed.
Historically, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to emphasize the study of animal psychopathologies as models for human mental illnesses.

The book, titled "Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves" by Laurel Braitman, gives a deep-dive look into the minds of disturbed animals -- how they suffer, and how they recover.
Though the focus of the book is on the emotional life humans share in common with animals – both in madness and in healing -- it's a good reminder of the behaviors we see all the time in animals that are an indicator of mental health problems, whether we realize it or not.

Due to this, they can develop a stereotypic behavoir that becomes compulsiv and unnatural, called zoochosis.



Laurel Braitman ( Animal Madess ) - Amazon
Animal psychopathology - Wikipedia

a reply to: tikbalang

May I ask what you would like to do about this recurrent problem in world zoos please? Your feeback would be appreciated.

The majority of world zoos over the past 20 years have made an EXTREME effort to protect endangered species (sadly steroetypical captivity behaviour is one of the issues that has to be tackled when working with endangered or non endangered wild animals)...

What do you want... Endangered species being totally wiped out by poachers and al... or the majority of SERIOUS zoos who involve themselves in wildlife preservation projects who are trying to make sure that those endangered species are there to be eventually released back into the wild (under protected circumstances) so that our future generations can see that we tried to fix what we screwed up over the past 100 to 300 years?

I have over 30 years now as a veterinary officer working with animal behaviour (especially primates) in captive and non captive situations... It is NOT easy I can tell you... Research has been going on (especially over the last 20 years) in order to find a solution for captive endangered species of all exotic and non exotic animals... we are getting there slowly but surely...

Linky winky :

www.scientificamerican.com...

and this :

www.theguardian.com...

and ESPECIALLY this :

endangeredspecies.about.com...


Kindest respects

Lags

a reply to: Lagomorphe

If we need to keep animals in a zoo to protect them from going extinct, then the problem isnt with the wild animals.

Ive seen programs like ICF, SNF, where they raise the animals towards the animal kingdom. If the Zoo has a breeding program towards the wild and uses the revenue to it and not profit you have a program.

I talked to a man who offered a program where they offered poaching, i was mad, angried, furious until i heard him say;" The animals they are poaching are the same who would be killed in the wild, i cant stop poaching.
But if i get 100.000 dollars for a sick and dying wild animal, I can use that money for the breeding program.
People will not offer money or donate anything unless its a ( win win ) situation.
The hunters has funded us with a breeding program, is it morally wrong? Yes, but this is the only solution that works without any ideals. I work with reality not a fantasy.

I looked at him, it felt so wrong to admit he was right. The right choices may not always be the ones closest to the heart.

a reply to: Lagomorphe

I once saw a big frigging gorilla at the zoo, at first i was exited, i have never seen one before... BUT

As soon as i gazed upon him (not it) i started too feel sick, ashamed and guilty, i felt like he had been kidnapped, all freedom stolen.

The feeling did not go away when i saw all the tigers walking against a wall, like a broken thing, a robot.

Zoos are for making a profit, end of story.

If some animal is unpopular or you can not turn it to cash or a handbag- Extinction it is then.