Primates: Provide cut branches (browse)

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    70%
  • Certainty
    50%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

  • One replicated, before-and-after study in the Netherlands and Germany found that when presented with stinging nettles captive gorillas used the same processing skills as wild gorillas to forage.

 

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A replicated, before-and-after study in 2006 at three zoos in the Netherlands and Germany (Tennie et al. 2008) found that western lowland gorillas Gorilla gorilla gorilla, presented with stinging nettles Urtica dioica, used the same processing skills as wild mountain gorillas, Gorilla beringei beringei. Eight of nine captive western lowland gorillas gathered and processed leaves before eating them (just as wild mountain gorillas do). A captive gorilla with no experience of nettles gathered and processed leaves 32% of the time and omitted the process stage 59% of the time. As a comparison, captive gorillas given willow plant Salix sp., omitted the process stage 79% of the time and 17% of the time ate the leaves as soon as the willow was obtained. Leaves were offered either inside or as a scatter feed outside. Sixty-eight hours of video contained 296 behavioural sequences of nettle feeding from nine gorillas and 176 behavioural sequences of willow feeding from 11 gorillas.    (CJ)

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Jonas, C.S., Timbrell, L.L., Young, F., Petrovan, S.O., Bowkett, A.E. & Smith, R.K. (2020) Management of Captive Animals. Pages 527-553 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

All the journals searched for all synopses

Management of Captive Animals

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Management of Captive Animals
Management of Captive Animals

Management of Captive Animals - Published 2018

Captive Animal Synopsis

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