Interactions among environmental enrichment,viewing crowds,and zoo chimpanzees (Pantroglodytes)

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not a group of zoo chimpanzees responded to environmental enrichment differently given higher weekend crowds in contrast to lower weekday crowds. Findings showed that foraging, feeding, and object-using were more likely with new enrichment; conversely, grooming, playing, watch-idle, and aberrant behaviors were more likely with 1 day-old enrichment. Across both new and 1 day-old enrichment, however, high crowds corresponded with diminished frequencies of foraging, object-using, grooming, and play. The study's second purpose was to examine how zoo visitors responded to chimpanzees under varying conditions of environmental enrichment. Analysis of zoo visitors' verbatim responses suggested that the public's behavior was influenced by desires to interact with the chimpanzees, the state of the chimpanzees' habitat, the relative complexity of the chimpanzees' activities, and human sociocultural norms. Thus a variety of contextual factors were found to influence the behavior of chimpanzees and humans alike. Future research is encouraged that investigates the ways in which multiple elements within the full captive socioecology of chimpanzees fluidly interact to influence the effectiveness of environmental enrichment as well as zoo visitors' responses to, and lasting impressions of, zoo chimpanzees. Zoo Biol 17:211–230, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.