ABSTRACT

Rehabilitant Malayan sun bears often remain in captivity for long periods of time and may experience significant welfare challenges including disability and persistent lip lesions. This study aimed to investigate whether short-term observations of behavior such as oral stereotypies are useful as noninvasive indicators of lip lesion pain, and whether behavior differs between able-bodied and disabled bears. Observations were collected from 21 captive, rehabilitant Malayan sun bears, of both sexes, a range of ages, and with lip lesions ranging in severity. Some also had disabilities.

Oral stereotypy frequency was unrelated to lip lesion severity (p > 0.05), and no relationships with other behaviors were found; however, visual disabilities had significant effects on behavior. For example, visually disabled bears walked more than able-bodied bears (p = 0.003) or those with physical disabilities (p = 0.01). Further research on the feeding behavior of bears suffering from lip lesions may elucidate other potential behavioral indicators of pain. Researching effects of visual disabilities in bears with a larger sample size is also recommended to determine generalizable impacts in affected individuals and resulting welfare implications.

摘要

康复的马来亚太阳熊经常被圈养很长时间，可能会遇到重大的福利挑战，包括残疾和持续的唇部损伤。本研究旨在调查对行为（如口腔刻板印象）的短期观察是否可用作唇部病变疼痛的非侵入性指标，以及身体健全的熊和残疾的熊的行为是否不同。从 21 只圈养的、康复的马来亚太阳熊身上收集了观察结果，这些马来熊不分性别、不同年龄，唇部病变严重程度不等。有些人也有残疾。

口腔刻板印象频率与唇部病变严重程度无关（p > 0.05），且与其他行为无关；然而，视觉障碍对行为有显着影响。例如，视力残疾的熊比身体健全的熊 (p = 0.003) 或身体残疾的熊 (p = 0.01) 走得更多。对患有唇部病变的熊的进食行为的进一步研究可能会阐明其他潜在的疼痛行为指标。还建议用更大的样本量研究熊的视觉障碍的影响，以确定对受影响个体的普遍影响和由此产生的福利影响。