While recent work has assessed how environmental and managerial changes influence elephant welfare across multiple zoos, few studies have addressed the effects of management changes within a single institution. In this paper, we examine how management changes related to social structure and diet affect the behavior of a group of zoo elephants over a 23-month period while also considering underlying factors, such as time of day, hormonal cycle, and individual differences. We recorded individual behaviors using 2-min scan samples during 60-min sessions. We analyzed behavioral changes across several study variables using generalized linear mixed models. We found that increasing browse can improve opportunities for foraging throughout the day but may not be sufficient to reduce repetitive behaviors. We observed that increasing group size and integration of bulls with cows can lead to increased social interaction in African elephants. Our results highlight the importance of using multiple management alterations to address elephant welfare, and considering environmental factors, when making management decisions.

中文翻译：

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增加浏览和社会复杂性可以改善动物园大象的福利

虽然最近的工作评估了环境和管理变化如何影响多个动物园的大象福利，但很少有研究涉及单个机构内管理变化的影响。在本文中，我们研究了与社会结构和饮食相关的管理变化如何影响一群动物园大象在 23 个月内的行为，同时还考虑了潜在因素，例如一天中的时间、荷尔蒙周期和个体差异。我们在 60 分钟的会议期间使用 2 分钟的扫描样本记录了个人行为。我们使用广义线性混合模型分析了多个研究变量的行为变化。我们发现增加浏览量可以增加全天觅食的机会，但可能不足以减少重复行为。我们观察到，增加群体规模和公牛与母牛的融合会导致非洲大象的社交互动增加。我们的结果强调了在做出管理决策时使用多种管理变更来解决大象福利问题并考虑环境因素的重要性。