They’re Used To It! But How Would We Know?

<p>We pay attention to what animals can see, touch, eat, climb on, move toward, and move away from. But what about sound?</p><p><br></p><p>A newly published review examined research on human-generated noise and zoo animal welfare. The findings do not give us a simple rule that noise is always harmful. They do raise an important question:</p><p><br></p><p>What changes in an animal's behavior when the acoustic environment changes?</p><p><br></p><p>I'll talk about how sound may affect behaviors such as alertness, resting, foraging, social interaction, hiding, enclosure use, and participation in training.</p><p><br></p><p>We'll also look at why saying an animal is “used to it” doesn't tell us very much unless we're actually observing and measuring behavior. </p>