Does the absence of zoo visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic impact Gorilla behavior?

Whether or not primates are behaviorally affected by the presence of visitors in a zoo setting is a question of great relevance to zoo animal well-being. The situation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic provided an unusual opportunity to examine how the absence of visitors impacts behavior. We took advantage of this opportunity to study the behavior of a gorilla troop during periods of no-visitors compared to our long-term database on gorilla behavior during normal zoo operations. While there were notable individual differences in response to visitors, we found no significant relationship between presence of visitors and behavior. These results suggest that the presence of visitors does not have a significant impact on behavior and well-being of zoo-housed gorillas.

Special Issue: One health. (Special Issue: One health.)

This special issue consists of 17 papers dealing with issues animal health (captive and wild primates), environmental health (rain forests and mountain areas), and human health (the role of religion in One Health, lessons from the Hanuman langur (Semnopithecus entellus) and other human-non-human primate interactions,and Covid-19).

Public concern for animal welfare and its correlation with ethical ideologies after Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China

The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents a major public health challenge and a serious threat to sustainable social development. A consideration of animal welfare is clearly justified, given the potential contribution of animals to the spread of the disease. The present study, therefore, sought to investigate the concern the Chinese people have for animal welfare (PCAW) and how their 'ethical ideology' (idealism and relativism) determines PCAW after COVID-19, through comparison with the same study, carried out in China in 2015. Our results demonstrated a significant improvement in Chinese PCAW after COVID-19. The adverse impact of COVID-19 may have resulted in a lowered idealism score and this decreased score served to neutralise significant correlations between idealism and PCAW, compared to the 2015 results. The global pandemic did not increase people's relativism score and a significant correlation was found between relativism and PCAW. Gender, age, educational level, public perception of animals after COVID-19, zoo and aquarium visiting were all shown to be predictor variables for PCAW. This study is one of the first to investigate Chinese PCAW after COVID-19 and can therefore provide knowledge that will potentially increase Chinese PCAW.

The dynamics of the first wave of COVID-19 on environment and wildlife– a boon or a bane?

Even though COVID-19 has drastically weighed upon the humankind, still there is a "silver lining" to see in this dark time. Amidst of this pandemic, most of the human activities were restricted to break the chain of infection which resulted the remarkable change in nature. It has been reported that due to halt in air travel, reduction in the use of fossil fuels, way less functioning of vehicles, shutdown of industries has complied the change in air pollution levels and also change in river water quality. Reports also showed the reduction in particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10), greenhouse gases emissions, massive improvement in the Air quality index (AQI), reduction in the NOX and SOX's levelhas clearly stipulated that nature has got it's time to "revive". Even the global carbon emission has reported to reduced reluctantly which is expected to be the biggest such drop since World War II. Despite conducting water-cleansing projects and spending a lot of money, the situation of the water bodies were far better now during first lockdown. Moreover, migration and breeding of the birds and animals have been reported to be restored to normal pattern due to depletion in man-animal conflict. Apart from the positive, negative impacts on the nature are also being experienced. Our review work is highlighting such impacts witnessed during the first wave of COVID-19, like, the significant improvement in air and water quality, reduction in environmental noise, therefore an in turn cleaner and quieter habitat for the wildlife to mate and also to quench their curiosities by their surprising excursions;but there are also some negative aspects as well, like reduction in recycling and the increase in waste, increased poaching and even lone shuttering of zoo animals.

Deployment of Wireless Sensor Network and IoT Platform to Implement an Intelligent Animal Monitoring System

This study aimed to realize Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., no poverty, zero hunger, and sustainable cities and communities through the implementation of an intelligent cattle-monitoring system to enhance dairy production. Livestock industries in developing countries lack the technology that can directly impact meat and dairy products, where human resources are a major factor. This study proposed a novel, cost-effective, smart dairy-monitoring system by implementing intelligent wireless sensor nodes, the Internet of Things (IoT), and a Node-Micro controller Unit (Node-MCU). The proposed system comprises three modules, including an intelligent environmental parameter regularization system, a cow collar (equipped with a temperature sensor, a GPS module to locate the animal, and a stethoscope to update the heart rate), and an automatic water-filling unit for drinking water. Furthermore, a novel IoT-based front end has been developed to take data from prescribed modules and maintain a separate database for further analysis. The presented Wireless Sensor Nodes (WSNs) can intelligently determine the case of any instability in environmental parameters. Moreover, the cow collar is designed to obtain precise values of the temperature, heart rate, and accurate location of the animal. Additionally, auto-notification to the concerned party is a valuable addition developed in the cow collar design. It employed a plug-and-play design to provide ease in implementation. Moreover, automation reduces human intervention, hence labor costs are decreased when a farm has hundreds of animals. The proposed system also increases the production of dairy and meat products by improving animal health via the regularization of the environment and automated food and watering. The current study represents a comprehensive comparative analysis of the proposed implementation with the existing systems that validate the novelty of this work. This implementation can be further stretched for other applications, i.e., smart monitoring of zoo animals and poultry.

A world in forced pause: human relationships with other animals for global welfare

According to physics principles, any action produces a reaction and generates consequences. Under this premise, it is essential to reflect on the actions we have in our relationships with other animals in current times. Our actions always bring implications, in many cases, affecting the welfare of animals, humans, or the planet. A unique virus, COVID-19, caused a pandemic, with more than 50 million cases in 188 countries as of November 2020. Evidence indicates its spread was a consequence of the human relationship with wild animals used for marketing and consumption, generating radical changes in social and economic dynamics, and significantly impacting animals. The lockdowns slowed down daily life, forced stop using vehicles, and reduce our excessive consumption of things. In just a few months, nature has shown that fauna can return to places where it had not been present for decades, the water cleared, the air cleaned, and a kind of natural balance returned. During the forced human quarantine, the outlook for production animals showed the fragility and low resilience of high-density industrialized systems. The excess of animals in contrast to the low number of processing plants (large in size, and therefore fragile when facing a problem like this) resulted in the emergency slaughter of millions of animals on farms. In the case of companion animals, they have suffered collateral damage due to conscious or involuntary relinquishment due to cities' surprise closures;additionally, humans' constant presence at home has generated multiple behavioral problems. For animals in zoos, the situation is also difficult, as visitors' absence reduced incomes;it has put many zoos around the world at risk of closure. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on animal, environmental, and human welfare is clear. Hence, the objective is to analyze the impact of the pandemic on global welfare.

Exploring the Effect of the COVID-19 Zoo Closure Period on Flamingo Behaviour and Enclosure Use at Two Institutions

Simple Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread closures of zoos, which afforded an opportunity to compare the behaviour of two species of flamingo at two zoos between a period of visitor absence to a period of normal visitor presence. We found that the behaviours performed and the enclosure areas used by the flamingos were consistent over time, indicating that the return of visitors did not unduly alarm the birds. One of the flamingo flocks showed minor changes in some behaviours but these effects were explained by analysis of weather influences on flamingo behaviour and visitor numbers. The constant interaction with zookeepers and the gradual opening to visitors are likely to have positively influenced the birds' behaviour and responses to the zoos' re-openings. Visitors can influence the behaviour of zoo animals through their auditory and visual presence, with mixed findings of negative, neutral, and positive effects on welfare. This study opportunistically utilised the UK-wide COVID-19 period of zoo closure to investigate the activity and enclosure usage of Greater (Phoenicopterus roseus) and Chilean (P. chilensis) Flamingos housed at two zoos. Flamingo behaviour at both sites was observed during the last week of a three-month closure period and the immediate reopening of the zoos. Photographic data were collected at three timepoints during each observation day. Negative binomial GLMMs compared the behaviour observed during zoo closure to the behaviour observed during zoo reopening, whilst accounting for climatic variables and time of day. Spearman's correlation identified relationships between behaviour with the number of visitors and weather. Greater Flamingos were not influenced by the reintroduction of visitors to the zoo setting. Chilean Flamingos showed an increase in inactivity and decrease in movement and feeding when the zoo reopened. These possible behavioural responses are better explained by the influence of temperature on the behaviour of Chilean Flamingos and by the correlation between temperature and visitor number, rather than a direct consequence of visitor presence. This research details the multifactorial nature of any potential anthropogenic effects on zoo animal behaviour and highlights the importance of considering environmental variables alongside the measurement of visitor presence or absence. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Birds (2673-6004) is the property of MDPI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Animal reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2: calculable COVID-19 risk for older adults from animal to human transmission.

The current COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the highly contagious respiratory pathogen SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), has already claimed close to three million lives. SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic disease: it emerged from a bat reservoir and it can infect a number of agricultural and companion animal species. SARS-CoV-2 can cause respiratory and intestinal infections, and potentially systemic multi-organ disease, in both humans and animals. The risk for severe illness and death with COVID-19 significantly increases with age, with older adults at highest risk. To combat the pandemic and protect the most susceptible group of older adults, understanding the human-animal interface and its relevance to disease transmission is vitally important. Currently high infection numbers are being sustained via human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Yet, identifying potential animal reservoirs and potential vectors of the disease will contribute to stronger risk assessment strategies. In this review, the current information about SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals and the potential spread of SARS-CoV-2 to humans through contact with domestic animals (including dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters), agricultural animals (e.g., farmed minks), laboratory animals, wild animals (e.g., deer mice), and zoo animals (felines, non-human primates) are discussed with a special focus on reducing mortality in older adults.

Investigating the Presence of SARS CoV-2 in Free-Living and Captive Animals.

Due to SARS CoV-2 recombination rates, number of infected people and recent reports of environmental contamination, the possibility of SARS CoV-2 transmission to animals can be expected. We tested samples of dominant free-living and captive wildlife species in Croatia for the presence of anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies and viral RNA. In total, from June 2020 until February 2021, we tested blood, muscle extract and fecal samples of 422 free-living wild boars (Sus scrofa), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and jackals (Canis aureus); blood and cloacal swabs of 111 yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis) and fecal samples of 32 zoo animals. A commercially available ELISA (ID.Vet, France) and as a confirmatory test, a surrogate virus neutralization test (sVNT; GenScript, Netherlands) were used. Fecal samples were tested for the presence of viral RNA by a real-time RT-PCR protocol. Fifteen out of 533 (2.8%) positive ELISA results were detected; in wild boars (3.9%), red foxes (2.9%) and jackals (4.6%). However, the positive findings were not confirmed by sVNT. No viral RNA was found. In conclusion, no spillover occurred within the investigated period (second COVID-19 wave). However, further investigation is needed, especially regarding wildlife sample features for serological tests.

Evidence for SARS-CoV-2 Infection of Animal Hosts.

COVID-19 is the first known pandemic caused by a coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which is the third virus in the family Coronaviridae to cause fatal infections in humans after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Animals are involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. This review summarizes the role of animals as reservoirs, natural hosts and experimental models. SARS-CoV-2 originated from animal reservoir, most likely bats and/or pangolins. Anthroponotic transmission has been reported in cats, dogs, tigers, lions and minks. As of now, there is no a strong evidence for natural animal-to-human transmission or sustained animal-to-animal transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Experimental infections conducted by several research groups have shown that monkeys, hamsters, ferrets, cats, tree shrews, transgenic mice and fruit bats were permissive, while dogs, pigs and poultry were resistant. There is an urgent need to understand the zoonotic potential of different viruses in animals, particularly in bats, before they transmit to humans. Vaccines or antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 should be evaluated not only for humans, but also for the protection of companion animals (particularly cats) and susceptible zoo and farm animals.