🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Hosey proposed a conceptual model of how relationships form between zoo animals and the humans around them, distinguishing the effects of unfamiliar visitors from those of familiar keepers. He argued…

Hosey GR · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2008

Clubb and Mason analysed comparative data across 35 carnivore species to ask why some thrive in zoos while others pace and breed poorly. They found that wide-ranging species with large natural home ra…

Clubb R, Mason G · Nature · 2003

Bond and Lindburg compared feeding captive cheetahs whole carcasses against conventional processed diets, assessing both behaviour and oral health. Carcass feeding prolonged feeding time, increased sp…

Bond JC, Lindburg DG · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 1990

A growing body of welfare thinking holds that giving animals control over their environment, the ability to make choices and influence outcomes, is itself a key contributor to good welfare. This overv…

Chemical immobilisation is sometimes unavoidable for examining or treating large carnivores, but it carries welfare and mortality risks and is itself stressful. This overview surveys the welfare consi…

Behaviour offers a rich, non-invasive window into felid welfare, but interpreting it requires care. This overview surveys the behavioural signs used to assess captive cats: stereotypic pacing and rout…

Captive cats fed soft, processed diets commonly develop dental disease such as gingivitis, calculus and tooth fractures, whereas chewing on bone, hide and connective tissue provides natural abrasion a…

Chronic activation of the stress axis can suppress immunity, impair reproduction and contribute to disease, and several captive cat species show evidence of such chronic stress. This overview surveys…

Controlling reproduction is essential for managing captive cat populations within space and genetic limits, but contraceptive methods carry welfare and health considerations. This overview surveys opt…

Cooperative care trains animals through positive reinforcement to participate voluntarily in medical procedures, replacing the stress and risk of immobilisation. This overview surveys how big cats are…

Hung carcasses and bungee-suspended food are used to encourage captive cats to pull, leap and feed in physically demanding, naturalistic ways. This overview surveys studies that pair such feeding enri…

Small, closed captive populations risk losing genetic diversity, raising the chance that deleterious recessive alleles pair up and reduce health, fertility and survival, a phenomenon known as inbreedi…

No single indicator captures welfare reliably, so the field has moved toward integrated assessment combining multiple lines of evidence. This overview surveys how comprehensive welfare evaluation for…

Feeding captive non-domestic cats well requires meeting obligate-carnivore requirements for taurine, arginine, vitamin A, arachidonic acid and appropriate calcium-to-phosphorus ratios, which whole pre…

Individual cats differ consistently in boldness, fearfulness, aggressiveness and sociability, and these stable traits affect welfare, breeding success and how animals respond to husbandry. This overvi…

Operant conditioning with positive reinforcement underpins modern husbandry training, allowing cats to cooperate in shifting, crating, weighing and medical procedures. This overview surveys the learni…

Deciding when a chronically ill or aged big cat's welfare no longer justifies continued life is among the most difficult tasks in captive felid care. This overview surveys structured quality-of-life a…

Familiar keepers occupy a special place in a captive animal's social environment, and the quality of the keeper-animal relationship can influence stress, cooperation and welfare. This overview surveys…

This overview surveys how the presence and behaviour of visitors specifically affect captive cats, a group that frequently responds to crowds with vigilance, hiding or altered activity. It examines st…

Moving cats between institutions for breeding, rescue or management is a recognised acute stressor with welfare implications. This overview surveys the science of felid transport and transfer: the str…

Non-invasive cortisol metabolite monitoring lets keepers test whether husbandry changes actually reduce physiological stress, moving welfare management from intuition to evidence. This overview survey…

Faecal glucocorticoid metabolite monitoring is the workhorse of felid stress research because it avoids the confound of capture and restraint, but it requires species-specific validation to be meaning…

Morgan and Tromborg comprehensively reviewed the environmental factors that stress captive animals, cataloguing sound, light, odour, temperature, substrate, restraint, human presence, predictability a…

Morgan KN, Tromborg CT · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007

Mason, Clubb, Latham and Vickery reviewed the evidence that environmental enrichment reduces stereotypies, and found the picture more nuanced than commonly assumed. Across studies, enrichment often re…

Mason G, Clubb R, Latham N, Vickery S · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007