Chapter 3 Researching Visitors in the Zoo

Feeding live prey to zoo animals: response of zoo visitors in Switzerland.

In summer 2007, with the help of a written questionnaire, the attitudes of more than 400 visitors to the zoological garden of Zurich, Switzerland, toward the idea of feeding live insects to lizards, live fish to otters, and live rabbits to tigers were investigated. The majority of Swiss zoo visitors agreed with the idea of feeding live prey (invertebrates and vertebrates) to zoo animals, both o...

Impact of zoo visitors on the fecal cortisol levels and behavior of an endangered species: Indian blackbuck (Antelope cervicapra L.).

This study investigated behavioral activities (resting, moving, aggressive, social, and reproductive behavior) and fecal cortisol levels in 8 individually identified adult male blackbucks during periods of varying levels of zoo visitors (zero, low, high, and extremely high zoo visitor density). This study also elucidated whether zoo visitor density could disturb nonhuman animal welfare. This st...

Effect of Felid Activity on Zoo Visitor Interest

The extent to which the presence of zoo visitors influences animal behavior, and the ways in which animal activity influences visitor interest and perception, are of great interest to zoological parks. Visitors have been variously characterized as being enriching for zoo animals, as being stressors, and generally as influencing behavior in measurable ways. Most studies have focused on primates,...

The Effect of Zoo Visitors on the Behaviour and Welfare of Zoo Mammals

Measurement of visitors' satisfaction with public zoos in Korea using importance-performance analysis

Understanding the demands and satisfaction levels of zoo visitors becomes indispensable to sustain a flow of visitors in the increasingly competitive tourism market. This research assessed the importance and performance of the service and facilities attributes in order to measure visitor satisfaction using an importance-performance analysis (IPA). Results of the questionnaire survey of 697 visi...