Anthropology Professor and Graduate Student Publish Article on Sun Bear Enrichment

March 11, 2022

A sun bear tries to extract food from a log, one of the enrichment devices

A sun bear interacts with honey-log level 3 enrichment device — Pagi the Malayan sun bear interacts with the
level 3 honey-log Level 3 enrichment device
(Photo by: Steven Gotz)

Dr Karin E Jaffe, Professor of Anthropology and Associate Dean of the School of Social Sciences, recently co-authored an article in the journal Applied Animal Welfare Science with Yasmeen Ghavamian (2020 graduate of the SSU Biology graduate program and current Ph.D. student in Animal Biology at UC Davis), and Darren Minier (Executive Director at California Wolf Center).

Sun bear interacts with PVC level 3 enrichment device — Pagi the Malayan sun bear interacts with the
level 3 PVC cross-hatch enrichment device
(Photo by: Steven Gotz)

The paper, titled “Effects of complex feeding enrichment on the behavior of captive Malayan sun bears (Helarctos malayanus)” examines whether providing complex feeding enrichment devices decreased the duration of stereotypic behavior, such as pacing, and increased interaction with enrichment for three adult female sun bears at Oakland Zoo. Providing complex enrichment decreased the duration of stereotypic behavior when compared to baseline. This research indicates that enrichment many have a positive influence on the behavior of captive bears, which are prone to stereotypic behavior when housed in captivity.

This research will also be presented at the 14th annual North American Regional Meeting of the International Society of Applied Ethology at UC Davis in April 2022.

Dr. Jaffe is also co-author of two other recently published articles on animal welfare. Learn more about the social networks of hamadryas baboons.