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Page 5 Teachers may use for classroom support without further permission. Student Activities: 4th Grade Activity Sheet: Learn about West Nile Virus The students will answer “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why” questions by researching how Bronx Zoo veterinarian Dr. Tracy McNamara discovered that zoo animals and wild birds were dying from the same disease that was infecting people in New York. 5th Grade Activity Sheet: A Dog Named Triumph The students write a story that shares what happened to Triumph the dog using the information available at www.triumphthedog.net/. 6th Grade Activity Sheet: How Research Helps Fight Cancer The students enter the phrase “cancer research” into an online search engine and create persuasive essays on what is being done to reduce cancer deaths or eliminate the cause of a particular type of cancer. Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle Activity Sheet: The students will demonstrate knowledge of the vocabulary words by correctly solving a crossword puzzle using the definitions of each. Comparative analyses of longevity and senescence reveal variable survival benefits of living in zoos across mammals MorganeTidière1, Jean-MichelGaillard1, Vérane Berger1, DennisW. H. Müller2, Laurie Bingaman Lackey3, OlivierGimenez4, Marcus Clauss5 & Jean-François Lemaître1 While it is commonly believed that animals live longer in zoos than in the wild, this assumption has rarely been tested. We compared four survival metrics (longevity, baseline mortality, onset of senescence and rate of senescence) between both sexes of free-ranging and zoo populations of more than 50 mammal species. We found that mammals from zoo populations generally lived longer than their wild counterparts (84% of species). The effect was most notable in species with a faster pace of life (i.e. a short life span, high reproductive rate and high mortality in the wild) because zoos evidently offer protection against a number of relevant conditions like predation, intraspecific competition and diseases. Species with a slower pace of life (i.e. a long life span, low reproduction rate and low mortality in the wild) benefit less from captivity in terms of longevity; in such species, there is probably less potential for a reduction in mortality. These findings provide a first general explanation about the different magnitude of zoo environment benefits among mammalian species, and thereby highlight the effort that is needed to improve captive conditions for slow-living species that are particularly susceptible to extinction in the wild. Zoological gardens represent artificial environments in which animals are maintained, bred and displayed. By doing so, zoos achieve a diversity of goals beyond their visitors’ recreation: basic zoological and conservation education reaches 700 million visitors per year all over the world1 . Continuing research and expertise building by many thousands of zoo staff worldwide continuously improves knowledge of animal, population and ecosystem management. Zoos also aim to maintain viable ex situ insurance populations of endangered species that can be used for re-introduction to the wild2,3. Zoo staff manages and generates funding for in situ conservation projects1,4. Finally, zoos facilitate opportunities for researchers to increase expertise in a large variety of areas, from basic zoology to applied husbandry and molecular biology. When assessing the justification of holding nondomestic species in zoos, the welfare of the individual animals housed in captivity is a critical ethical issue that has to be weighed against these aims5 . There is no single proxy to measure the welfare of animals. Indicators typically employed include measures of survival (such as longevity, annual survival, or ageing rate), reproduction (such as fertility or litter size), physiology (such as stress hormones or the occurrence of specific diseases) and behavior (such as stereotypies)5,6. It is typically believed that zoo animals live longer than their free-ranging conspecifics due to the consistent provision of food, water, and shelter from harsh climates, the absence of predation and management to minimize violent intraspecific encounters and accidents, as well as veterinary prophylactic and therapeutic intervention. However, zoo animals may be subject to behavioral deficits6 . While an increasing number of comparative studies have demonstrated species-specific differences in the response to zoo-conditions7–9, and a few species-specific comparisons of survival metrics between free-ranging and captive specimens have been published10,11, large-scale inter-specific comparisons of captive and 1Université de Lyon, F-69000, Lyon; Université Lyon 1; CNRS, UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, F-69622, Villeurbanne, France. 2 Zoologischer Garten Halle GmbH, Fasanenstr. 5a, 06114 Halle (Saale), Germany. 3 World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), Gland, Switzerland. 4 UMR 5175, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, campus CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France. 5Clinic for Zoo Animals, Exotic Pets and Wildlife, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 260, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. Correspondence and requests for materials
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