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Ce titre, inspiré d’une citation d’Isidore de Séville, évêque et encyclopédiste du viie siècle, révèle assez bien les éléments de la question que nous soulevons. Une différence doit être faite entre regarder les animaux et les observer. Dans le premier cas, tout un chacun peut s’y consacrer, tels les amateurs les plus éclairés donnant une description précise des comportements qu’ils ont vus. Dans cette catégorie, nous retrouvons certains auteurs anciens que nous allons évoquer. Observer les a...

Environmental enrichment is a common tool used in zoo and aquarium settings to provide mental and physical stimulation to animals under human care. This paper aims to present a primary approach to goal-oriented environmental and behavioural enrichment following a simplified version of the SPIDER method for a diverse range of aquarium-housed species. The aim of the proposed goal-oriented environmental-enrichment programme is to stimulate behavioural diversity by providing controlled stimuli. This programme is easy to implement and can be used by animal care staff; it encompasses an easy evaluation form for daily monitoring and seeks to increase species-specific behavioural diversity. It is suggested that environmental enrichment programmes should be designed for the benefit of animal welfare; understanding how they affect animals under human care is essential to take informed decisions about which behaviours or situations to stimulate. An environmental enrichment protocol was developed which considers the ethology and biology of the species under consideration prior to implementation. Specific goals (i.e., behaviours and/or actions) were assigned to particular stimuli (enrichment devices) and the efficacy of the enrichment devices were assessed by reporting on the reactions of the animals. Over time, this protocol has made it possible to define a validated catalogue of enrichment devices for which specific goals and expected reactions are consistent. The increased behavioural diversity achieved with this programme is providing aquatic species with the choice to display species-specific behaviours.

Supplementary Figure S1, and supplementary tables S1-S7

International audience; Sperm whales live in the matrilineal population structure based on complex social interactions. Groups of 10-20 adult females stay together and raise their offspring. During social activities, they emit specific patterned time sequences of clicks, called codas. These codas are also the social unit acoustic signature. However, no associations were already done between these emitted sounds and behaviours. To answer this question, we used a dataset including simultaneous video and acoustic recordings during sperm whale activities close to the sea surface. In 2017 and 2018, 114 days of observations for 25h33min was done. A total of 1,810 behaviours and of 1,324 codas were extracted. We analyzed their internal structures, based of number of clicks and also the variation of inter-click intervals. Results showed firstly that the 8-clicks codas were the most frequent sequences for this social unit, and secondly that codas seems to be call and contact signals for this haptic species.

Plus aucune science ne peut penser les animaux à elle seule, ni prétendre pouvoir faire le tour de la question : pour mieux lire les animaux, il faut croiser les sciences. C’est devenu une évidence entre les différentes sciences de la nature, où des croisements ont déjà donné naissance à des hybrides devenus disciplines à part entière, telle l’écologie comportementale ; c’est aussi vrai entre les sciences humaines, qui ont investi, depuis quelques décennies, le versant humain des relations avec les animaux. Cet ouvrage propose un troisième croisement, novateur, difficile, car peu pensé, peu usité, entre les sciences dites « de la nature » et les sciences dites « humaines ». Il s’agit de montrer que les questions, les concepts et les méthodes de ces dernières peuvent apporter beaucoup à la connaissance des animaux eux-mêmes, à l’étude de leurs capacités qui sont de plus en plus reconnues comme étant riches et complexes. Il y a profit – et donc un besoin – à croiser les sciences de la vie – génétique, physiologie, éthologie, écologie, neurosciences – avec les sciences de l’homme – archéozoologie, histoire de l’art, histoire, littérature, anthropologie, sociologie, ethnologie – pour décrypter, saisir et penser davantage les animaux – en somme, passer sur le versant animal. Rassemblant des spécialistes de ces disciplines, ce livre s’adresse aux archéologues, aux historiens, aux géographes, aux littéraires, aux anthropologues, aux sociologues, aux philosophes, comme aux généticiens, aux zoologues, aux éthologues, aux écologues, aux vétérinaires. Et aux passionnés d’animaux.

Exploratory behaviour includes all the actions that an animal performs to obtain information about a new object, environment or individual through using its different senses of perception. Here, we studied the development of the exploratory behaviour of a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) calf aged from 39 to 169 days, by investigating its acoustic productions in relation to an immerged object handled by a familiar human without isolation from its original social group. The study was conducted between July 2015 and January 2016 at Parc Asterix dolphinarium (Plailly, France). Simultaneous audio and video recordings were collected using a waterproof 360° audio-video system named BaBeL which allows localization of the dolphin that is producing sounds. During 32 recordings sessions, for a total duration of 6 hours 55 minutes of audio-video recordings, 46 click trains were attached to individual dolphins: 18 times to the calf, 11 times to its mother and 17 times to another dolphin in the pool. When comparing the calf’s acoustical production to its mother’s, no significant differences were found in their click rate, mean click duration, or mean interclick interval (ICI). However, linear regression showed that calf’s click rate increased with age and mean ICI decreased with age, probably due to an increase in its arousal. This non-intrusive methodology allows the description and analysis of acoustic signal parameters and acoustic exploratory behaviour of a dolphin calf within its social group.

International audience; Bottlenose dolphins are highly social cetaceans with an extensive sound production including clicks, burst-pulsed sounds, and whistles. Some whistles, known as signature whistles, are individually specific. These acoustic signatures are commonly described as being emitted in contexts of stress during forced isolation and as group cohesion calls. Interactions between humans and captive dolphins is largely based on positive reinforcement conditioning within several training/feeding sessions per day. Vocal behavior of dolphins during these interactions might vary. To investigate this, we recorded 10 bottlenose dolphins of Parc Asterix dolphinarium (France) before, during and after 10 training sessions for a total duration of 7 hr and 32 min. We detected 3,272 whistles with 2,884 presenting a quality good enough to be categorized. We created a catalog of whistle types by visual categorization verified by five naive judges (Fleiss' Kappa Test). We then applied the SIGID method to identify the signatures whistles present in our recordings. We found 279 whistles belonging to one of the four identified signature whistle types. The remaining 2,605 were classified as non-signature whistles. The non-signature whistles emission rate was higher during and after the training sessions than before. Emission rate of three signature whistles types significantly increased afterwards as compared to before the training sessions. We suggest that dolphins use their signature whistles when they return to their intraspecific social interactions succeeding scheduled and human-organized training sessions. More observations are needed to make conclusions about the function of signature whistles in relation to training sessions. Zoo Biol. 35:495-504, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

International audience