Results

Behaviour

Activity budget

Most displayed behaviours: Resting, Moving, Eating and Alerting

  • Shifu: Resting , Eating and Moving
  • Wanju: Moving, Resting, Self-grooming and Alerting
  • Laya: Moving and Alerting
Activity budgets across all three individuals combined (right column) and for each individual separately
  • Out of sight: 77% of the time
    • Shifu: 66% of the time
    • Wanju: 76% of the time
    • Laya: 89% of the time
Time – Behaviour correlations
  • Most frequently displayed behaviour
    • Resting negatively correlated with time for Shifu and Wanju
  • Cub growth-related behaviours
    • Alerting negatively correlated with time for Wanju
    • Self-grooming negatively correlated with time for Shifu
    • Aggression positively correlated with time for Shifu
Daily hour-by-hour analysis
  • Mostly active:
    • between 9:30 and 10:00
    • between 16:00 and 16:30
Hourly average activity rate across all animals combined

Distance

Most frequently observed distances, respectively: Far, Touching, Close and Very close

  • Between Shifu and Wanju: Far, Close and Very close
  • Between Wanju and Laya: Touching, Far, Very close and Close
  • Between Laya and Shifu: Far, Close, Very close and Touching
Proportions of distances across all three individuals combined (left column) and for each individual separately
Time – Distance correlations
  • Between Wanju and Laya:
    • Far negatively correlated with time
    • Very close positively correlated with time
  • Between Laya and Shifu: Very close positively correlated with time

➥ Wanju and Laya and Laya and Shifu significantly closer over the time

Behaviour Aggression
  • Displayed 15 times:
    • 0 times when Laya and Shifu were Touching
    • 10 times when Laya and Shifu were Very close
    • 2 times when Laya and Shifu were Close
    • 3 times when Laya and Shifu were Far
  • When Laya and Shifu were Touching and Very close: 19% of their behaviours was Aggression
  • Out of all Aggression (across all individuals): 67% occurred when Laya and Shifu were Touching and Very close.
  • Most Aggressions were observed at the end of the 10 week-period
Frequency of Aggression per distance between Laya and Shifu per week

External variables

Public
  • Activity rate significantly higher in the presence of public
  • Shift of the morning peak hour from 9:30-10:00 to 10:30-11:00
Hourly average activity rate with and without public
Temperature
  • Wanju: activity rate negatively correlated with temperature
  • All inter-individual distances: frequency of Very close negatively correlated with temperature
Feeding routine
  • Activity rate significantly higher during the “red panda experience”
  • Behaviours observed 30 minutes prior to the morning meal
    • New: Playing
    • More often observed:
      • Moving +14%
      • Alert +3%
      • Exploratory +2%
      • Food foraging +2%
      • Aggression +1%
  • Out of sight decreased of 31%
Percentage of displayed behaviours 30 minutes before the morning meal during non-red panda experience days and red panda experience ones

Discussion ☞