Animals Learn!

         Wednesday's class I presented my project to Carlee and Jackie. It went well : ) Some of the feedback I got from Jackie - she wanted to know if South Africans would have a different idea of what a relationship was and how I was accounting for that. Apparently South Africans are a little more abrupt or straightforward - stern perhaps? So maybe they would not be likely to coddle animals. I have no idea what the normal treatment, or even positive treatment, of animals means to South Africans, but it is definitely something to keep in mind. I am sure I will learn how they feel about relationships before my project is done.
       The rest of my journal I'd like to talk about the reading I did for my annotated bibliography. I read from the textbook I will be using for my wildlife behavior course. The chapter I read was about learning and how animals learned. There were three main ways that animals learned or could be taught - single stimulus, Pavlonian, and instrumental. Remember that learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. I am interested - what have the animals learned about living in a zoo? I wonder how many of the zoo's animals are captive bred and how many, if any, came from the wild? Is it hard for the wild animals to adapt and learn about living in a zoo environment. Do animals learn how to have relationships? Looking at the instrumental method of learning, it seems like it would be possible for an animal to learn about relationships. The relationship could be the reward, if the relationship brings kinder, prompter, more good natured care from the zoo keeper. But what actions would be part of the relationship...the animal being more cooperative while being moved or brought to the vet? And how would an outsider like me be able to see or observe an animal learning? Would I be able to tell by just watching that an animal had a positive, caring relationship with a zoo keeper? I guess it is easy to tell from the human side: is the keeper kind, caring, playful with the animal. But how do you tell if the animal reciprocates - I guess I am going to rely on the zoo keeper's opinon a lot - do they think the animal reacts to them in a way that suggest a relationship? I am interested to see how animals learn and encorporate that learning into their lives in the zoo.