The Usefulness of Keeper-Collected Data to Evaluating a Within-Facility Animal Move: A Case Study on a Large Flock of Flamingos

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present study investigated the behavior and enclosure usage of 121 Chilean flamingos at WWT Slimbridge after their move. The results showed that flamingos could settle quickly into a new environment and did not display obvious signs of discomfort. Following are some comments on this manuscript.

 

Abstract: The abstract could be simplified, specifically for the background and methods.

 

L92: The authors indicated 9 people were involved in the observation, which might affect the accuracy of the behavioral data. What was the inter-observer reliability?

 

L103-106: The authors only took a photo for behavioral observation? Can this method be used on other avian species?

 

L124: What was the temperature and humidity during Mar to Jun? What season it was? Any rainy day occurred during the observation? The environment should be introduced.

 

Figure 2: it is suggested to mark the representative behavior for flamingos, like which is feeding and foraging, which is moving, which is preening, which is inactive. The resolution is not clear for clarifying the behaviors.

 

Figure 3: In this study, observations in March only lasted less than 10 days. It can not reflect the time of March. Mar in the x-axis should be modified. Similar in Figure 4.

 

Table 2: The number of visitors should also be briefly showed in the results. The results only showed the influence of visitors present on the behavior. What about the effects of visitor number? One visitor and 20 visitors might cause different influences on the behavior of flamingos.

Author Response

The present study investigated the behavior and enclosure usage of 121 Chilean flamingos at WWT Slimbridge after their move. The results showed that flamingos could settle quickly into a new environment and did not display obvious signs of discomfort. Following are some comments on this manuscript.

Thank you for the feedback and useful comments to help develop this paper. We appreciate the developmental comments provided.

 

Abstract: The abstract could be simplified, specifically for the background and methods.

Thank you for the feedback. We have re-written the start and middle of the abstract, to focus on simplifying the introduction and methodological elements of the abstract. Please see the yellow highlight.

 

L92: The authors indicated 9 people were involved in the observation, which might affect the accuracy of the behavioral data. What was the inter-observer reliability?

Thank you for the comment. We have already covered this in the manuscript. We explain in the Methods that written instruction was provided to all observers, and we further expand on this in the Discussion that a Teams meeting was held with all those collecting data to ensure that instructions were clear and could be followed. We are also transparent in the Discussion that IOR should be conducted in the future, but the speed of this project and the need for data collection to start quickly meant we focussed on pre-data collection training and ethogram explanation – all of this is included in the original draft of the paper. 

 

L103-106: The authors only took a photo for behavioral observation? Can this method be used on other avian species?

Thank you for the comment. We believe that this method could be applied to other species housed in zoos, hence why we have written up our methods so that others could consider adapting to other species and to other questions. This is why we include our recording sheet as an appendix, as others can use this sheet and adapt it for other species. This information is included in the original draft of the paper.

 

L124: What was the temperature and humidity during Mar to Jun? What season it was? Any rainy day occurred during the observation? The environment should be introduced.

Thank you for the comment. We have already included this in the manuscript as a future consideration for a wider and more extensive study. These points for research extension are found at the end of the Discussion in the original manuscript as submitted.

 

Figure 2: it is suggested to mark the representative behavior for flamingos, like which is feeding and foraging, which is moving, which is preening, which is inactive. The resolution is not clear for clarifying the behaviors.

Thank you for the comment. This image is not designed to show the actual behaviours, but the location of the observer for when a photograph (for data collection) was being taken so the reader can see the enclosure and position of the photographer. This is explained in the caption of the original figure.

 

Figure 3: In this study, observations in March only lasted less than 10 days. It can not reflect the time of March. Mar in the x-axis should be modified. Similar in Figure 4.

Thank you for the feedback but we do not understand the reviewer’s comment here. These data, in figures 3 and 4 are proportional (i.e., a mean) to account for the fact that data collection is not equal across each month. We are not presenting total counts because that would be biased to the different number of data points across each month. Hence, there is nothing to edit on the axes of these graphs because the caption states these are mean values per month.

 

Table 2: The number of visitors should also be briefly showed in the results. The results only showed the influence of visitors present on the behavior. What about the effects of visitor number? One visitor and 20 visitors might cause different influences on the behavior of flamingos.

Thank you for the comment. We agree that different numbers of visitors may have more or less of an impact, however we don’t have visitor number, as is clearly explained in the Methods, we just have a “yes/no” for visitor presence. In the original manuscript this limitation is transparently examined and evaluated, and we recommend research extension to unpick this further in the Discussion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses a relevant and practically important issue related to the adaptation of zoo-housed animals to a new environment. A particular strength of the study is the use of keeper-collected data, demonstrating a practical and easily applicable method for behavioural monitoring under real conditions. The results are clearly presented and contribute to a better understanding of flamingo behaviour following environmental change, with potential applicability to other zoological institutions.

My main comment concerns a lack of clarity in the “Materials and Methods” section regarding the period during which the birds were kept indoors prior to being given access to the new enclosure. It is not clear how long this period lasted, whether the birds had visual exposure to the outdoor environment, and to what extent this pre-exposure may have influenced the adaptation process. This interim indoor housing could potentially have reduced stress during the transition, and therefore this aspect would benefit from further clarification and discussion.

     

Author Response

The article addresses a relevant and practically important issue related to the adaptation of zoo-housed animals to a new environment. A particular strength of the study is the use of keeper-collected data, demonstrating a practical and easily applicable method for behavioural monitoring under real conditions. The results are clearly presented and contribute to a better understanding of flamingo behaviour following environmental change, with potential applicability to other zoological institutions.

Thank you for the positive comments on our paper. We are pleased that the paper is considered useful to those managing these species in zoos.

 

My main comment concerns a lack of clarity in the “Materials and Methods” section regarding the period during which the birds were kept indoors prior to being given access to the new enclosure. It is not clear how long this period lasted, whether the birds had visual exposure to the outdoor environment, and to what extent this pre-exposure may have influenced the adaptation process. This interim indoor housing could potentially have reduced stress during the transition, and therefore this aspect would benefit from further clarification and discussion.

Thank you for the useful feedback. We have clarified this in the manuscript. Please see the area of yellow highlighted text at the start of the Methods where this information is now presented, including dimensions of the house and the time period of indoor housing before the birds were allowed outdoor access.

In our Discussion, we already mention the point that indoor housing likely promoted good welfare by enabling the birds time to cope with the first part of their move. This can be found in the first Discussion paragraph of the original paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for this manuscript and for the work presented. The topic addressed is important and often overlooked in zoo management contexts.

My main concern relates to the strength of the conclusions drawn from what is, in essence, a very limited dataset: the interpretation of static behaviour based on a single photograph per day. This represents a significant methodological limitation. While I understand the intent and underlying principles of the approach, I believe that both the discussion and conclusions would benefit from a more cautious and explicitly hypothetical framing.

Even in the paper cited as a reference for this method, images were collected four times per day, which would have provided a richer behavioural dataset than that available in the present study. This difference should be more clearly acknowledged, and its implications discussed.

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for this manuscript and for the work presented. The topic addressed is important and often overlooked in zoo management contexts.

Thank you for the positive feedback on our paper. We are pleased that you see the relevance of this work.

 

My main concern relates to the strength of the conclusions drawn from what is, in essence, a very limited dataset: the interpretation of static behaviour based on a single photograph per day. This represents a significant methodological limitation. While I understand the intent and underlying principles of the approach, I believe that both the discussion and conclusions would benefit from a more cautious and explicitly hypothetical framing.

Thank you for the feedback. We have noted several times in our paper that the dataset is small and that the results are simply a snapshot of what animal care staff saw at 3pm on each day of observation. We have edited our conclusion to ensure that this is clear to the reader (please see the yellow highlighted text). Our existing research extensions and methods development section of the Discussion is framed around a larger dataset captured across more data points.

Alongside, we have added a new paragraph at the start of the “developments and research extensions” section of the Discussion to explicitly state that a lack of behavioural variety will be captured when there is only one data collection point per day. Please see the relevant yellow highlighted text.

 

Even in the paper cited as a reference for this method, images were collected four times per day, which would have provided a richer behavioural dataset than that available in the present study. This difference should be more clearly acknowledged, and its implications discussed.

Thank you for the feedback. We explained in the original draft of this paper that we have only taken data from the same period of time (3pm) in the 2018 paper to compare to this 2024 dataset. We have not compared the whole day of behavioural observations from the 2018 paper, but simply these data collected (as a snapshot) at 3pm – the same approach to this 2024 data. We clearly and transparently explain this in our original draft in the Methods. We have further clarified this in the Results to state that we are only comparing data points collected at this time in the afternoon (please see the yellow highlighted text in this corresponding area of the Results).

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you for clarifying and adding further information to the text. While some of these points may have been present in the previous version, they are now much clearer, particularly for readers without a background in this field.