The effects of personality of keepers and tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) on their behaviour in an interactive zoo exhibit

Personalities can be determined for individual animals from their distinctive patterns of behaviour, providing that they are consistent across time and situations. Although there have been no previous studies of the role of personality in keeper:tiger interactions in zoos/wildlife parks, previous research has determined that cat personality can be reliably assessed from their attributed feelings in social interactions. We asked tiger keepers to rate the personality of their tigers from a list of adjectives, and they consistently used terms relating to three domains representing extroversion, agreeableness and youthfulness. These did not correlate well with simple records of tiger behaviour taken over a short period of time. However, self assessed keeper personalities correlated well with keeper behaviour during interactions with the tigers, which mainly involved intercepting fighting tigers, clapping their hands to elicit a change in behaviour and pushing them to make them move. It is concluded that keeper, but not tiger, personality has strong connections to the interactive behaviour between the two in an interactive zoo exhibit. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.