When we think about what motivates animals, it can often be similar to what drives us to undertake certain actions. If you’re feeling cold, you seek out a warm space or find an extra layer of clothing, put it on and feel much more comfortable. If you’re feeling hungry, you are driven to find food, cook it and eat it, therefore enjoying the satisfying sensation of satiation.
Lioness uses tree as a scratching post.
Our need to find those elements of contentment come from emotional states such as hunger, discomfort or even pain. These are designed to lead us down a certain pathway which helps us to survive. Animals work in exactly the same way. These motivations come from the brain which controls how we feel and what actions we consequently take. The limbic system can be seen as the emotional process unit, and many animals have equivalent biological structures for processing emotions, including reptiles and fish.
The big difference between motivational matters for humans and animals is that we usually have the agency to choose when and how to respond to these needs, whereas animals in captivity might not always have that option. Agency can be defined as the capacity for an animal to act independently and make their own free choices. This is relevant to welfare because responding to a motivated behaviour is fundamentally rewarding. The ways in which we can give animals under human care more agency and opportunities to respond to their motivational states in their own time can create a shift in animal management towards better welfare outcomes.
Rhino taking a mud bath (Credit: Loek Fernengel)
If we think about a rhino on a hot day, it might be part of an animal carer’s routine to apply mud to the skin of the rhino. This is a great layer of protection against biting insects, and can help the rhino to keep themselves cool. However, if the mud application relies on the keeper’s time schedule, the rhino loses the ability to respond to its own needs. If, instead, there’s a mud wallow in the rhino’s enclosure, or better yet, a choice of different mud wallows, and shelters, it’s not dependent on humans at all. The rhino can respond to their motivational need to look after their skin and thermoregulate effectively by choosing to wallow or seek shade whenever they like, therefore giving them pleasurable feelings, a sense of choice, comfort and control, and most importantly, agency over their own health care.
When it comes to abnormal behaviours, the motivation behind them can also tell us something about the animal’s emotional state. The animal might be experiencing an inability to cope with a stressful or frustrating situation. Quite often this stress might be from an environment which is not providing opportunities for that animal to carry out their strongly motivated behaviours. For example, if we see a bear pacing in a concrete enclosure, it might be that the bear feels motivated to dig but is unable to do so. The frustration behind this can then lead to that abnormal pacing behaviour. If we as animal caretakers attempt to address this issue by simply placing an object in the way of the pacing pathway, we are not addressing the core reason why that behaviour is being exhibited. Until that frustration is alleviated, the pacing will continue. Instead we need to be asking why that animal feels unable to cope and therefore is motivated to perform a stereotypical behaviour. And remember, there may be several factors which can cause stress and abnormal behaviours in captive wildlife.
Bear digging (Credit: Maciekish)
Good animal welfare means providing for an animal’s physical and behavioural needs. Animals feel strongly motivated to express certain behaviours because they will lead to better survival outcomes. If we take our hypothetical bear, we might already be providing a balanced and nutritious diet, but they are still motivated to dig in order to find insects and vegetation to eat, therefore leading to positive outcomes and a feeling of contentment. Good animal care means examining each motivational need that an individual species has and providing them with opportunities to fulfil that need.
As we spoke about in a previous “Lessons in Welfare” blog, choice and control are an important aspect of animal welfare, and one that interacts with ‘motivation’ in significant ways. Providing animals with choices has been shown to improve motivation in many species, and it has been theorised that animals have little motivation to engage in challenges if they have no control over their environment.
In our work with Wild Welfare, we strive to ensure every animal living under human care is able to respond to their motivational needs. We do this by working towards species-appropriate environments being provided for each animal, and ensuring that every individual has the opportunity to respond to their motivational needs in a way which makes sense for them. Exploring the importance of choice, comfort and control with our project partners is intrinsic in driving forward positive changes for animals through their human caretakers. We ourselves are motivated by the animals we meet, and the people who we work with, collaboratively working towards a world where every motivational need can be met.
To explore animal welfare in more depth, check out our animal welfare page or our free to access online learning programme.
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