The Effect Of Living Condition On Social Behaviours Of Male Cerver Nippon

We used focal—animal sampling and behaviour sampling method，the maledeer behaviour of partu+rition sika deer(Cerver nippon)in the diferent feeding conditions.Keeping the captive condition and wild environment often vary widely,the most prominent difference is that the activity space for animals is limited.Space constraints for normal behavior will have a negative impact on behaviour development.In this study we set male Sika deer as object to discussed the differences in the ehogram and activity time budget as well as other aspects between house-hold and semi-captive condition. The experiment started in June2012, in Deer world theme park of Huairou District in Beijing. The focal animal sampling and continuous recording method were employed to record the daytime behaviourof male deer in semi-captive environment and housed-hould condition.Exploringthe elastic characteristic of behaviour in both,we found rich behaviour types offeeding, moving, alert, estrus and mating behavior in larger space.Non-parametric analysis of variance were used to test the differences of diurnal time budget and activities frequecy in both place.The results showed that:during the non-mating period there was no significant difference in time budget of the main behaviours,while the male deer in house-hold performed the maintenance behaviour suchas ruminating,observing and stereotypy behaviour with higher time duration thanthose in semi-nature condidition,the semi-nature male expressed more moving than house-hold did. The house-hold male displayed higher frequency with self-groomimg and stereotypy behaviour, but lower amicable contacting behaviour than counterpart.In rutting season,house-hold deer spent much time in observing and stereotypy behaviour,while the resting and moving behaviour were significantly lessthan what of semi-nature did. More frequent staring, gland marking chasing female and post-copulatory guarding behaviour were found in semi-nature but house-hold male showed stronger amicable contacting,mud-bathing,self-grooming,and stereotypy behaviour than the counterpart.