Padrão comportamental de adultos e filhotes de papagaios-do-mangue (Amazona amazonica, Linnaeus 1766) em reabilitação no Centro de Triagem e Reabilitação de Animais Silvestres (CETRAS-Tangara)

Abstract

Parrots are among the birds most targeted by the trafficking of wild animals. Therefore, they are among the groups most received at the Wild Animal Screening and Rehabilitation Centers, where they usually arrive as young or, when adults, after many years of captivity. Therefore, the rehabilitation process of these animals involves multiple stages within which behavioural assessment is crucial in identifying dysfunctional behaviours and verifying the acquisition of behavioural behaviours essential for survival. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the behavioural pattern of the Amazona amazonica (Orange-winged parrot) species received and kept at the Pernambuco Wild Animal Screening Center Tangara in rehabilitation for release. Specifically, we described the ethogram of the animals, compared the behaviour of adults and infants and described the vocal repertoire of infants. Two observation methods were adopted to obtain behavioural data from the animals: ad libitum (to prepare the initial ethogram) and Sweep (to obtain the behavioural budget). For each method, we had 30h of sampling effort for adults and infants. We conducted 30 hours of recording to obtain the vocal repertoire of the young parrots. We used an AudioMoth 1.1.0 passive recorder. The recordings were manually analyzed in the Raven PRO 1.6.0 program to collect the vocal parameters of each type of sound. In total, 55 behaviours were identified and organized into 11 categories, of which 48 were observed in infants and 36 in adults. Three of the 11 behavioural categories (Perched, Maintenance and Feeding) were the most frequently observed in both groups, corresponding to more than 50% of their behavioural budgets. The relative frequency of the categories did not vary depending on the time of day or any interference factor (e.g., presence of a keeper), except for the Maintenance category in the adult group. We identified 20 acoustic signals emitted by the infants, whose harmonics of greater intensity occurred in the fundamental harmonic. All the variables used were important to differentiate between the vocalizations of parrot chicks, and about 70% of the vocalizations were correctly classified. Our behavioural results can contribute to assessing animals undergoing rehabilitation, identifying their needs and helping to define rehabilitation techniques and procedures aimed at their needs (physical, social, food, etc.). Regarding vocalization data, we showed a rich repertoire for infants and suggest that further studies should be carried out focusing on adults to compare these repertoires.