Visitor behaviours and visitor effects: a case study on the white-crowned mangabey (cercocebus atys lunulatus) of ZSL London Zoo

Tese de mestrado em Antropologia, especialização natureza e conservação

One of the problems that zoos have to deal with at the present time concerns the human-animal relationship. This is a complex matter that emerges from the conjuncture in which contemporary zoos find themselves. One aspect of such problem emerge from the conflicts that may occur according to the zoos’ main aims: on one hand, the welfare and successful reproduction of (endangered) animal species is top priority; and, on the other hand, the satisfaction and entertainment of the zoo visitor is a crucial goal. The contentious is that what may benefit the public not always is the best for the animals, and the other way around. Considering the philosophical argument of Tsing (1995 in Mullin, 1999: 214), that “our views of nature are not a simple reflection of our valued standards and ideals: our observations of non-humans present continual challenges to our cultural agendas that require new inflections and transpositions of our cultural sense”; we intend to grasp this potential conflict by carrying out a case study trough the scope of the “Visitor Effects” studies. Therefore, through the study of the relation between the white-crowned mangabeys and the visitors at the ZSL London Zoo, we intend to understand what are the implications of the visitors to this primate species. This introduction is mainly divided into three parts. In the first, a briefly historical account of the human-nature dualism and zoo’s development will be presented to take into consideration the ways in which the visitor-animal relationship have been conceived so far in zoo policies. The visitor-animal relationship will then be considered within academic research, where it will be given particular attention to the “Visitor Effects” studies. It will be succinctly focused how visitors are conceptualised in, and what are the limits of, this field of studies, as well as it will be considered the problems that emerge in the visitor-animal relationship pointed by such studies. By examining these matters, our object of study is therefore contextualised and so, in the end of the second part, we will explain in more detail the aims of our research. To finish, the non-human primate focused on this research will be presented – the white-crowned mangabey – attaining to its taxonomy, ecology, social behaviour, conservation status as well as the “Visitor Effect” studies regarding this specific primate species.