I have always found it interesting how some animals in certain zoos perform stereotypical behavior. I guess the cause is lack of mental stimulation. However, I found it weird that some animals do perform it, while others don't. I volunteer at Haugaland zoo where we have a clouded leopard. This hasn't shown any signs of stereotypical behavior, even though we don't give it much additional enrichment. What makes some perform it, while others don't? Is space a key factor? Nearby animals?
This is a factor that is still not entirely understood and which varies with individual animals, their housing and their husbandry routines. Feeding animals at random times and allowing them to find scattered food versus eating from a bowl reduces pacing, as does giving the animal the ability to choose from multiple exhibit areas to spend its day or night, like an outdoor yard or a barn, rather than being at the will of their caretakers. Stereotyping, particularly pacing - which is the biggest one for cats usually - is best documented in animals which are bored, kept in enclosures that do not keep them enriched or which provide insufficient space. However, pacing can also occur not from boredom but excitement or anticipation. This is seen with animals which are kept on regular routines where they know a door will open at a certain time to let them move to another area they want to go, or that at so and so time, a nice meal will be slid into their cage under the door. So pacing is not, by itself, inherently negative - it can be the release of a buildup of energy prior to something the animal is looking forward to. Cheetahs and polar bears have been shown to pace less if they have a wide view of their surroundings, as in exhibits situated on a hillside. It can be assumed from that that in the wild these species live in extremely wide open spaces and that replicating that to some degree in captivity alleviates some of the anxious stereotypies they otherwise develop. Clouded leopards come from forests, so this may not apply, though an exhibit which provides a nice open view of something interesting - people, animals or just the environment - may alleviate boredom and thus provide enrichment, thereby reducing stereotyped behaviors.
That's all really interesting information, thanks for posting! I've totally seen big cats pacing just before the keepers come out. I also want to throw in that stereotypic behaviors can become ingrained, to the point where the animal may keep the behaviors for a long time even if the cause if fixed.
