The effect of cost of access on consumption of environmental resources in mink

Abstract

Captive animals may suffer if they cannot perform important behaviour and changes to their housing will be most effective at improving welfare if the modifications provide opportunities to perform those behaviours which are most important to the animal concerned (Dawkins, 1983). One means of identifying these behavioural priorities is to place a cost on their performance, as animals persist with the performance of the most important behaviours in the face of rising cost but cease to perform less important behaviours (Dawkins, 1983). There is, however, considerable debate over how best to measure persistence or elasticity of demand (Dawkins, 1990; Mason et al., 1997a) in terms of maximizing both their internal and external validity. To produce results with maximal internal validity it is important to follow the guidelines for using consumer demand theory presented by Mason et al., (1997b): that animals are tested in closed economies; that they are free to control their behavioural bout lengths; that resource use and cost must covary; and that the animals perceive the imposed cost to be equivalent for all resources.