Studying Animal Behavior

Observe captive animal behavior via the internet for 10 minutes. You can visit one of these websites for live cameras, or you can google ‘live cams” to find other locations: http://explore.org/live-cams/player/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls OR  https://nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams

Watch the behavior of ONE (focal) animal for a total of ten (10) minutes. Each minute, record the behavior being displayed and then create an ethogram to demonstrate results. This may look like a pie chart or like a histogram. The focal animal sampling method means that you are recording the animal’s behavior for a  specified (10 minutes) time period. You are not recording the behaviors of the other animals in the group and you are recording behaviors at exact intervals. At each interval, one minute, you will record what you see that one animal doing.

Next, discuss your sampling method and write a summary of your results.  Answer the following questions:
1. Would the results differ for captive versus animal populations?
2. Would the results differ depending upon the time of day and/or  weather conditions of the observation?
3. Is this a legitimate representation of the animal’s behavior and why?

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