Getting in the Mood

I know this is a bit sophomoric, but I can't resist.

For other animals, missing social cues can cause problems. For many years, zookeepers had trouble breeding the white rhinoceros. Though they were often exhibited in male-female pairs, the animals rarely reproduced. In the wild, the white rhino lives in small herds; it turns out that a male needs to interact with a number of females in order to be properly aroused. Much of the difficulty breeding white rhinos disappeared as zoos began to keep them in larger groups.

What could be more natural? Gather a few of your kind in a group--a little talk, maybe a little flirting. Libations wouldn't do any harm--and why not some hors d'oeuvres while you're at it? In all honesty, this is a situation where cigarettes can do some good, despite all the moralizing about them. Few among us don't look, or at least feel, a little bit sexier smoking a cigarette.

Of course, the stale smoke can be a turn-off afterward, but sometimes the effect of odours can be surprising:

A number of other factors can contribute to problems with captive breeding. Keepers might clean up waste too quickly and remove an important odor that signals fertility.

And then, it can simply be difficult to persuade some promising prospects to clean up, dress up, and come to a party. They'll probably say they've got wars to fight--and it might be true:

The social tensions particular to zoo life can distract males from reproducing�a male guenon in a dysfunctional family group, for example, can become so preoccupied with aggressive behavior that he ignores the females. Aggression might even be directed out of the animal's enclosure and toward animals of a different species in a nearby cage.

Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:13 pm MST by robertll | Email Article |

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Getting in the Mood