Case Report Scenario:

Imagine you are a behavioral consultant for a client in the animal field. You are tasked with creating two deliverables. You will be developing a presentation targeting a general audience, meaning not everyone will have a strong background in the topics being shared. For the second deliverable, you will choose an animal species and include a behavioral report with a target audience that has a science background. The client could be employees of an animal organization such as a zoological park, wildlife sanctuary, conservation organization, aquarium, or animal shelter. Because people at the organization may have varying levels of experience with animal behavior, you are tasked with presenting your findings at two levels of expertise so that no matter how familiar or unfamiliar the client is with behavioral concepts, they will be able to understand the findings.

You will be creating a scenario in which an animal organization is looking to increase the welfare of the animals in their care. The organization will be implementing various enrichment activities. However, they are unsure of what activities are most important. Before they begin this process, they hire you as a consultant to provide a snapshot of the current behavior of one of their resident animals.

Draft a case report about Spotted Seal behavior. Include the following information:

• Introduction: The introduction should detail the following:
  • The purpose of the project including who your fictional client is in the authentic scenario
  • The focus species (including the scientific name)
  • A detailed description of the species to give the audience relevant background. This may include proximate and ultimate causes of behavior, such as their evolutionary history, group living (social/asocial), human interactions, territoriality, migratory behaviors, foraging strategies, important social behavior or communication strategies, reproductive behaviors or mating systems, and type of parental care (altricial/precocial).
  • The environment in which your focal animal lives (zoo, aquarium, animal shelter, etc.).
  • Supported by: Discussion in Week 1
• Methods: The methods should detail how you analyzed the video footage for the client. This includes:
  • The source of the footage (a link to a video on a platform such as Youtube or Vimeo). The video may be pre-recorded footage or from a livestream. A minimum of 5 minutes should be observed.
  • A timestamp of the 5 minutes observed (e.g. for a pre-recorded video, coding started at 2.05 min into video and watched until 7.05 min into video) or if watching a live stream, you should include the time/date of the footage (e.g. watched livestream on 2/23/23 from 5 pm to 5:05 pm Eastern).
  • The number of distinct behaviors observed during the video analysis and which one behavior you chose as the focal behavior to measure.
  • How the focal behavior was measured, either as state (duration) or event (frequency).
  • Supported by: Week 2 Discussion: Methods of Behavior Measurement and the Assignment in Week 2
• Results: The results section should detail what was found through analyzing the video footage. This will include:
  • An ethogram with behavioral definitions and photos of each behavior (these can be screenshots from the video or photos found online).
    • Each behavior should be assigned to a behavioral category (e.g. Affiliative Social Behavior, or Maintenance Behavior).
    • A minimum of 5 behaviors should be included in the ethogram. If 5 behaviors were not observed in the footage, then you should find additional behaviors common to that species to include (please make a note that these were not observed in the footage).
  • The results of your footage analysis for your focal behavior (e.g. the focal behavior of grooming occurred for 32% of the 5 minute session).
  • At least 1 graph illustrating the data you collected.
  • Supported by: Assignment in Week 1
• Conclusion & Applications: This section should summarize your findings from the footage analysis. The goal is to put all of your information into context with scholarly sources and provide recommendations to your client to promote natural behavior in the animal species.
  • What behaviors were included in your ethogram and what are the importance of these behaviors for this animal?
  • How may the behavior vary given different life experiences (e.g. socialized/unsocialized to humans or live in wild/captive settings)?
  • What did the results of your footage analysis tell you about the focal behavior?
  • What are some potential costs and benefits of engaging in the focal behavior?
  • What is animal welfare and what are some suggestions you can provide to the client to increase the welfare of this animal species while in their care?
  • What types of enrichment could be provided to promote this natural behavior?
  • Supported by: Week 4 Discussion Board and Assignment in Week 4
• References: A minimum of 6 scholarly sources should be included in the project, cited throughout using in-text citations. Credits to photos used in the ethogram should also be included.