Do Snakes Give a Hiss? Examining the Impact of Zoo Visitors on Captive Snakes

Zoos are interested in assessing the well-being of the animals in their care, including potential impacts from environmental and anthropogenic factors which could alter welfare. Zoos also provide a unique environment whereby visitors can get within proximity to wild animals, which can have positive, neutral, or negative impact for the exhibited animal's welfare. Within zoo settings, there has been little research published on these welfare impacts for reptiles, specifically snakes. Additionally, there is limited knowledge on their behavior in relation to captive welfare. Three snakes were selected, and conditions were implemented outside of their habitats to alter visitor proximity. The three conditions experimentally altered the proximity of people near the snake habitats and included Visitor-Natural (regular visitor proximity), Visitor-Control (no visitors within a 210 cm radius), and Visitor-Experimenter (an experimenter within close proximity throughout the observation time). An ethogram was developed and measured across a within-subject reversal design for all three conditions. Results indicated that overall, there was a neutral to positive impact of the Visitor-Natural condition. However, the highest negative impacts were observed during the Visitor-Experimenter condition, including increased abnormal behaviors. This study suggests that snakes will habituate to people but may be affected by short-term, unpredictable behavior from visitors. The results are discussed in terms of visitor impacts on exhibited snakes, as well as implications for assessing overall snake welfare.