关键词: 反刍动物, 海南坡鹿, 采食行为, 采食行为遥测, 无线电遥测笼头

Abstract:

Measurement of eating, ruminating and reposing behaviors for ruminants is a necessary to study ecological nutrition and mechanism of resource utilization; however, no radio transmitter is available for such purpose at present. Based on jaw movements of ruminants when eating, ruminating and reposing, the authors designed a radio-telemetry halter for measuring these behaviors and applied it to two female adult Eld’s deer (Cervus eldii hainanus) at Banxi Nature Reserve in July 2005. This radio-telemetry halter consist of two main parts, a jaw movement sensor (switch) and a circuit sending radio signals including eating behaviors and interval signals on the same radio frequency used for locating animal. Signals of jaw movement are recorded as analog data, and transfermed to digital signals for identifying eating, ruminating, and reposing behavior. The measured time ratios for the halter-equipped Eld’s deer outside the enclosure were 12% eating,36% ruminating, and 52% reposing, and for the deer inside the enclosure 3%,38% and 59%,respectively,indicating there existed an adaptive period for halter-equipped deer. The authors intend to place GPS senors into the telemetry for displaying animal behavior and location on GIS layers on computer, and to establish a real-time system for recording and analyzing behavior and location of ruminant in the future.

Key words: Eating behavior, Eld’s deer (Cervus eldii hainanus), Radio-telemetry halter, Ruminants