The effect of fish analog diet on beluga whale (Delpinapterus leucas) health and body condition

Citation

Mazzaro L, Richmond J, Kluever M, Morgan J, Dunn JL. 2007. The effect of fish analog diet on beluga whale (Delpinapterus leucas) health and body condition. In Ward A, Hunt A, Maslanka M, Eds. Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition, AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, Knoxville, TN.

Abstract

In zoos and aquariums the staple diet for marine mammals is freshly thawed, previously frozen fish and squid. Feeding a variety of fish to captive piscivores can be a major challenge to institutions, due to cost and availability thereby making a readily available prepared fish analogbased diet very appealing. Past studies feeding the Mazuri® fish analog product (PMI IntI, St. Louis, MO) to California sea lions and penguins have shown good acceptance of this product with no adverse effects, while increased rate of passage was observed when this product was exclusively fed to bottlenose dolphins. Our study examines the effect of feeding 10 – 50% Mazuri® fish analog diet on beluga whale health.

Mazzaro – THE EFFECT OF FISH ANALOG DIET ON BELUGA WHALE (DELPHINAPTERUS LEUCAS) HEALTH AND BODY CONDITION.pdf     299 KB