How Do Adolescents Perceive Wire Floor in Fox Cages?

The wire-mesh netting used as the floor material in cages is often claimed to cause walking problems for foxes. The validity of this claim was tested in 96 15-year-old secondary school pupils. They were shown five separate 2 min fragments of videotapes showing the cage pairs with randomized floor material (solid or wire mesh) but with an obstructed view of the floor. The pupils were asked to evaluate the flooring material based on what they actually saw. The mean proportion of correct answers out of 5 for individuals were slightly more than half correct (0.54), but this did not differ significantly from the random value (0.5). When the pairs of foxes had different flooring material, the pupils answered correctly (0.58, P <0.05). Thus, the pupils were not able to identify a specific floor type (wire-mesh or solid floor) but were able to differentiate between two different types of floor based solely on the behaviour of the foxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]