Houbara time budgets according to individual and season

Understanding the behaviours and time budgets of translocated animals
post-release has the potential to improve rearing and release protocols,
and therefore survival rate. Otididae (bustards) inhabit open landscapes
across the Middle East and Asia, are highly mobile on the ground and have
similar lifestyles and body plans. The Asian Houbara (Chlamydotis
macqueenii) is a bustard of conservation concern inhabiting the middle
East to Central Asia and is frequently reared in captivity for population
management. We deployed tri-axial accelerometers on 20 captive Asian
Houbaras in two seasons to catalogue basic behaviours, provide a template
applicable to other bustard species and examine seasonal differences in
behaviour. We created Boolean algorithms to define the following
behaviours using raw acceleration data and derived metrics: stationary,
locomotion and eating/drinking. We used video recordings to cross-validate
the algorithms, yielding recalls from 95% to 97%, and precisions between
97% and 98%. Houbaras spent significantly more time ‘stationary’ and less
time on ‘locomotion’ in Summer (June) compared to Spring (March). Simple
Boolean algorithms proved useful in identifying several behaviours and
have the potential to be applicable to other bustard species, in captivity
and in the wild post-release.