Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is a type of depression which usually occurs during late autumn and winter, and the cause of which is generally thought to be the scarcity of sunlight. You might feel lethargic and a lack of motivation during the winter months because our bodies are yearning for the warmth of the sun. But SAD doesn't only affect humans. Apparently, many animals suffer it too and we are now just figuring out what that entails.
When animals are being transferred from their natural habitats to new locations—for example from southern latitudes to northern ones—they suffer similar consequences, experiencing their own version of SAD. This is particularly problematic when it comes to zoo animals, many of which did not evolve to exist in the latitudes where they live now, says Kristine Gandia of the University of Stirling, in Scotland, who studies animal welfare.
“Animals, including humans, have evolved rhythms to synchronize their internal environments with the external environment,” says Gandia. “When internal clocks are not synchronized with external cues like light and temperature, this can cause adverse effects.” Gandia’s team wanted to understand how SAD affects zoo animals, so they picked 11 giant pandas to study, and published their findings in Frontiers in Psychology.
Read more about Gandia and her team's research on Nautilus.
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