Conditioned Taste Aversion as a Tool for Mitigating Human-Wildlife Conflicts

Snijders, Lysanne; Thierij, Nina M.; Appleby, Robert G.; Clair, Colleen Cassady St.; Tobajas, Jorge

doi:10.3389/fcosc.2021.744704

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 142 publications

(201 reference statements)

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“…For example, anti‐predator signals (e.g. eyespots, illness‐associated smells/tastes) reduce predation from carnivores on livestock, eggs and endangered species (Radford et al, 2020; Snijders et al, 2021; Tobajas, Descalzo, et al, 2020). Felid growls and beehives reduce crop‐raiding by elephants ( Elephas maximus : Thuppil & Coss, 2016; Loxodonta africana : King et al, 2017).…”

Section: Disgust: a Sculpture Of Evolution To Prevent Infectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides conditioned‐taste aversion (CTA; see below), a type of learning which allows an individual to rapidly form an association between illness (e.g. nausea) and a particular taste or food item (Snijders et al, 2021), disgust applications in conservation are scarce. The ecology of disgust is still in its infancy and transitioning from theory to practice is challenging.…”

Section: Disgust: a Sculpture Of Evolution To Prevent Infectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

Sarabian

Wilkinson

Sigaud

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Disgust is an adaptive system hypothesized to have evolved to reduce the risk of becoming sick. It is associated with behavioural, cognitive and physiological responses tuned to allow animals to avoid and/or get rid of parasites, pathogens and toxins. Little is known about the mechanisms and outcomes of disease avoidance in wild animals. Furthermore, given the escalation of negative human‐wildlife interactions, the translation of such knowledge into the design of evolutionarily relevant conservation and wildlife management strategies is becoming urgent. Contemporary methods in animal ecology and related fields, using direct (sensory cues) or indirect (remote sensing technologies and machine learning) means, provide a flexible toolbox for testing and applying disgust at individual and collective levels. In this review/perspective paper, we provide an empirical framework for testing the adaptive function of disgust and its associated disease avoidance behaviours across species, from the least to the most social, in different habitats. We predict various trade‐offs to be at play depending on the social system and ecology of the species. We propose five contexts in which disgust‐related avoidance behaviours could be applied, including endangered species rehabilitation, invasive species, crop‐raiding, urban pests and animal tourism. We highlight some of the perspectives and current challenges of testing disgust in the wild. In particular, we recommend future studies to consider together disease, predation and competition risks. We discuss the ethics associated with disgust experiments in the above contexts. Finally, we promote the creation of a database gathering disease avoidance evidence in animals and its applications.

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Section: Disgust: a Sculpture Of Evolution To Prevent Infectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Disgust: a Sculpture Of Evolution To Prevent Infectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

Sarabian

Wilkinson

Sigaud

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

Self Cite

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“…(Bernstein, 1999). Specifically, the animal associates a transient state of illness to the taste, odour, or other characteristic of a specific food item, which ultimately results in a long-term change in its perception of palatability (Snijders et al, 2021).…”

Section: B General Learning: Reward Based Learning and Taste Aversion...mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Pigs to Silkworms: Cognition and Welfare across 10 Farmed Taxa

Miller

Schiestl

Trevarthen

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Billions of animals across many taxa are extensively farmed, with critical impacts on animal welfare. Societal efforts to reduce animal suffering lack rigorous and systematic approaches that facilitate maximising welfare improvements, such as informed funding allocation decisions. We present a multi-measure, cross-taxa framework for modelling differences in pain, suffering, and related cognition to assess whether certain animals have larger welfare ranges (how well or badly animals can fare). Measures include behavioural flexibility, cognitive sophistication, and general learning. We evaluated 90 empirically detectable proxies for cognition and welfare range (henceforth 'proxies') in pigs, chickens, carp, salmon, octopus, shrimp, crabs, crayfish, bees, and silkworms. We grouped a subset of proxies into: A) 10 ideal proxies and B) 10 less ideal proxies but with sufficient data for interspecies comparisons. We graded the strength of evidence per proxy across taxa, and constructed a cognition and welfare range profile, with overall judgement scores (ranging from likely no/low confidence to yes/very high confidence). We discuss the implications of comparisons and highlight key avenues for future research. This work is timely, given recent indications of significant political will towards reducing animal suffering, such as the inclusion of cephalopods and decapods in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill following a UK government-commissioned research review. Given the novelty and robustness of our review, we believe it sets a new standard for investigating interspecies comparisons of cognition and welfare ranges and helps inform future research. This should help streamline funding allocations and improve the welfare of millions of farmed animals.

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“…A tool sometimes used when translocating conservation dependent animals to an environment with threats is aversion training (Greggor et al, 2019;Griffin et al, 2000;Moseby et al, 2015;Snijders et al, 2021). Aversion training techniques are derived from classical conditioning experiments (Greggor et al, 2019;Griffin, 2008;Griffin & Evans, 2003;Kershenbaum, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several forms of aversion training, but the most well known and most applied in translocations is anti-predator training (Greggor et al, 2019;Griffin et al, 2000;Rowell et al, 2020;Snijders et al, 2021). Anti-predator training conditions animals to respond adversely to a co-evolved or novel predator by pairing a predator model with an aversive unconditioned stimulus such as physical pain, chasing or alarm calling in captivity (Griffin et al, 2000;Rowell et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Application Of Animal Personality In Conservation Biology: Investigating A New Tool In North Island Robin (Petroica longipes)

MacKinlay¹

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Conservation biology is an applied and multidisciplinary scientific discipline focused on promoting biodiversity and preserving species at risk of extinction. Animal personality (defined as consistent behaviour within and variation among individual animals) has frequently been linked to survival, reproduction, movement, and other environmental interactions. Therefore, it has been suggested that incorporating animal personality helps mitigate conservation problems. However, the extent to which this has been attempted and the feasibility of doing so still require evaluation. Therefore, I aimed to examine the full extent of how animal personality has been incorporated into conservation, test how feasible measuring personality in real conservation contexts is and assess the applications of personality from a conservation perspective. First, I performed a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on conservation biology and animal personality. Second, to address the lack of appropriate and practical applications of personality in real-world conservation contexts, I adapted existing conservation management protocols for a conservation dependent species, the North Island robin, hereafter referred to by its Māori name toutouwai. Toutouwai is a threatened species that fit the typical characteristics of New Zealand’s avifauna in that they are naïve to mammals, including humans. Thus, toutouwai are highly susceptible to invasive mammalian predators but willingly engage in behavioural tasks in the wild. Using this system I adapted standard conservation monitoring procedures, and an anti-predator training procedure to take personality measures of individuals. This system makes for a unique opportunity to study personality in a real-world conservation setting. From the review, I found that personality has been applied to a broad range of conservation contexts but is not well executed with approximately half of all studies falling short of appropriate methods for quantifying personality. Furthermore, there was a lack of conservation-focused content or applications in the studies that measured personality appropriately, indicating personality as a conservation tool is at an infant stage. From my tests implementing personality into conservation, I found that incorporating personality through adapting conservation management procedures and anti-predator interventions in the wild is feasible under ideal conditions. However, both tests highlight the need for focused research on ecological function and may be prohibitive for most conservationists to expend resources on currently. Overall, personality has a place in conservation but probably in fewer contexts than has been previously suggested

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Conditioned Taste Aversion as a Tool for Mitigating Human-Wildlife Conflicts

Cited by 20 publications

References 142 publications

Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

From Pigs to Silkworms: Cognition and Welfare across 10 Farmed Taxa

The Application Of Animal Personality In Conservation Biology: Investigating A New Tool In North Island Robin (Petroica longipes)

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