Observation of rescue behaviour in wild boar (Sus scrofa)

Masilkova, Michaela; Ježek, Miloš; Silovský, Václav; Faltusová, Monika; Rohla, Jan; Kušta, Tomáš; Burda, Hynek

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95682-4

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Furthermore, trap-related physical injuries may not fully reflect other capture-induced stressors such as fear, pain and poor environmental conditions 42 . Even more, the stressful situation provoked by capture has also been described to cause distress in individuals other than the ones captured in prosocial species such as wild boar 50 . Probabilities for this situation to occur are higher when using methods with less ability to capture entire sounders of prosocial species than drop-nets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing mammal trapping standards in wild boar drop-net capture

Conejero

López‐Olvera

González‐Crespo

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Applying contemporary trapping standards when managing wildlife should no longer be an option, but a duty. Increasing wild boar populations originate a growing number of conflicts and hunting is the only cost-effective management option in most cases. However, new scenarios where hunting is unfeasible emerge and trapping necessities cope with lacking regulatory frameworks and technical guidelines. In this research, we evaluated drop nets, a capture method not considered by the international trapping standards, to capture Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), a wildlife species not included in the list of mammal species under the scope of the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS). Less than 20% of the captured wild boars presented moderate or severe injuries attributable to the capture method, hence fulfilling the acceptance thresholds of the outdated AIHTS. Based on the new standards thresholds of acceptance, the humaneness of drop-nets in our study ranged 66–78%, under the 85% required. The capture success and selectivity were 100%, as ensured by operator-driven triggering, which should be considered the main strengths of this method, together with the minimization of animal suffering owing the short duration of the stressful situation. Additionally, in spite of the socially adverse environment, with people contrary to wild boar removal, no disturbances against the capture system or operations occurred. This is the first assessment of a drop-net capture method according to internationally accepted mammal trapping standards, with unconclusive results. However, there is a need for adapted procedures and thresholds of acceptance aimed at not-mechanical traps in general, and specifically at drop-nets. Compared to other live-capture methods, drop-nets minimize the duration of the stressful situation —at the expense of a strong adrenergic acute response—, maximize the probabilities of capturing entire sounders of prosocial species, which may be also considered as more humane, and has the ability to coordinate higher values of capture success, absolute selectivity and adaptability to difficult environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing mammal trapping standards in wild boar drop-net capture

Conejero

López‐Olvera

González‐Crespo

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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“…Pigs are highly social animals with close similarities in organ physiology and brain development to humans (Swindle and Smith, 2008 ). They exhibit evidence for advanced cognitive abilities (Croney and Boysen, 2021 ), emotional contagion (reviewed in Baciadonna et al, 2018 ) and spontaneous prosocial behavior (Masilkova et al, 2021 ). As such, we expect pigs to show emotional responses to different social challenges.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salivary Cortisol, but Not Oxytocin, Varies With Social Challenges in Domestic Pigs: Implications for Measuring Emotions

Moscovice

Gimsa

Otten

et al. 2022

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Animals respond to inherently rewarding or punishing stimuli with changes in core affective states, which can be investigated with the aid of appropriate biomarkers. In this study we evaluate salivary cortisol (sCORT) and salivary oxytocin (sOXT) concentrations under baseline conditions and in response to two negatively- and two positively-valenced social challenges in 75 young pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus), housed and tested in eight social groups. We predicted that: (1) Relative to baseline, weaning and brief social isolation would be associated with increases in sCORT, due to psychosocial stress, and reductions in sOXT, due to a lack of opportunities for social support; and (2) Opportunities for social play, and reunions with group members after a separation would be associated with weaker sCORT responses, and increases in sOXT concentrations compared to baseline and to negative social challenges. Testing and sample collection occurred between 28 and 65 days of age and involved a within-subject design, in which every subject was sampled multiple times in neutral (baseline), negative and positive social contexts. We also recorded behavioral data and measured rates of agonism, play and affiliative interactions in the different contexts, prior to saliva sampling. As expected, negative social challenges were associated with robust cortisol responses. Relative to baseline, pigs also had higher sCORT responses to positive social challenges, although these differences were only significant during reunions. Salivary oxytocin concentrations did not differ between the different social conditions, although sOXT was lowest during the brief social isolation. Behavioral analyses confirmed predictions about the expected changes in social interactions in different social contexts, with increases in agonism following weaning, increases in coordinated locomotor play in the play context and high rates of affiliative interactions during reunions. Relative sCORT reactivity to different contexts may reflect the intensity of emotional responses, with greater increases occurring in response to challenges that involve more psychosocial stress. Our results suggest that sOXT is not a reliable indicator of emotional valence in pigs, although more research is needed to characterize sOXT responses to various challenges with and without access to social support.

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“…While classifying animal behavior as intentional is conceptually intricate (Heyes and Dickinson, 1990), in both the natural and social sciences, animals' intentional agency is increasingly being substantiated (De Waal, 1996;Bekoff, 2007;Lestel, 2011;Belgrad and Griffen, 2016;Brakel, 2016). Since von Uexküll's (1909) work has suggested how even allegedly simple organisms entertain their respective forms of intentions when acting upon their umwelten, it is now widely accepted that minds of animals as different as chimpanzees (Call and Tomasello, 2008), crows (Emery, 2004), wild boars (Masilkova et al, 2021), and even fish (Brown, 2015) and insects (Prete, 2004) are richly populated by intentions and motives: by emotions responding to given states, by thoughts about these states, by desires for certain further states, by orientations toward attaining these states, and by behavioral attempts to realize them. The degree to which animals are conscious of their intentional states is hardly possible to establish empirically (Shettleworth, 2001(Shettleworth, , 2009), yet precursors of human forms of consciousness and sense of self arguably are present in all animals (Fogassi et al, 2005;De Waal and Ferrari, 2010;Low, 2012;Gupta and Sinha, 2014;Reber, 2016;Rowlands, 2016).…”

Section: Theoretical Background What We Know About Animals Having Int...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“I am Wolf, I Rule!” - Attributing Intentions to Animals in Human-Wildlife Interactions

Jürgens

2022

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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Human interactions with potentially problematic wildlife spawn intense and polarized sentiments. This study investigates one contributing factor: People perceive wildlife as having intentions toward them, and consequently, they feel targeted by the animals' behavior. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 20 German-speaking participants on three model wildlife – wolves, corvids, and spiders – yielded 12 different kinds of intentions attributed to the animals. The form of these intentions can be analyzed in terms of whether the attribution has a metaphoric or literal meaning; whether it is potentially correct, and whether it occurs at an individual or species level. In terms of these criteria, attributions made to wolves, corvids, and spiders take different forms, that appear to correspond to differential degrees of direct experience with the respective animals. For example, attributions to wolves tend to be made at a species-level, and thus are of a rather abstract quality, corresponding to the rather elusive nature of wolf presence. Simultaneously, attributions to the three model wildlife exhibit thematic similarities: With regard to their content, the 12 kinds of intentions can be integrated into four motives referring to the animals' alleged deeper incentives: rebellion, menace, relationality, and unintentionality. These motives are ascribed to wolves, corvids and spiders in comparable ways, evidencing similarities in participants' mental representations of ecologically dissimilar cases of human-wildlife interactions. The discussion of the qualitative findings traces how the species-specific and the overarching dynamics, as well as people's biographies factor into their views of animal intentionality in a way that causes ascriptions to be polarized across people, yet similar across wildlife. Evidently, the inclination to feel personally targeted by animal agents' intentional behavior is a universal feature in human-wildlife conflicts, that is co-determined by wildlife ecology and human psychology.

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Observation of rescue behaviour in wild boar (Sus scrofa)

Cited by 20 publications

References 66 publications

Assessing mammal trapping standards in wild boar drop-net capture

Assessing mammal trapping standards in wild boar drop-net capture

Salivary Cortisol, but Not Oxytocin, Varies With Social Challenges in Domestic Pigs: Implications for Measuring Emotions

“I am Wolf, I Rule!” - Attributing Intentions to Animals in Human-Wildlife Interactions

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