Modern Wildlife Management

Rural System's

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

[ Web site Home | The Course's Home | Table of Contents | The Finder | Glossary ]

Using Knowledge of the Elements of Animal Behavior

For years I tried to find the relevance of animal behavior to active wild faunal management. I took many notes and kept asking, "What should I do differently now having this piece of information about behavior?" I met colleagues who centered their understanding of animals (and presumably their management) on "behavioral ecology." I still struggle with the question(s) but share the following notes which I contend must be taken beyond "things of great interest" into the world of achieving human objectives more efficiently as a result of understanding animal behavior. "Studying animals will help us understand people" may be true, but there is little evidence for it and I suggest others better equipped than wildlife managers spend their limited time and resources trying to do so.

My notes:

There is a need to distinguish between individual and population behavior

There is need to isolate key faunal life groups, species or other groups to gain nomenclatural precision and quantification and possibilities for reasonable comparisons

Behavior is very broad (it may be anything an animal does). There is a need to limit it to observable actions. Avoid the anthropomorphic, e.g., elk "like" red stem ceanothus vs they respond favorably to it, or foxes "try to" find... vs seek food or are attracted by certain scents

Managerially relevant behavior needs to be isolated. Probably difficult and first efforts will be incomplete but knowledge will build sequentially and cumulatively. Once managerial (i.e., manipulative needs are seen, then behaviors can be named and quantified.)

A theory of managerially-relevant behavior probably can (and needs to) be built

The rudiments of that theory lie in the major topics of the rate phenomena (the "processes") in population analysis, namely:

natality
mortality
migration
resource allocation (e.g., competition)

The relevant topics under each seem to be:

Natality - Breeding behavior
promiscuous
polygamous
polyandrous
monogamous

Young feeding
Special area selection (e.g., calving grounds)
Access to toxicants during pregnancy
Refuging (e.g., dens related to "faunal space")
Dominance in breeding (as related to sex and age structure)
Nest or birth site selection
Timing of hatch or partuition (e.g., relative to season-setting)
Group formation
Innate behavior: genetic information and parental information
Energy cost of attracting and holding an estrous female
Time to first stand, suck, defecate (definition of "birth" are related to habitat quality

Mortality

Predator and pest avoidance (e.g., feral dogs)
Relation to facilities (e.g., cars, fences)
Consequences of fighting (including energy costs)
Dominance as related to wounding
Vulnerability (e.g., sex-age-weapon relative to hunts)
Vulnerability to poaching
Conspicuousness
Trap shyness and addiction (e.g., relative to population estimation.1
Flushing and flight distance and avoidance behavior
Lead animal in a group (e.g., effects of removal by hunting)
Harvesting to reduce energy losses of conflicts, turmoil, meat loss
Harvesting ease for sampling animals (e.g., to appraise habitat) migration
Defense of young
Reaction to toxicants

Migration - Spacing and Movements

Peck order and dominance
Herding
Distance traveled and costs and net gains (e.g., to set boundaries on ecological reserves or parks)
Trailing (e.g., use of trails)
Starting and stopping times and places (e.g., some areas are useful only during dry season)
Ease of observation
Zones of influence around managerial objects such as waterholes
Ranges (e.g., in determining size of refuges and appropriate boundaries)
Homing (e.g., return of translocated pests)
Stocking-transplant-release behavior (Chapman 1956)

Other Resource Allocation and Feeding

Feeding (timing, extent, rumination)
Feeding (care in discriminating among use, availability, and need)
Caprophagy
Sites used for energy balancing
Nocturnal feeding
Fighting relative to resources available and maximum densities
Resting times and interruption phenomena
Minimize energy losses (by taking small animals)

Key concepts in a forming theory

How does behavior differ between habitats?

How do observations (biased samples) differ from likely behavior(s)?

What is the significance of sequential behavior (e.g., an animal in one place, no matter how it got there, has only a few decision options to it for the next place or behavior. Every behavior is a function of prior behaviors and thus not independent and rarely normally distributed. (See Bekoff et al. in Hazlett 1977)

Useful techniques and approaches (even within classical ethology which studies unrestrained anirnals in natural conditions, i.e., where observer sees what the animal shows him or her, not the results of an experiment.): Information theory, temporal and spatial patterns, cluster analysis, scaling, modeling, Markov chains, game theory, simulation.

Additional Differences Between Populations and Individuals

Disease susceptibility and response (epidemiology)
Group behavior (e.g. predator defense; quail group "circles")
Diversity
Density change
Do not mutate (taxa do)
Communication among individuals and between populations
Time and space dispersion
Leadership - dominance
Group feeding (herd and pack)
Niche - specific
Do not mark territory
Functional response (feeding rate relative to prey density)
Competitive exclusion: complete competitors cannot coexist.

Things I might do differently as a result of having well classified studies of wild animal behavior (in addition to the hundreds of other inputs needed for many faunal resource management decisions):

Estimate population densities using home range.
Judge the limits to population size based on territory
Use food choice in deciding foods to favor
Determine suitability of banding and tagging in other studies
Decide if differences in movement were results of tagging or marking
Determine if nest structure construction or placement is appropriate
Estimate likely dispersal after stocking or transplanting
Estimate ease of human disturbance
Estimate the rate of acclimitization to humans
Determine flushing distances (for transect work improvements)
Determine the effects of mowing (or mowing strips in clearings) on young
Zone of distance used from roads
Best time for viewing or noting activities
Breeding behavior leading to probability of success
Crowding tolerance (thus biological limits)
Critical mass required (Minimum population activity, not just numbers)
Probability of human attacks from animals
Habit formation (livestock-crop predation)
Automated crow-killing owl uses knowledge of attack (J. Wildl. Manage 49(3):643-645)
Zoo and research-animal conditions improvement
Metabolic rate related to human-induced behavior
Closing dumps and problem areas
Safety with radio-telemetry (lions of Gir, etc.)
Secondary behavior (finding prey by observing crows, vultures, etc.)
Assessing the probability of changing undesirable behavior of groups or individuals (risk and aversion tactics)
Determining the sequence of removal (culling) e.g., removal of females first in a matriarchial population like elephants
Reducing auto-animal crashes
Assessing effects of snowmobile action and noise on animals
Assessing secondary effects of birth-control chemicals on individuals and the population

See human behavior notes

Literature Leads

Altmann, M. 1957. Patterns of social behavior in big game. Trans. N. Amer. Wildlife Conf. 21:538-545.

Bixby, W. 1968. Of animals and men; a comparison of human and animal behavior. David McKay. New York.

Chapman, F.B. 1956. Some behavior characteristics of mammals useful in management. J. Wildl. Manage. 20(3): 293-297.

Colgan, P.W. (Ed.) 1978. Quantitative ethology. Wiley-Interscience, New York xvi + 364pp.

Fox, M.W. 1974. Concepts in ethology. Animal and human behavior. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. xviii + l4Opp.

Guthrie, D.M. 1981. Neuroethology: an introduction. Halsted (Wiley), N.Y. viii + 222pp.

Hazlett, B.A. 1977. Quantitative methods in the study of animal behavior. Academic Press, N.Y. x + 222pp.

Krebs, J.R. 1981. An introduction to behavioral ecology. Sinauer, Sunderland, Mass. x + 292pp. International Wildlife (Special Issue Sept-Oct 1979)

Klopfer, R.H. . Behavioral aspects of ecology.

Lehrman, D.S., R.A. Hinde, E.Shaw, (Eds.) . Advances in the study of behavior, Vol.4. Academic Press.

Lorenz, K. 1970. Studies in animal and human behavior. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Moore, . 1982. Wildlife management literature. p.7-38 in Wildlife Management Techniques Manual.

Rheingold, H.L. 1963. Maternal behavior in mammals. John Wiley, London.

Rogers-Warren, A. 1977. Ecological perspectives in behavioral analysis. Univ. Park Press, Baltimore ~ld.

Scott, J.P. 19 . Animal behavior. 2nd ed. Univ. Chicago Press.

Smith, D.D. 1965. Mammalian learning and behavior; a psycho-neurological theory.

Stokes, A.W. 1969. Animal behavior in laboratory and field. Freeman Co., San Francisco.

Van Soniners, P. 19 . The biology of behavior. Wiley. 184p.

Wallace, R.A. 1979. Animal behavior: its development, ecology, and evolution. Goodyear Pub. Co., Santa Monica, Calif. xxviii + 590pp.

Wynne-Edward~, V.C. 1962. Animal dispersion in relation to social behavior. Hafner Pubi. Co., N.Y. xi + 653pp.

Go to the top.

*Quick* Access to the Contents of LastingForests.com

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Send an email message - Questions, revisions?
Last revision January 10, 2004.