Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Abstract
Despite rapid growth
in the literature on personality in wild animals, personality has seldom
been explored as a tool for wildlife management in human-altered
landscapes. That context frequently involves the habituation of wildlife
to people, which can alter predator-prey relationships, contribute to
ecosystem damage and result in human-wildlife conflict. For many
ungulate species, habituation is also associated with changes to
facultative behaviours, such as migration, which may also be related to
individual variation. We studied these relationships by identifying
behavioural types in two wild populations of elk, Cervus canadensis,
within which habituation is prevalent, and in one captive population. We
defined behavioural types by the relative position of each individual
along a shy-bold gradient that we derived for each population from seven
behavioural metrics. Those metrics included repeated measures of
reactions to three stimuli (approaching humans, novel objects and novel
sounds), two state variables measured with scan samples (position within
herd and vigilance) and two all-occurrence records of specific
behaviours (outcome of dominance
interactions and herd leading). Boldness scores were more similar
within than among individuals in all three populations, consistent
between years, and unrelated to age. In the wild, the shyer half of each
population was three times more likely to exhibit migratory behaviour,
whereas the bolder half was just as likely (3:1) to express year-round
residency. Our results suggest that personality could be an important
tool for managing habituated wildlife. By identifying behavioural types
and their associations with particular tendencies, managers could
proactively target specific individuals for behavioural modification to
foster greater coexistence of people and wildlife. © 2016 The
Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Author keywords
Boldness; Flight response distance;
Habituation; Human disturbance; Migration; Personality; Protected area;
Refuge; Ungulate; Wildlife management
ISSN: 00033472
CODEN: ANBEASource Type: Journal
Original language: English
DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.02.007Document Type: Article
Publisher: Academic Press
Funding Details
Number; Acronym; Sponsor: 217166; NSERC; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
