August 29, 2023

Wild Animal Initiative is pleased to share that we have selected the first cohort of fellows in our new Fellowship Program. Each fellow is an early-career researcher who harbors an interest in wild animal welfare science and a background in a related scientific field, including ecology, animal welfare, conservation, and cognition. The fellowships will last one to three years, and each will explore a unique facet of wild animal welfare. Our fellowships are designed to assist early-career scientists by providing salary support, mentorship, and training in a new discipline, allowing them to apply their existing expertise to wild animal welfare.

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Daire Carroll: Quantifying the impact of sea ice coverage on the welfare of grey seal pups

Institution: University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Mentor: Karin Hårding, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Featured species: Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)

What is your project?

Sea ice coverage is likely to have a profound influence on grey seals living in the Baltic Sea. This project aims to quantify this impact using multiple psychological and behavioral welfare indicators sourced through novel, non-invasive methods. In the long term, this data can be incorporated into environmental indicator reports to include animal welfare as a component of environmental health. The project will also aim to predict the impact of future changes in sea ice coverage on grey seal pup welfare. Finally, the project will produce tangible management advice to improve welfare as the environment changes.

What inspired your project idea?

For the past three years, I have been working with grey seals as a model species for exploring the influence of climate change and population density on birthrates and juvenile survival. As I grew familiar with the species, I started to wonder how these factors were impacting the individual experiences of seals. I think this factor is missed when designing management strategies, and I’ve started this project specifically to quantify the dynamics of grey seal welfare and make that data accessible to the public and decision makers.

How do you think this project will contribute to wild animal welfare science?

The methods we are developing to noninvasively quantify seal body condition and behavior using remote sensing and machine learning are a step forward in animal welfare science. They will allow welfare proxies to be incorporated into routine monitoring of populations in a way that was not possible before, because of constraints of time and cost. My hope is that this will allow well-informed management decisions to be made, which maximize the welfare of this and other species.

How do you plan to measure welfare?

All the methods I plan to use to measure welfare are noninvasive. I will use drone-based images to estimate seal body mass for a large proportion of grey seal pups when they are hauled out on land or ice (up to 90% of individuals in previous testing). I will also deploy trail cameras to capture seal behavior. I will back up these observations by collecting seal scat and hair for analysis of stress hormones. Together, these multiple proxies of animal welfare will provide accessible measures for comparative analysis across years and between locations.

Emma Mellor: Identifying species traits underlying conservation translocation failure to understand risk factors, help redesign procedures, and preemptively protect vulnerable wild animals

Institution: University of Bristol, UK

Mentors: Georgia Mason, University of Guelph, Canada; Tim Caro, University of Bristol, UK

What is your project?

Conservation translocation is an intervention used to address biodiversity crises and avoid species extinction. But translocation can be expensive, high-risk, and potentially directly harmful to welfare, such as with elevated stress and premature death. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, this project aims to identify aspects of species biology (plus management) that are risk factors for conservation translocation failure. Through improved understanding of evolutionary and management bases for failures, this project hopes to identify new ways to improve translocation practices so that more released animals can cope or even thrive.

What do you hope to learn through this fellowship?

Aside from satisfying my curiosity about why species respond differently to conservation translocation attempts, I hope to expand my statistical toolkit. I have a hunch that my future dataset will lend itself to Bayesian phylogenetic mixed models — the Bayesian philosophy is new to me, so I’m excited to learn about that. My background is in welfare, so the conservation element of this project will also be new territory for me. Thinking about the interplay between these two disciplines is something I’m really looking forward to.

How did you become interested in studying wild animal welfare?

I find doing meaningful research that ultimately provides ethical benefits (to non-humans and humans) intrinsically rewarding, so part of my interest stems from that. My main focus so far has been on animal welfare, albeit on captive animals (in zoos and with pets) rather than free-living ones. So, the shift to studying the welfare of wild animals for this project, along with its challenges, is really appealing to me. Also, given the current climate and biodiversity crises as well as increasing interest in wild animal welfare, my study is timely. Odds are that increasing numbers of species will require some form of ex-situ conservation management, e.g., translocation. My future results will hopefully inform ways to improve wild animal well-being and contribute to the wild animal welfare knowledge base — doing so at such a pivotal time will be very rewarding.

Who are your advisors for this project?

My mentors are Professor Georgia Mason and Professor Tim Caro. Each is a world leader in their own discipline and they are excellent mentors (and good fun). Professor Mason brings her highly skilled animal welfare expertise. She was the first researcher to advocate applying phylogenetic comparative methods to animal welfare questions and, along with Dr. Ros Clubb, produced the first paper doing so (for captive Carnivora). Professor Caro is based at my host institution (University of Bristol), and his expertise includes, among other skills, conservation biology and phylogenetic comparative methods. Conservation biology is new ground for me, so his extensive experience will be invaluable.

David Daversa: Evaluating wild animal welfare in landscapes of fear at urban-wildland interfaces

Institution: University of California, Los Angeles, US

Mentors: Daniel T. Blumstein and Brad Shaffer, University of California, Los Angeles, US

Featured species: Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

What is your project?

Empirical evidence of the welfare impacts of fear in wild animals remains sparse because fear is very hard to observe and measure. Measuring the long-term welfare impacts of fear is particularly difficult. The aim of this project is to examine the long-term welfare impacts of fear in wild animals through a longitudinal study of western fence lizards exposed to fear stimuli created by humans and non-native predators (cats). Field experiments will test how fear responses differ between urban and non-urban lizard populations, as well as measure how impacts of chronic exposure to human noise and cues of urban predators accumulate throughout wild animal lives to determine their lifespan and healthspan.

How do you think this project will contribute to wild animal welfare science?

The study design, involving longitudinal sampling under field experimental conditions, will pinpoint mechanisms underlying fear in wild animals while quantifying the welfare impacts that accumulate over individual lifespans. In so doing, the study will contribute quantitative tests of the aggregate life experiences that define the quality of animals’ lives. Comparing fear in urban versus non-urban populations will also contribute new knowledge of the capacity of wild animals to develop tolerance to novel fear stimuli.

What do you hope to learn through this fellowship?

Welfare is defined by the aggregate subjective experiences of individuals, and my hope with this study is to improve understanding of how fear shapes individual experiences. In addition, I hope to emphasize the “aggregate” part of welfare by measuring health factors across the arc of animals’ lives as they face distinct challenges and threats.

How did you become interested in studying wild animal welfare?

My research is driven by a desire to know more about what shapes individual behavior and health. Ecology has carried me far in this pursuit, but there are conceptual constraints in the field that limit further advancement. The study of wild animal welfare confronts hard questions about animals that ecology has traditionally shied away from. Embracing welfare biology allows me to work at a frontier in what we know about animal lives, which positions me well to gain new insights into the behavior, health, and the overall lives of wild animals.

Lauren Stanton: Street smarts and bold behaviors: how humans and urban environments influence the welfare of wild mesocarnivores

Institution: University of California, Berkeley, US

Mentor: Christopher Schell, University of California, Berkeley, US

Featured species: Raccoon (Procyon lotor), fox (Vulpes vulpes; Urocyon cinereoargenteus), and striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis)

What is your project?

Little is known about the welfare of urban wildlife, or what steps we can and should take to promote well-being and coexistence for people and animals sharing space in cities. This project will examine urban mesocarnivore behavior, cognition, health, and conflict with humans in the San Francisco Bay Area to better understand how humans and various features of urban environments affect their welfare. I will collect substantial data on the environmental conditions and physical states of individual mesocarnivores via collaborations with local partners. Additionally, I will study the risk perception and innovative foraging abilities of individuals and species across neighborhoods using tests of cognition.

How did you become interested in studying wild animal welfare?

I have always been curious about the minds of wild animals: what are they thinking and experiencing, what makes one individual different from another, and why they behave the way they do. These questions led me to a career studying the cognition of urban wildlife, where I work to understand how wild animals perceive and respond to the growing cities around them. My professional and academic pursuits have always gone hand-in-hand with my compassion for animals, especially those who are treated as a nuisance. I am therefore interested in studying wild animal welfare because it will allow me to gain an evidence-based understanding of, and better ability to advocate for, the wellbeing of wildlife.

What do you hope to learn through this fellowship?

I seek to learn how to use observations of urban wildlife behavior as an indicator of their welfare and ask whether we can predict the welfare of individuals based on the social-ecological features of different neighborhoods, such as pollution, garbage, green space, and human behavior. I then want to use this information to advocate for equitable policies and management strategies that will improve the quality of life for both people and wild animals sharing space in urban environments. These goals will require me to cultivate a diversity of new skills related to animal physiology and geographic information systems, as well as community science and environmental advocacy.

How will your advisor be involved in this project?

Dr. Chris Schell is a behavioral endocrinologist with expertise in urban systems and environmental justice. He will provide training on the preparation, processing, and interpretation of biological samples collected from raccoons, coyotes, and other urban carnivores. Dr. Schell will also provide insights on local species occupancy, health, and interactions with humans via camera trap data, surveys, and local collaborations within his current research program. Lastly, Dr. Schell will provide guidance on how to build authentic and inclusive community science programs that center social and environmental justice.