Meet our grantees
Wild Animal Initiative funds academic research on high-priority questions in wild animal welfare.
The goal of our grants program is to fund research that deepens scientific knowledge of the welfare of wild animals in order to better understand how to improve the welfare of as many wild animals as possible, regardless of what causes the threats to their well-being.
We showcase our grantees and their projects here and continuously update this page as new projects are added.
Field testing a remote, non-invasive method to monitor wild animal welfare through salivary biomarkers
Grantee: Maristela Martins de Camargo
Institutions: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas and FUSP
Project summary
Biological samples are necessary to establish baselines and benchmarks upon which welfare metrics can be developed, but collecting them is generally a stressful and invasive process. Our project aims to elevate the standard by which we collect wildlife samples by introducing a novel method of saliva collection that does not involve immobilizing — or even encountering — the animal being sampled. This project will isolate DNA/RNA from saliva samples of lowland tapirs to detect viruses, as well as health and welfare markers, exploring them within a comparison amongst two regions with varying levels of degradation and human-wildlife conflict and, we assume, associated variations in the welfare and health of wild animals.
Grantee: Maristela Martins de Camargo
Institutions: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Brazil; FUSP, Rwanda
Grant amount: $45,380
Grant type: Seed grant
Focal species: None specified
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, animal welfare science, wildlife management, genetics/genomics
Research locations: Brazil and Rwanda
Project summary
Biological samples are necessary to establish baselines and benchmarks upon which welfare metrics can be developed, but collecting them is generally a stressful and invasive process. Our project aims to elevate the standard by which we collect wildlife samples by introducing a novel method of saliva collection that does not involve immobilizing — or even encountering — the animal being sampled. This project will isolate DNA/RNA from saliva samples of lowland tapirs to detect viruses, as well as health and welfare markers, exploring them within a comparison amongst two regions with varying levels of degradation and human-wildlife conflict and, we assume, associated variations in the welfare and health of wild animals.
Comparing the welfare of stocked triploid vs native diploid rainbow trout in California
Grantee: Andrew Sharo
Institutions: University of California, Los Angeles
Project summary
Rainbow trout are commonly stocked for recreational fishing throughout the world, but because of their negative impacts on the environment, many state agencies now stock triploid rainbow trout, which are sterile. However, triploid rainbow trout are known to be more sensitive to water temperature and dissolved oxygen, which may impact their welfare in wild environments. This project will use a combination of physiological and behavioral indicators to compare the welfare of diploid and triploid rainbow trout. We will assess the welfare of rainbow trout in ponds across the Los Angeles metropolitan region using qualitative behavioral assessment, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio, body condition, injury/disease presence, and the expression of stressor-related genes, either non-invasively or through sampling fish caught by recreational anglers.
Grantee: Andrew Sharo
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles, US
Grant amount: $30,000
Grant type: Seed grant
Focal species: Rainbow/steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Ichthyology, genetics/genomics, physiology, animal behavior
Research locations: United States
Project summary
Rainbow trout are commonly stocked for recreational fishing throughout the world, but because of their negative impacts on the environment, many state agencies now stock triploid rainbow trout, which are sterile. However, triploid rainbow trout are known to be more sensitive to water temperature and dissolved oxygen, which may impact their welfare in wild environments. This project will use a combination of physiological and behavioral indicators to compare the welfare of diploid and triploid rainbow trout. We will assess the welfare of rainbow trout in ponds across the Los Angeles metropolitan region using qualitative behavioral assessment, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio, body condition, injury/disease presence, and the expression of stressor-related genes, either non-invasively or through sampling fish caught by recreational anglers.
The impact of winter food provisioning on the welfare of wild urban hedgehogs
Grantee: Julia Nowack
Institutions: Liverpool John Moores University
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare impacts of supplemental feeding during winter on European hedgehogs. Hedgehogs and other species have adapted to the lack of natural food during the winter by hibernating. Previous research, however, has suggested that hibernation may be interrupted when anthropogenic food sources are available. This project will use biologgers to collect data on winter activity and hibernation, as well as the animals’ use of specially designed feeding stations equipped with miniature thermal imaging devices, which will be used to non-invasively measure eye temperature as an indicator of physiological stress. Welfare assessment will also be supplemented by data on ectoparasite load, body mass, fecal glucocorticoid concentrations, latency to approach a feeding station, and survival rate for adults and juveniles.
Grantee: Julia Nowack
Institution: Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Grant amount: $29,977
Grant type: Seed grant
Focal species: Western European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, population ecology, animal behavior
Research locations: United Kingdom
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare impacts of supplemental feeding during winter on European hedgehogs. Hedgehogs and other species have adapted to the lack of natural food during the winter by hibernating. Previous research, however, has suggested that hibernation may be interrupted when anthropogenic food sources are available. This project will use biologgers to collect data on winter activity and hibernation, as well as the animals’ use of specially designed feeding stations equipped with miniature thermal imaging devices, which will be used to non-invasively measure eye temperature as an indicator of physiological stress. Welfare assessment will also be supplemented by data on ectoparasite load, body mass, fecal glucocorticoid concentrations, latency to approach a feeding station, and survival rate for adults and juveniles.
Why we funded this project
Food provisioning is a potentially important near-term intervention that is already practiced in some contexts, but usually without data on or a primary interest in its wild animal welfare impacts. We appreciate that this project will use a non-invasive approach with multiple physiological and behavioral indicators to evaluate welfare impacts of supplemental feeding on wild European hedgehogs, including juveniles. The results could have implications for the management of other hibernators with access to supplementary feeding, such as dormice, bears, or chipmunks.
Are we making urban wildlife sick?
Grantee: Carl Soulsbury
Institution: University of Lincoln
Project summary
The goal of this project is to test whether differences in welfare among individual red foxes and individual European hedgehogs are explained by specific environmental stressors arising from urbanization (e.g., increased human population density, noise pollution, or reduced habitat heterogeneity). Notably, on a population level, foxes appear to have fared well alongside humans, while hedgehogs have struggled to cope with urbanization. The study will confirm whether this contrast is also seen at the level of individual welfare, and offers a unique opportunity to identify common environmental stressors that may be impacting the health and welfare of urban wildlife more generally. To assess welfare, the project will perform cognitive judgment bias and novel object tests and combine them with non-invasive indicators of physiological stress (fecal glucocorticoids and eye/ear temperature) and health (pathogen load).
Grantee: Carl Soulsbury
Institutions: University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $148,741.43
Grant type: Challenge grant
Focal species: Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Animal welfare science, animal behavior, physiology
Research location: United Kingdom
Project summary
Urbanisation causes profound changes to biodiversity. For many species living in urban areas, there is evidence that urban living leads to greater disease prevalence. It is unclear, however, (a) what factors drive this higher disease prevalence and (b) whether this leads to poorer wild animal welfare. We propose a study to compare two urban-dwelling species, red foxes and Eurasian hedgehogs, where we will characterize pathogen prevalence, load, and diversity across an urban-rural gradient. This study will be carried out at two scales: firstly, we will link pathogen loads, faecal glucocortoicoids and habitat at the landscape level, allowing us to broadly understand if urbanisation is associated with increased pathogen loads. We will then carry out a second, more detailed data collection where we will combine pathogen data with measures of stress (infra-red thermography, faecal glucocorticoids) and behavioural measures of affective valence (novel object and judgement bias tests). Here, we will link together pathogen loads and different measures of welfare at the individual level. Ultimately, our aim is to test, within each species, whether population differences in health and welfare are explained by environmental stressors arising from urbanisation (e.g., increased human population density and reduced habitat heterogeneity).
Why we funded this project
We appreciate that this project considers specific characteristics of urban environments, as opposed to simply comparing urban environments with rural ones. This way, it has more potential to inform near-term interventions. Plus, the project design humanely allows for animals’ voluntary participation. In addition to using an effective suite of welfare indicators to investigate the impact of different parasite loads on welfare, the combination of cognitive bias testing with non-invasive physiological stress metrics will provide information on the validity of those metrics, which are being used concurrently in other projects.
Does diet mediate effects of sublethal parasitic infections on host welfare?
Grantee: Amanda Koltz
Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Project summary
This project will test how infection by parasitic worms (helminths) influences host welfare in white-footed deer mice by evaluating the relationship between parasite burden and host body condition, microbiome, and stress physiology, as well as behaviors associated with anxiety (negative welfare) and exploration (positive welfare). The researchers will experimentally manipulate parasite burden by intervening to apply anti-parasitic medication (Ivermectin) as a treatment for some mice who were already infected with helminths.
Grantee: Amanda Koltz
Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, United States
Grant amount: $167,237
Grant type: Challenge grant
Focal species: White-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and their helminth parasites
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Infectious disease, animal welfare science, animal behavior, physiology, community ecology
Research location: United States
Project summary
Parasite-mediated changes in host traits can have far-reaching ecological effects. Even sublethal infections affect hosts by increasing energetic costs and altering behavior, immunity, and physiology. Yet while many studies have investigated parasite effects on specific host traits, our understanding of how parasites influence overall individual welfare is limited, especially for wild animals. For example, parasites can drive changes in host diet and habitat use that reduce parasite exposure but not necessarily improve other metrics of host welfare. A holistic approach that captures different types of individual-level responses to parasitism is needed to advance our overall understanding of sublethal infections on host welfare. We propose to investigate how parasite burden is associated with individual-level host welfare using white-footed deer mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and their helminth parasites as a model system. Specifically, by experimentally removing gastrointestinal helminth parasites from P. leucopus, we will test how variation in parasite burden influences individual host body condition, diet and nutrition, microbiome, stress physiology, anxiety-like behavior, and exploratory behavior in forested ecosystems. P. leucopus has become the dominant small mammal species over the last 40 years in the northern Great Lakes region. It experiences sublethal infection by a range of helminth parasites and is a reservoir for several zoonotic pathogens, making its host-parasite dynamics highly relevant to the health of humans and other wildlife. By examining how infection levels relate to the diet, body functions, and behavior of P. leucopus, this study will advance our understanding of how non-lethal parasitic infections affect the welfare of an extremely widespread wild animal species.
Why we funded this project
We are excited to fund a study on wild mice, a highly numerous and neglected group, and especially one with such a welfare-friendly experimental approach — curing parasitic infections rather than causing them. The project also uses a holistic suite of physiological and behavioral indicators that should allow the researchers to disentangle overall welfare from narrow, mechanistic impacts of infection on the health and nutrition domains.
Developing an automated cognitive bias task for wild squirrels
Grantees: Vikki Neville, Lisa Leaver
Institutions: University of Bristol, University of Exeter
Project summary
The goal of this project is to develop a cognitive judgment bias test for use in wild gray squirrels that capitalizes on their innate behavior, avoiding the need for the extensive type of training that is usually part of cognitive judgment bias tests in captive settings. By making use of the widely available Raspberry Pi platform, the test should be relatively easy for other researchers to replicate and adapt for use in other species. To validate the test itself, the research team will also assess how measurement of cognitive judgment bias varies with factors assumed to affect the valence of animals participating in the test, such as distance from cover and levels of food provisioning in the environment, as well as how the test results correlate with other potential non-invasive behavioral and physiological indicators of welfare, such as the distance at which a squirrel flees from approaching humans, hair cortisol concentration, and real-time fluctuations in eye temperature in response to stimuli during the the test.
Grantees: Vikki Neville and Lisa Leaver
Institutions: University of Bristol, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $157,049
Grant type: Challenge grant
Focal species: Grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Animal welfare science, physiology, animal behavior
Research location: United Kingdom
Project summary
The development of the cognitive judgment bias (CJB) task for non-human animals revolutionised the field of animal welfare. The CJB task: (a) is thought to measure both relatively better and relatively poorer welfare across the full spectrum of possible welfare states, (b) is non-invasive, and (c) has been validated using a meta-analytic approach. Moreover, the theoretical basis of the predictions for the CJB task should be applicable across taxa and, accordingly, it has been used successfully in many species. However, to date, its use has largely been in captive species and there are a dearth of examples in wild animals. A key barrier to implementation is that it is difficult to train animals to associate stimuli with particular outcomes: the time needed to do so makes these studies unsuccessful or infeasible in non-captive populations of animals. We propose that this could be overcome by capitalising on the natural behaviour of a species to reduce training time and by using equipment that allows automation of stimulus presentation and data collection.
The main aim of our proposed project is to develop a CJB task for use in wild animals, in particular wild squirrels. Our key objectives are to develop a task for collecting CJB data from grey squirrels which: (1) capitalises on their innate behaviour, obviating the need for extensive training, and (2) makes use of Raspberry Pi equipment so that the task can be easily implemented by other researchers and straightforwardly adapted for use across species to measure welfare and validate novel potential measures of welfare.
To assess that our task works as anticipated, secondary objectives will be to: (1) assess how CJB varies with task manipulations designed to alter affective valence (the distance of the equipment from cover, and levels of food provisioning in the environment), and (2) assess how CJB correlates with other potential non-invasive indicators of welfare (e.g. flight distance in response to humans, QBA scores, retrapability, social status, hair cortisol concentration, and fluctuations in eye temperature following positive and negative stimuli on the judgement bias test measured using infrared thermal cameras).
Why we funded this project
As noted above, cognitive bias tests are generally considered to be exceptionally robust welfare indicators, while gray squirrels are an abundant species and a prime target for near-term interventions. Therefore, we are excited to support the development of a cognitive judgment bias test for use on free-living gray squirrels, which will also help to assess the validity of simpler indicators, such as eye temperature and flight initiation distance.
Measuring health and frailty in wild insects
Grantee: Jelle Boonekamp
Institutions: University of Glasgow
Project summary
The aim of this project is to develop a non-invasive frailty index that measures the health of individual insects in their natural habitat and can be applied across species. Using traits applicable to many different insect species, it will develop an insect frailty index, validating it against mortality and fitness data in an insect population by testing whether frail individuals have increased mortality risk and reduced fitness. The project will use data from a long-term field study of a natural population of crickets, which recorded adult crickets from their emergence to death using a network of 140 video cameras. Fitness was measured by genotyping and counting the number of surviving genetic descendants in the following year.
Grantee: Jelle Boonekamp
Institutions: University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $63,536
Grant type: Ad hoc
Focal species: Field cricket (Gryllinae)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, entomology
Research location: United Kingdom
Project summary
From an evolutionary perspective, health and well-being is best expressed in terms of fitness variation, the logic being that animals who are optimally adapted to their local environment should be healthy. Hence, health and fitness are intimately entwined on a conceptual level. Morphological, behavioral, and physiological traits that are predictive of fitness could provide potential biomarkers of health, and such approaches have been developed for many different wild vertebrate species. However, due to their small size and mobility, it has proven exceedingly challenging to follow individual insects longitudinally in the wild, let alone their descendants, to measure individual performance and fitness. Consequently, there is a paucity of literature on wild insect health and well-being.
The aim of this project is to address this knowledge gap by developing a non-invasive frailty index that measures the health of individual insects in their natural habitat and that can be applied across species. Analogizing to frailty indices used in human patients, this project will develop an insect frailty index using relevant traits applicable to many different insect species. In humans, the frailty index is highly predictive of morbidity and remaining life expectancy. Similarly, this project seeks to validate the insect frailty index against mortality and fitness data in an insect population by testing whether “frail” individuals have increased mortality risk and reduced fitness.
This project is made possible by the work that we have done to establish a long-term field study of a natural population of crickets (WildCrickets.org). Using a network of 140 video cameras, all the adults in the population are longitudinally monitored from their emergence in early spring to their natural death in late summer. All their movements, reproductive behaviors, fights, and predation events are recorded, and fitness is measured by genotyping and counting the number of surviving genetic descendants in the next year.
Why we funded this project
Willingness to investigate the welfare of insects is somewhat rare, as are creative ways to assess their welfare. This project both proposed a potentially usable metric, and has access to an unusually useful resource through the WildCrickets.org project. While any particular approach to assessing welfare in insects is unlikely to work, we are hoping to seed enough approaches and strategies that others take up the call, eventually drawing in enough different approaches to produce usable strategies for assessing insect welfare in the wild. Finally, because many of the project resources were already acquired through other sources, we were to fund exclusively the welfare-focused aspects of the project.
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Integrating nonlethal field and lab assessments of wild fish welfare in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Grantee: Isaac Schuman
Institutions: Oregon State University
Project summary
This project will monitor the welfare of three species of fish in the Grand Canyon using a battery of metrics including body condition, gut microbiome, parasite load, and cortisol in skin mucus. The researchers will attempt to validate these as welfare indicators by testing whether they correlate with one another within individual fish, and whether they follow consistent patterns across the three focal species. Finally, they will use long-term population monitoring data to investigate potential correlations between these individual-based welfare indicators and environmental and demographic characteristics of individual study sites, such as food availability and age structure.
Grantee: Isaac Schuman
Institutions: Oregon State University, United States
Grant amount: $30,000
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: Flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis), humpback chub (Gila cypha), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, ichthyology, infectious disease
Research location: United States
Project summary
This project will monitor the welfare of three species of fish in the Grand Canyon using a battery of metrics including body condition, gut microbiome, parasite load, and cortisol in skin mucus. The researchers will attempt to validate these as welfare indicators by testing whether they correlate with one another within individual fish, and whether they follow consistent patterns across the three focal species. Finally, they will use long-term population monitoring data to investigate potential correlations between these individual-based welfare indicators and environmental and demographic characteristics of individual study sites, such as food availability and age structure.
Why we funded this project
We appreciate the variety of potential welfare indicators that this study will measure, and that there will be an explicit attempt to test the validity of the indicators for these particular species. It is exciting to see such a comprehensive analysis of wild fish welfare. We are also interested in the project’s comparison of individual welfare indicators to population-level demographic parameters, as better understanding those relationships could help with both identifying welfare threats from more readily available population data, and with predicting indirect impacts of welfare interventions.
Are populations that are well-adapted to their environment less stressed than those that are not?
Grantee: Ryan S. Mohammed
Institutions: Auburn University
Project summary
In this pilot study, wild-caught guppies will be exposed to an apparent threat of predation as researchers transfer water from a tank containing a common predator (pike cichlid) into their tank. The amount of water transferred from the predators’ tank will be varied to simulate a range of predator densities. Cortisol levels will then be measured in the guppies’ tissue and tank water. These tissue and water cortisol measurements will be compared to develop a protocol for inferring the cortisol levels of fish based on non-invasive water measurements. The researchers hypothesize that the strength of the guppies’ physiological stress response (cortisol) will vary with apparent predation risk.
Grantee: Ryan S. Mohammed
Institutions: Auburn University, United States
Grant amount: $30,374
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: Guppy (Poecilia reticulata), jumping guabine (Anablepsoides hartii)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, ichthyology
Research location: Trinidad and Tobago, United States
Project summary
In this project, wild-caught guppies (Poecilia reticulata) will be exposed to an apparent threat of predation by transferring water from a tank containing a common predator (pike cichlid) into their tank. The amount of water transferred from the predators’ tank will be varied to simulate a range of predator densities. Then, cortisol levels will be measured in both the tissue of guppies and the water they are kept in. These tissue and water cortisol measurements will be compared to develop a protocol for inferring the cortisol levels of fish based on non-invasive water measurements. The researchers hypothesize that the strength of the guppies’ physiological stress response (cortisol) will vary with apparent predation risk, and they intend to eventually build on this pilot study by using the developed non-invasive protocol to compare guppies from populations the are adapted to varying intensities of predation.
Why we funded this project
This project will develop a protocol for inferring the cortisol levels of fish based on non-invasive water measurements, which should allow researchers seeking to use cortisol as a metric of physiological stress to avoid needing to kill fish in order to measure the chemical in their tissues. In terms of broader wild animal welfare theory, we also appreciate the project’s focus on the indirect effects of predator-induced fear, which are likely ubiquitous. This project is also intended as a pilot for a larger project that would investigate the impact of evolutionary adaptation to avoid predation on the stress response to the presence of predators.
How do human activities impair the welfare of highly social fish?
Grantee: Joachim Frommen
Institutions: Manchester Metropolitan University
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare of a common fish species in Lake Tanganyika, the princess cichlid, as they are exposed to varying levels of human activity. Across eight populations representing a range of distances to human settlements and shipping routes, the researchers will monitor behaviors indicative of stress or aggression and measure body condition and the brain tissue expression of five genes involved in stress physiology (glucocorticoid response pathway; crf, cyp11b, gr1, gr2, mr). These welfare indicators will be compared with environmental characteristics including boat noise, water visibility (sedimentary and algal load), human fishing intensity, temperature stress, and structural complexity of the local environment.
Grantee: Joachim Frommen
Institutions: Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $28,960
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: The princess of Zambia (Neolamprologus pulcher)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Ichthyology, physiology, genetics/genomics
Research location: United Kingdom, Zambia
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare of a common fish species in Lake Tanganyika, the princess cichlid (Neolamprologus pulcher), as they are exposed to varying levels of human activity. Across eight populations representing a range of distances to human settlements and shipping routes, the researchers will monitor behaviors indicative of stress or aggression, and measure body condition and the brain tissue expression of five genes involved in stress physiology (glucocorticoid response pathway; crf, cyp11b, gr1, gr2, mr). These welfare indicators will be compared with specific environmental characteristics, including boat noise, water visibility (sedimentary and algal load), human fishing intensity, temperature stress, and structural complexity of the local environment.
Why we funded this project
By focusing on an established model system (cichlids), this project is able to benefit from background knowledge of the species’ ecology and behavior and proceed to more neglected welfare questions, as well as potentially engaging a ready audience of cichlid researchers. An especially interesting component of this project is its investigation of brain gene expression to potentially better understand how stress physiology relates to an animal’s subjective experience.