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 will be adding more in the coming weeks and months.
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.
Mapping welfare for conservation management
Grantee: Lisa Olivier
Institution: Game Rangers International
Project summary
This project will monitor behavioral and physiological parameters in African elephants over one year to map their perception of their environment. The aim is to test this approach’s potential as a leading indicator that is easy to measure, responds quickly to ecosystem changes, and highlights potential detrimental impacts. These measures will be aggregated to define a scale representing the animals’ perceptions of threat that can be estimated for a given time and place. The researchers will then project this data onto maps to identify areas of high and low welfare. The project will help conservation practitioners create management plans to protect wild animals by providing a head start in assessing changes in their surroundings.
Grantee: Lisa Olivier
Institutions: Game Rangers International, Zambia
Grant amount: $29,791
Grant type: Small grants
Focal species: African elephant (Loxodonta)
Conservation status: Endangered
Disciplines: Animal behavior, animal welfare science, wildlife management
Research location: Zambia
Project summary
To effectively steward wild animal welfare, leading indicators are needed that predict the future rather than summarizing the past. These must be easy to measure, respond quickly to ecosystem changes and highlight potential detrimental impacts that need addressing, including anthropogenic activities. This project aims to test the approach of mapping wild animals’ perception of their environment by monitoring an array of behavioral and physiological parameters in African elephants over a year as they navigate the landscape. These measures will be aggregated to define a scale representing the animals’ perceptions of threat that can be estimated for a given time and place. The researchers will then project these data onto maps to identify areas of high and low welfare, where animals may be feeling alternatively secure or fearful. The researchers intend for the project to help conservation practitioners create better management plans to protect wild animal populations by providing a head start in assessing changes in their surroundings.
Why we funded this project
We are excited by this project’s analysis of a long-term longitudinal dataset because of the importance of understanding how wild animals’ welfare varies with demographic factors such as age and sex, as these groups often face different challenges and have different ecological and behavioral requirements, and negative welfare impacts that fall on young individuals may also have ripple effects throughout their lives. We also appreciate this project’s holistic approach. The long-term monitoring means it is possible to consider not only the usual downstream welfare indicators based on health and behavior, but also upstream factors that might influence them, such as social interactions and exposure to predators.
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