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.
Determining the practical and statistical methods necessary for employing field-based metrics of welfare on wild, juvenile, birds
Grantee: Daniel Hanley
Institution: George Mason University
Project summary
Because welfare can vary between individuals and throughout the life of an animal, methods for measuring, assessing, and comparing welfare have been a barrier to our understanding of juvenile welfare. Initial investigations of welfare metrics are needed to estimate age-specific welfare in wild juvenile animals, to determine how they deviate from population-level estimates, and to extend methods and metrics to other systems. This study will examine welfare in free-living prothonotary warblers to establish standardized field and analytical procedures necessary to obtain age-specific animal welfare estimates. Prothonotary warblers are an ideal model system for studying age-specific welfare because they have well-defined life stages, face unique environmental risks, have variable survival, and nest within cavities, affording a degree of standardization and control.
Grantee: Daniel Hanley
Institution: George Mason University, United States
Grant amount: $60,000
Grant type: Challenge grants
Focal species: Prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Ornithology, animal behavior, population ecology
Research location: United States
Project summary
The juvenile stage is where welfare conditions are likely the most variable and impactful on an individual’s growth and behavior. Unfortunately, methods for measuring, assessing, and comparing welfare have been a barrier to our understanding of juvenile welfare. Like other aspects of animal life history, welfare will vary between individuals and also over the lives of animals in an age-specific fashion. Thus, metrics such as welfare expectancy can inform us of the welfare that an organism is likely to experience, similar to how life expectancy can provide an estimate on how much longer an organism may live.
This study examines welfare in free-living juvenile songbirds to establish standardized field and analytical procedures necessary to obtain age-specific animal welfare estimates. Prothonotary warblers are an ideal model system for studying age-specific welfare because they have well-defined life stages (i.e., egg, nestling, fledgling, subadult, adult), face unique environmental risks (e.g., drought and flooding), and have variable survival. Furthermore, members of this species nest within cavities, which affords a degree of standardization and control necessary for an initial investigation of welfare metrics. Such initial investigations are crucial to estimate age-specific welfare on wild juvenile animals, to determine how they deviate from population-level welfare estimates, and to extend these methods and metrics to other systems.
Why we funded this project
We funded this project because it sought to explicitly quantify welfare across life stages, using multiple physiological, behavioral, and environmental/demographic indicators. Knowing how (and ideally why) average welfare differs over the course of life in a population could have important implications for interventions to improve their welfare (e.g., fertility control). We were also impressed with this PI because he engages numerous students in their lab and is relatively early in his own career, potentially allowing for pivot to focus more on wild animal welfare. He also demonstrated a good understanding of Wild Animal Initiative’s research on the welfare expectancy framework and sought to put the concepts into practice. That sort of theory-to-practice pipeline would represent a significant step for welfare biology as a research field.
Photos
Thermal imaging to investigate physiological state in altricial nestlings
Grantee: Paul Jerem
Institution: Tufts University
Project summary
Animal stress responses evolved to increase survival, in part by stimulating behaviors that reduce exposure to challenging situations. However, young birds who are entirely reliant on their parents (“altricial”) are incapable of acting to change their circumstances, potentially exposing them to the damaging effects of chronic stress. Such species are known to suppress aspects of their stress physiology during development. However, it remains unclear if other parts of the system remain active and could serve as useful indicators for efforts to improve early life welfare. This project seeks to investigate this possibility in juvenile house sparrows (Passer domesticus) using a novel, non-invasive method for inferring internal state — thermal imaging of body surface temperatures.
Grantee: Paul Jerem
Institution: Tufts University, United States
Grant amount: $37,780
Grant type: Challenge grants
Focal species: House sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, ornithology
Research location: United States
Project summary
Animal stress responses evolved to increase survival, in part by stimulating behaviors that reduce exposure to challenging situations. However, young birds who are entirely reliant on their parents (“altricial”) are incapable of acting to change their circumstances, potentially exposing them to the damaging effects of chronic stress. Such species are known to suppress aspects of their stress physiology during development. However, it remains unclear if other parts of the system remain active and could serve as useful indicators for efforts to improve early life welfare. This project seeks to investigate this possibility in juvenile house sparrows (Passer domesticus) using a novel, non-invasive method for inferring internal state — thermal imaging of body surface temperatures.
Why we funded this project
We especially want to understand juvenile welfare, because in most species that is the most experienced life stage, and often the most vulnerable. However, developmental changes can make it difficult to compare welfare between juveniles and adults. This project will calibrate a non-invasive proxy of welfare that can be applied to both adult and altricial juvenile birds, enabling not only better welfare assessments, but more effective lifetime comparisons. A better understanding of the “shape” of lifetime welfare would in turn inform interventions that might disproportionately affect individuals of certain ages.
Photos
It takes guts to grow in the city: the role of the gut microbiome in the welfare of juvenile urban birds
Grantee: Pablo Capilla-Lasheras
Institution: University of Glasgow
Project summary
Approximately 30 million blue tits hatch every year in UK cities, but around 63% die as juveniles. One reason for this may be that juvenile birds in urban habitats tend to have low-quality diets, causing stunted growth and increased early-life mortality. Research suggests that gut microbiome composition may contain indicators of an animal’s welfare, but this has received little attention in a wild animal context. This project will combine telomere attrition, begging behavior, and other health metrics with a study of juvenile birds’ gut microbiomes to investigate how to improve the welfare of juvenile blue tits in urban areas. It will also test the potential for gut microbiome enrichment to improve the life experience of juvenile birds in urban habitats.
Grantee: Pablo Capilla-Lasheras
Institution: University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $59,052
Grant type: Challenge grants
Focal species: Blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Physiology, population ecology, animal welfare science, ornithology, animal behavior
Research location: United Kingdom
Publications
Reid, R., et al. (2024). The impact of urbanization on health depends on the health metric, life stage and level of urbanization: a global meta-analysis on avian species. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2027). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.0617
Project summary
Amongst the novel stressors that wildlife face in cities, shifts in diet are prevalent and have negative consequences for welfare, particularly in juveniles. Research clearly shows that juvenile birds in urban habitats have low-quality diets, causing stunted growth and increased early-life mortality. For example, in the UK alone, approximately 30 million blue tits hatch every year in cities, but around 63% of them die as juveniles. This project will study juvenile blue tits and investigate how to improve their welfare in urban areas using an integrative approach that will combine metrics of animal welfare with the study of gut microbiomes. Human and captive animal studies suggest that the gut microbiome composition may contain indicators of an animal’s welfare, but this has received little attention in a wild animal context. This study will combine a physiological welfare indicator (telomere attrition), a behavioral welfare indicator (begging behavior), and other health metrics with a study of juvenile birds’ gut microbiomes to link poor-quality urban diets, gut microbiome composition, and welfare. The project will also test a potential near-term dietary intervention (gut microbiome enrichment) to improve the life experience of juvenile birds growing in urban habitats.
Why we funded this project
Welfare is shaped by, and in turn influences, numerous aspects of an animal’s phenotype. Individual welfare indicators offer only limited insights, but combining indicators across multiple domains is thought to be extremely important for triangulating affective state, or “true” welfare. Because the gut microbiome represents a partially distinct domain, understanding how it relates to welfare could therefore strengthen all of our other indicators when they are used in combination. We were especially interested in this project due to the inclusion of an intervention experiment that could be implemented in the near future. Finally, this project will support an early-career researcher with an interest in wild animal welfare.
Photos
Density-Dependent Welfare in Wild Bird Social Networks: Linking resource distributions with disease dynamics
Grantee: Joshua Firth
Institution: University of Oxford
Project summary
This project will investigate how various potential density-dependent drivers of welfare interact and influence net welfare in two species of tit. Population density is expected to be directly related to infectious disease transfer and increased competition, but also to covary with processes that are potentially beneficial to welfare. The study will use historical data to determine how the relationship between population density and individual welfare is shaped by infectious disease, body condition, and mortality risk. The investigators will then manipulate density experimentally to test model outputs and determine potential causal links.
Grantee: Josh Firth
Institution: University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $99,466
Grant type: Challenge grants
Focal species: Great tits (Parus major), blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Animal behavior, community ecology, infectious disease, population ecology, ornithology, bio/eco-informatics, ecological modeling, animal welfare science
Research location: United Kingdom
Project summary
This project seeks to understand the interplay among various potential density-dependent drivers of positive and negative welfare impacts to determine net welfare related to aggregation (increased density) in wild birds (two species of tit). Infectious disease transfer and increased competition, both likely to reduce welfare, are expected to be directly related to population density. However, population density also covaries with processes that are potentially beneficial to welfare, such as congregation around areas that provide high nutrition, various social benefits, opportunities for increased cooperation, or access to social information. The study will use long-term datasets to empirically determine how the relationship between population density and individual welfare is shaped by infectious disease, including the density-dependent relationship with disease spread. Additionally, using historical data, the project will test how population density, mediated by social contact, environment, and disease, determines individuals’ body condition and mortality risk. Based on the results of this observational phase of the study, the investigators will then manipulate density experimentally, to test model outputs and determine potential causal links.
Why we funded this project
This project brings two unique advantages. First, the investigators have access to a population that has been subject to intensive monitoring for decades, meaning that much of the relevant ecological context is known and there is historical data to analyze retrospectively. Secondly, in part due to this long-term monitoring, the birds are tagged and observed at feeding stations equipped with RFID tags/readers that allow for experimental manipulation of the density and identity of birds feeding at particular stations. By empirically testing density-dependent models of welfare, the project could provide an increased understanding of the interplay among population density, infectious disease, and various social and environmental characteristics, and in doing so, identify drivers of welfare in wild birds.
