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.
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.
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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.
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The impact of road noise on the welfare of free-living juvenile white-footed mice
Grantee: Michael Sheriff
Institution: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Project summary
This project will examine how road noise impacts the ability of juvenile white-footed mice in Massachusetts to respond to the threat of predation. Preliminary work has shown that experimental manipulation of road noise disrupts the foraging responses of (adult) small mammals to predation risk, possibly by masking their ability to perceive predators’ auditory cues. Perception of predation threat will be experimentally manipulated by auditory playback of owl noises at sites near and far from the highway, paired with controls at the same distances from the highway without auditory playback. Anxiety-related behaviors will be recorded in juveniles in an open field trap, and their feces will be studied to assess physiological stress and nutritional status.
Grantee: Michael Sheriff
Institution: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, United States
Grant amount: $60,000
Grant type: Challenge grants
Focal species: White-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Human-wildlife conflict, animal behavior, population ecology, mammalogy
Research location: United States
Project summary
This project will examine the impact of road noise on juvenile welfare in white-footed mice in Massachusetts. The project will focus on how road noise impacts the ability of juveniles to respond appropriately to the threat of predation (the most common cause of juvenile small mammal mortality). Preliminary work has shown that experimental manipulation of road noise (played at 62-65dB, which is equivalent to 100m into the forest from a major thoroughfare to Boston, MA) disrupts the normal foraging responses of (adult) small mammals to predation risk, possibly by masking their ability to perceive auditory cues of predators. Perception of predation threat will be experimentally manipulated by auditory playback of owl noises at sites near and far from the highway, paired with controls at the same distances from the highway but without auditory playback. Anxiety-related behaviors will be recorded in juveniles in an open field trap (which they voluntarily enter for feed), and their feces will be studied to assess physiological stress and nutritional status.
Why we funded this project
Road noise has dramatically increased and is potentially a major anthropogenic threat to wild animal welfare, and one which might be easily ameliorated through policy changes (e.g., improved sound barriers). This project is especially interesting because it focuses on a less obvious effect of road noise, potentially increasing the risk of predation by masking predator cues. This becomes even more interesting in the context of growing literature on the “ecology of fear,” sublethal effects of predators on prey behavior. If road noise makes prey unaware of risks, it could actually reduce their chronic stress despite exposing them to greater risk of death. We are excited for this project to explore those issues, although we are prepared for a complex result. Additionally, we wanted to support this PI because of their strong record of engaging students in their research and influencing their career trajectories.
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To feed or not to feed wild birds
Grantee: Marion Chatelain
Institution: University of Innsbruck
Project summary
Despite providing otherwise limited resources, bird feeders may attract predators, facilitate the exchange of pathogens, and increase intraspecific conflict. This project will study two common bird species: great tits, who use feeders intensively, and black redstarts, who typically do not use feeders. By monitoring the use of nestboxes in gardens with or without feeders, the project aims to evaluate social stress and competition for nesting sites caused by bird feeding. Fecal samples from nestlings will also be analyzed to understand impacts on stress physiology, growth rate, and ectoparasite load.
Grantee: Marion Chatelain
Institution: University of Innsbruck, Austria
Grant amount: $29,943
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: Great tits (Parus major), black redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Ecological modeling, community ecology
Research location: Austria
Project summary
Bird feeding can provide birds with sustenance through challenging times, such as winter, and in places where they would not be able to find abundant natural foods, such as inner cities. However, bird feeding may also have negative consequences by aggregating birds in one location, attracting predators, facilitating the exchange of pathogens, and increasing intraspecific conflict.
This project will consider two common bird species: great tits, who use feeders intensively, and black redstarts, who typically do not use feeders. By monitoring the use of nestboxes separately targeting these two species, across private gardens that do or do not provide feeders, the project aims to evaluate social stress and competition for nesting sites caused by bird feeding. Fecal samples from nestlings will also be analyzed to understand impacts on stress physiology, growth rate, and ectoparasite load.
Why we funded this project
With the popularity of bird feeding and the density of private gardens in cities, understanding the pros and cons of bird feeding may be crucial for understanding and ultimately improving the welfare of urban birds. We especially appreciate that this project will consider both target and non-target bird species, and focuses on the welfare of juveniles.
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.
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Improving the welfare of farmland invertebrates
Grantee: Dr. Ruth Feber
Institution: University of Oxford
Project summary
In Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), larvae are much more abundant and less mobile than adults. Larvae are therefore particularly vulnerable to negative stimuli, including starvation and disease. This project will use lepidopteran larvae as a model for auditing the welfare impact of agricultural activities on invertebrates. Juvenile stages of Lepidoptera are exposed to agricultural practices that have the potential to affect their welfare. To quantify these impacts, the study will extend the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) methodology to take into account the number of individuals affected by a specified action.
Grantee: Dr. Ruth Feber
Institution: Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Grant amount: $58,448
Grant type: Challenge grant
Focal species: Butterflies (Rhopalocera sp.)
Conservation status: Near threatened
Disciplines: Entomology, population ecology, physiology
Research location: United Kingdom
Project summary
Invertebrates, particularly insects, often have complex life histories. Juveniles (which make up the overwhelming majority of invertebrate numbers) may experience a range of different life quality outcomes. In Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), for example, adults are the most visible stage, but the much more abundant larvae are less mobile than adults and are particularly vulnerable to negative stimuli including starvation and disease.
This project will use lepidopteran larvae as a model for auditing the welfare impact of agricultural activities on invertebrates. Juvenile stages of Lepidoptera tend to comprise the largest proportion of the total lifespan in temperate regions and, as juveniles, they are exposed to a wide range of agricultural practices that have the potential to affect their welfare. Lepidoptera are also among the better-studied invertebrates, with published data on the ecology, life histories, and survivorship of some species. This knowledge will be used to help inform welfare impact assessments.
The study will adapt the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) methodology to quantify the welfare impacts of agriculture, which has recently been adapted by Teng et al. (2018) to compare the impact of diseases of domestic animals with a Welfare Adjusted Life Year (WALY). This project aims to extend the QALY to take into account the number of individuals affected by a specified action.
Why we funded this project
Farms take up nearly half of the world’s habitable land, but there is a lack of research into how agricultural management practices might impact wild animals, especially invertebrates. In order to improve welfare for invertebrates, we first need to understand how to measure welfare. This project will explore a model to quantify wild insect health and well-being. We were especially attracted to this project because it will repurpose existing data, allowing the research objectives to be accomplished more cheaply and with less animal suffering than might otherwise be required. We were also excited by the PI’s interest in quantifying welfare using a QALY-like framework, which fits perfectly with our utilitarian approach and could lead to actionable policy recommendations.
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Drivers of welfare in American pikas (Ochotona princeps)
Grantee: Johanna Varner
Institution: Colorado Mesa University
Project summary
Pikas (Ochotona princeps) in alpine habitats have recently faced population losses and range retractions. Declines are most prominent in isolated mountain ranges with limited high-elevation habitat, like the La Sals, where pikas are consequently likely to experience lower welfare. This project will assess the welfare of pikas in the La Sals through patterns of survival, population demographics, physiological stress, body condition, ectoparasite load, and hydration. The researchers will also test hypotheses correlating these indicators to habitat quality, and investigate resource competition between pikas and mountain goats.
Grantee: Johanna Varner
Institution: Colorado Mesa University, United States
Grant amount: $28,500
Grant type: Small grants
Focal Species: American pikas (Ochotona princeps)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Population ecology, animal behavior, ecological modeling, community ecology
Research location: United States
Project summary
Due to recent population losses and range retractions, pikas (Ochotona princeps) are considered a sentinel for climate change in the alpine. However, declines are most prominent in isolated mountain ranges with limited high-elevation habitat, like the La Sals. Surrounded by low-elevation desert in all directions, pikas in the La Sals are likely to experience lower aggregate welfare (i.e., steeper population declines, greater physiological stress, and lower survivorship). This project will assess the welfare of pikas in the La Sals through patterns of survival, population demographics, physiological stress (fecal glucocorticoid metabolites; FGM), body condition, ectoparasite load, and hydration. The researchers will also test hypotheses correlating these welfare indicators to aspects of habitat quality. Finally, they will also investigate resource competition between pikas and mountain goats as another potential factor in pika welfare.
Why we funded this project
This project addresses our research priority of understanding the welfare implications of competition and other conflicts of interest between wild animals. It also focuses on a highly numerous species, the American pika. In that context, we appreciate that this project will model habitat quality on the spatial scale relevant to individual pika when assessing its association with their welfare. Finally, we value that they will use a wide variety of welfare indicators, representing the domains of physiology, behavior, and environment/demography, with each strengthening interpretation of the other.
