Researchers Attempt a New Strategy for Releasing Captive Animals into The Wild
Conservationists are evaluating individual birds to assess which personality types have the best chances of survival
Hiya!
Animals were long considered mindless creatures that behaved on instinct alone. Thankfully, such views are rapidly changing because the truth is too obvious to ignore. Anyone who has had a pet or spent much time around animals knows that although animals don’t use verbal language, we can understand; they can still communicate with us. They have needs, wants, and unique personalities, too.
Paying attention makes it easy to see that some animals are more outgoing than others, some are goofier, and some are better problem solvers — and species type has nothing to do with it. Now, scientists are embracing this fact and using it to help conservationists better determine which animal personalities have the best chances of survival and of repopulating their species once released into the wild.
Challenges with Wildlife Conservation
Humans are the biggest threat to wildlife. We hunt animals for sport and destroy their habitats by expanding our own or poisoning them with pollution, all of which threatens many animal species with extinction. To prevent extinction, experts aim to return endangered animals raised in captivity back to their natural habitats to counteract the losses caused by human intervention.
The problem is that reintroducing animals to the wild often fails because many animals raised in captivity struggle to adapt to changing habitats, find food, recognize predators, and breed. Research has even found that a third (30 percent) of reintroductions have issues due to the animal’s own behavior.
While studying reintroductions, experts discovered several criteria that seem to determine an animal’s chances of successfully returning their species to the wild. These include how individual animals learn from others both within and beyond their own species, how they decide the best location to build a nest, and how easily they adapt to changing circumstances.
However, researchers from the UK and Singapore wanted to expand on this knowledge by better understanding individual animals’ cognition — how they perceive, process, store, and act upon information — with the goal of better identifying the characteristics that give an animal the best chances of survival and, therefore, make them ideal candidates for release into the wild.
New Research
Rachael Miller (Harrison), a lecturer in Biology and Animal Behaviour at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK; Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, an Assistant Professor in Comparative Cognition and Evolutionary Psychology at the National University of Singapore; and Stuart Marsden, a Professor of Conservation Ecology at Manchester Metropolitan University, focused on Bali myna birds for their study, which was published in the Royal Society Open Science in July 2022.
The trio also penned an article in The Conversation about their research, explaining that they chose to focus on Bali myna birds because they’re known to have distinct personalities and are a critically endangered species.
The bird species is named after the island of Bali in Indonesia, the only place in the world they exist. The island’s dry savanna and forests are the ideal habitat for the Bali mynas, but unfortunately, less than 50 adults remain. Conservationists have been trying to reintroduce more Bali mynas into the wild, hoping to boost their population, but are having mixed results.
To survive and thrive, these rewilded birds need to recognize food, identify good places to nest, avoid predators, find mates, and navigate farms, villages, and other human-occupied areas. That’s a lot to ask of birds bred in captivity.
So, the researchers tested and observed a range of behaviors of 22 Bali mynas in three zoos in the UK. The team gauged the birds’ problem-solving ability and watched how they responded to unfamiliar foods, such as jelly, or strange objects placed near familiar food.
The researchers then evaluated the behaviors of the individual birds to determine which may be the most likely to succeed in new environments.
The Results
The researchers found that overall, the birds took their time touching familiar food when an unfamiliar object was present but approached the familiar food, even with an unfamiliar object nearby, when another bird species was added to their aviaries.
The behavior was more pronounced in adults than juveniles, but it shows that they can overcome their fears when in competition for food, which is critical for survival in the wild.
The researchers also discovered that while individual birds' behavior varied, they responded consistently to various unfamiliar food and objects. For instance, the birds with bolder personalities were faster problem-solvers, which may benefit them in the wild.
By the end, the researchers believe they’ve identified the Bali myna personality types with the best chances of survival. They write in their article:
We learned which Bali mynas are likely to be best suited for release: typically the bolder or more cautious birds, suggesting two different, but ultimately successful survival strategies.
As mentioned, the bolder birds were quicker problem solvers, but that doesn’t guarantee success. Boldness can also lead to death. Such is the case for swift foxes. When the bolder foxes are released into the wild, they’re less likely to avoid predators, traps left by people, and other competitive animals than the more cautious foxes.
In the Future
The study is a great first step toward increasing the rewilding success rate and boosting populations of threatened species, but there’s plenty more research needed.
The swift fox example mentioned before shows how a personality trait that helps one species survive can decrease the odds of survival for another. And, of course, one personality trait, like boldness, is generally contextual — it’s great in some situations but not others. This means it’s not just the traits that matter but the combination of traits within an individual and how they are applied.
Beyond helping conservationists better select the individual animals with the best chances of survival for rewilding, this research can help them train animals to recognize and respond appropriately to things like changing circumstances or predators.
Now, researchers can measure these efforts' impact on an animal’s survival rate and tweak as needed, but so far, the researchers write, “the evidence is promising.” For instance, other research found that having experienced adult black-tailed prairie dogs train juveniles in predator training boosted the juveniles’ long-term survival rate after being released.
While all of this is promising, the race is on to learn as much as possible because humans are spreading and changing landscapes faster than natural habitats for wildlife can grow.
Perspective Shift
I’m excited by today’s research for a few reasons. For one, I’m always thrilled about anything that helps animals because I love animals. This research adds more evidence showing that animals are more than we have been giving them credit for by acknowledging that animals have personalities. And that rather than ignoring this truth, we can use it to better care for them and hopefully increase their chances of survival.
Also, recognizing that animals are far from mindless will likely have additional positive ripple effects. For instance, learning more about animals can lead to a more sustainable future as we figure out how to coexist again — which we’ll need to do; otherwise, we’ll continue to encroach on natural habitats until no animals are left.
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This seems to imply that there are also humans who should never be released “into the wild.” 😜
It’s encouraging that some scientists are exploring this. I wonder how much effort and money is spent trying to ensure that human prisoners have a chance to thrive after their release. Probably not much. And I’ll bet it’s a “one size fits all” approach.