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.
Developing, testing and validating indicators of wild insect welfare
Grantee: Carl Soulsbury
Institution: University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Project summary
This project aims to develop and validate practical indicators of welfare in wild insects. Working with three common model species — Dubia cockroaches (Blaptica dubia), two-spotted crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus), and carrion beetles — it will measure a suite of behavioral and physiological stress responses including oxidative stress markers, fat reserves via NMR, and movement patterns tracked using AI-assisted video analysis. These measures will be validated against cognitive bias testing to identify which indicators reliably reflect negative welfare. The most field-accessible measures will be applied to wild carrion beetle populations, testing whether lab-derived welfare indicators hold up under natural conditions.
Decoding aquatic mollusk welfare: an investigation of potential physiological and cognitive indicators
Grantee: Laura Webb
Institution: Wageningen University, Netherlnads
Project summary
This project aims to explore physiological and cognitive indicators of welfare in two species of aquatic mollusk: highly mobile cuttlefish (dwarf cuttlefish; Ascarosepion bandense) and sessile (blue) mussels (Mytilus edulis). Valid indicators of mollusk welfare can help us better understand their welfare in changing environmental conditions, such as those associated with climate change. The researchers will explore heart rate variability and respiratory variability as possible physiological indicators, and optimism in a judgment bias test as a cognitive indicator of welfare. Following this, successful metrics can in turn be used to explore the impact of environmental changes on these species' welfare.
Harnessing machine learning for the non-invasive assessment of wild fish welfare
Grantee: Thomas Pike
Institution: University of Lincoln
Project summary
This project aims to develop an open-source aquatic camera system capable of automatically and non-invasively quantifying a suite of behavioural and cognitive welfare indicators in wild fish. Behavioural indicators include the degree of physical closeness between individuals within a group, the spatial arrangement of subgroups, movement behaviour, and agonistic interactions. The project will examine variation in these indicators along an urban–rural gradient to a range of putative stressors, before validating them using “challenge” tests involving ecologically relevant experimental interventions (e.g., acoustic disturbances such as boat noise). The overarching objective is to develop an open-source toolkit that integrates commercially available hardware with custom-designed software, allowing the methods to be readily used by others to assess wild fish welfare.
Effect of an invasive competitor on the welfare of a threatened fish in a soft-release program
Grantee: Rafael Freire
Institutions: Charles Sturt University
Project summary
Invasive fish are common in most freshwater systems, yet their impact on the welfare of resident fish is often ignored. Invasive fish species compete and displace small-bodied native fish in several ways, including by preventing access to refuge sites, preferred foods, breeding grounds, and other important resources. This project will assess the welfare of native fish placed in sites with and without invasive competitors. Welfare will be measured using a novel population-level judgement bias test, differences in telomere attrition, and typical physical correlates of welfare in fish. In addition to revealing the impact of invasive fish on small-bodied fish welfare, this work will also promote greater consideration of the impact of animal translocation and release activities on wild animal welfare.