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.
Between freedom and security, what makes a feral pigeon happier?
Grantee: Brandon Mak
Institution: Technical University of Munich
Project summary
Feral pigeons in Germany are subject to the Augsburg model of non-lethal population control, which involves attracting them to breed in dovecots where food and nest sites are provided, and their eggs exchanged with dummies. Others are captured and housed in aviaries under similar conditions. This project investigates the welfare implications of Germany’s non-lethal population control strategies. This is done by comparing the stress profiles of feral pigeons living “wild” in the streets, free-living pigeons breeding and feeding in dovecots, and formerly free-living pigeons translocated into aviaries. Fieldwork will be conducted to weigh pigeons (body mass measurement), collect egg and feather samples from their nests (corticosterone concentrations), and observe their behavior (locomotion and aggression).
Grantee: Brandon Mak
Institution: Technical University of Munich, Germany
Grant amount: $10,900
Grant type: Seed grants
Focal species: Feral pigeon/rock dove (Columba livia domestica)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Ornithology, animal behavior, physiology, population ecology, wildlife management
Research locations: Germany
Project summary
Feral pigeons in Germany are subject to the Augsburg model of non-lethal population control, which involves attracting them to breed in dovecots where food and nest sites are provided, and their eggs exchanged with dummies. Others are captured and housed in aviaries under similar conditions. While aimed at reducing pigeon populations, providing food, and reducing exposure to predators, it’s possible that these measures may incidentally alleviate chronic stress in free-living individuals. This project investigates the welfare implications of Germany’s non-lethal population control strategies. This is done by comparing the stress profiles of feral pigeons living “wild” in the streets, free-living pigeons breeding and feeding in dovecots, and formerly free-living pigeons translocated into aviaries. Fieldwork will be conducted to weigh pigeons (body mass measurement), collect egg and feather samples from their nests (corticosterone concentrations), and observe their behavior (locomotion and aggression).
Why we funded this project
This project will contribute to our understanding of the potential welfare effects of (non-chemical) fertility control in pigeons, a leading candidate for near-term interventions to improve welfare in urban contexts. It will also provide some information on the validity of egg corticosterone as a non-invasive indicator of stress by measuring it alongside other more established methods (feather corticosterone, morphological and behavioural indicators) for a more robust welfare assessment.
Every breath you take, I‘ll be watching you: Automated measurement of breath rate from mobile phone videos as a severity assessment parameter in wild great tits
Grantee: Caroline Deimel
Institution: Max Planck Institute
Project summary
This project aims to provide a validated reference tool for standardizing breath rate (BR) measurements following capture and physical sampling protocols in wild birds. The researchers will use computer vision capabilities and other recently developed software improvements to estimate BR metrics from mobile phone videos, enabling the collection of objective, reproducible, and comparable data, and providing institutions tasked to oversee animal welfare with objective and feasible monitoring requirements. The project will also evaluate BR as a welfare indicator in great tits by analyzing an existing five-year dataset to test whether BR corresponds to simultaneous glucocorticoid measurements from free-living great tits. This data will provide reliable baselines and ranges for glucocorticoids and BR, and benchmarks for video recording lengths.
Grantee: Caroline Deimel
Institutions: Max Planck Institute, Germany
Grant amount: $19,200
Grant type: Small grants
Focal species: Great tits (Parus major)
Conservation status: Least concern
Disciplines: Animal behavior, animal welfare science, physiology
Research location: Germany
Project summary
Breath rate (BR) is increasingly used as a non-invasive proxy of stress that is fast, cheap, and field-friendly. However, BR has not been evaluated in a bird welfare context, and it is unclear how it relates to established physiological proxies of stress, like glucocorticoid measurements in blood. Also, the currently used protocols to measure BR lack standardization, scalability, and validation. This project aims to provide a validated, non-invasive reference tool for standardizing BR measurements following capture and physical sampling protocols in wild birds by implementing computer vision capabilities and other improvements in software the researchers have recently developed to estimate BR metrics from mobile phone videos. This will allow the research community to gather objective, reproducible, and comparable data, and provide institutions tasked to oversee animal welfare with objective and feasible monitoring requirements. The project will also evaluate BR as a welfare indicator in great tits (Parus major), a songbird extensively used in wild animal research across Europe, by analyzing an existing, five-year dataset to test whether BR corresponds to simultaneous glucocorticoid measurements from free-living great tits. These data will provide reliable baselines and ranges for glucocorticoids and BR, and benchmarks for video recording lengths.
Why we funded this project
We are generally interested in developing non-invasive ways of measuring indicators of wild animal welfare. One of the key advantages to non-invasive measurement, besides the obvious of not causing unnecessary fear or pain to animals, is that stress induced by the measurement process can obscure the animal’s baseline stress levels if the method is too invasive or not carried out properly. We also tentatively believe that instilling a norm of minimizing animal harm within welfare biology research will increase the likelihood that researchers act as scientist-advocates for implementation of wild animal welfare interventions. This project’s focus on making breath rate easy and inexpensive to measure in a consistent way also fits well with our desire for a greater volume and accessibility of welfare data collection.