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.
Developing & refining behavioral assays for the measurement of ‘sentient welfare’ in gastropod molluscs
Grantee: Elizabeth Paul
Institution: University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Project summary
Compared to cephalopod mollusks, gastropod mollusks have been neglected in welfare research and public and legislative concern. This project will develop and refine key assays for the behavioral measurement of welfare in two gastropod species: the great pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis) and the common garden snail (Cornu aspersum). The researchers will study the capacities of snails to experience consequences within two hypothesized domains of affective function: the first relating to a Punishment Avoidance System (associated with an animal’s responses to threats and punishments) and the second to a Reward Acquisition System (associated with an animal’s responses to opportunities and rewards).
Assessing anthropogenic fear in a wild decapod crustacean
Grantee: Mark Briffa
Institution: University of Plymouth, United Kingdom
Project summary
This project will investigate whether urban coastal environments alter fear-related behavioral and physiological responses in wild hermit crabs, using two species that differ in their history of exposure to urbanization. Researchers will compare crabs of both species collected from urban and rural shorelines and measure indicators that may be linked to affective state, including startle responses, shell investigation behavior, and resting metabolic rate under field conditions. By repeatedly measuring behavior within individuals, they will also test whether urban disturbance influences behavioral predictability, which may provide additional insight into fear and stress-related processes.
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.
Remote welfare assessment in wildlife using stand-off Raman spectroscopy
Grantees: Jose Gonzalez-Rodriguez and Teresa Romero
Institution: University of Lincoln
Project summary
This project aims to develop a stand-off Raman spectroscopy system as a non-invasive tool to assess hormonal levels in wild animals, which can be integrated into welfare assessments. The project also aims to validate under standardized and natural conditions how biomarkers of long-term stress relate to a range of stressors that may affect wild animal welfare. They will use a combination of socio-positive (e.g., play, grooming) and negative (e.g., aggression, screaming) behaviors, indices of social integration, behavioral indicators of anxiety (i.e., self-directed behaviors), and resting behavior, as well as physical indicators of welfare (body condition, instances of injury).
Validating body posture as a novel marker of well-being in animals
Grantee: Nicola Koyama
Institution: Liverpool John Moores University
Project summary
A few studies on nonhuman primates have found that a hunched posture is a response to social separation and physical inflammation, but research linking whole body posture and physiological measures of welfare is lacking. This project will combine established measures of affective valence (nasal temperature) and arousal (iris-pupil ratio) to validate body posture as a new measure of affective valence. Two months of video data will be collected and used for thermal imaging, behavioral, and postural analysis from groups of wild Barbary macaques, along with pilot data for comparison from non-human primate zoo animals. Ultimately, the project aims to share a new validated measure and conceptual framework that can be applied to a range of wild mammals.
An evaluation of effective disturbance mitigation measures for European badgers (Meles meles) occupying setts during forestry operations
Grantee: Stephen McAuliffe
Institution: University of Brighton and Forest Research
Project summary
In order to avoid possible disturbance to European badgers, forestry guidance in England states that activities using heavy machinery should be prohibited within 20 meters of active badger setts. This research aims to validate that the approved noise and vibration mitigation buffer distances intended to prevent disturbance from anthropogenic activities are effective. Observations of badger behavior will be made in woodland habitats, and fecal cortisol metabolites will be collected for analysis. If changes in behavior and increases in cortisol levels are not found following exposure to forestry noise and vibration greater than 20 meters away, robust evidence will be provided to validate that badger welfare is not being adversely impacted by legally sanctioned forestry activities.
The impact of winter food provisioning on the welfare of wild urban hedgehogs
Grantee: Julia Nowack
Institution: Liverpool John Moores University
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare impacts of supplemental feeding during winter on European hedgehogs. Hedgehogs and other species have adapted to the lack of natural food during the winter by hibernating. Previous research, however, has suggested that hibernation may be interrupted when anthropogenic food sources are available. This project will use biologgers to collect data on winter activity and hibernation, as well as the animals’ use of specially designed feeding stations equipped with miniature thermal imaging devices, which will be used to non-invasively measure eye temperature as an indicator of physiological stress. Welfare assessment will also be supplemented by data on ectoparasite load, body mass, fecal glucocorticoid concentrations, latency to approach a feeding station, and survival rate for adults and juveniles.
Field tests of bee welfare
Grantee: Vivek Nityanada
Institution: Newcastle University
Project summary
The goal of this project is to develop a cognitive judgment bias test for wild bees and pilot its use in the field. The project will investigate how bee cognitive biases and reward responses vary with factors expected to cause high or low welfare, such as light and vehicular pollution. The researchers will also develop a “lick-o-meter” for assessing welfare based on individual variation in the bees’ consumption of a sugar-water reward, with the expectation that bees in low-welfare environments will display less enthusiasm for consuming the sugar-water.
Parasites in the city: How is the impact of parasites on wild animal welfare affected by urbanization?
Grantee: Amanda Trask
Institutions: Institute of Zoology (IOZ), Zoological Society of London (ZSL)
Project summary
This project will evaluate the extent to which parasitism and urbanization impact wild animal welfare, both independently and synergistically, using physiological data on the internal and external parasite loads of deceased gray squirrels, as well as their body condition, immune function, and stress response. The researchers will also collect behavioral welfare indicators from other squirrels using camera traps. This data will be collected along a gradient of urbanization levels and analyzed in the context of the squirrels’ sex and age, to compare population-level welfare across sites varying in degree of urbanization and average parasite metrics and predict how future increases in urbanization might impact wildlife welfare.