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.
How do human activities impair the welfare of highly social fish?
Grantee: Joachim Frommen
Institution: Manchester Metropolitan University
Project summary
This project will investigate the welfare of a common fish species in Lake Tanganyika, the princess cichlid, as they are exposed to varying levels of human activity. Across eight populations representing a range of distances to human settlements and shipping routes, the researchers will monitor behaviors indicative of stress or aggression and measure body condition and the brain tissue expression of five genes involved in stress physiology (glucocorticoid response pathway; crf, cyp11b, gr1, gr2, mr). These welfare indicators will be compared with environmental characteristics including boat noise, water visibility (sedimentary and algal load), human fishing intensity, temperature stress, and structural complexity of the local environment.
Determination of Fecal Tri-iodothyronine and Cortisol as Physiological Proxies of Animal Welfare
Grantees: Michael Cherry, Joe Hediger
Institutions: Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, Texas A&M University, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Project summary
Wild animals are susceptible to the effects of thermal stress imposed by a warming climate, including increased energetic costs to maintain a healthy body temperature, immune system impairment, changes in food availability, and increases in disease transmission. White-tailed deer in southern Texas are on the front lines of this challenge. This project aims to assess the reliability of fecal tri-iodothyronine (T3) and fecal glucocorticoids (FGC) as non-invasive physiological metrics for monitoring their health. The use of T3 as an indicator of wildlife health and welfare is relatively novel, and the researchers will attempt to refine it through controlled experiments, correlating the T3 measurements with a more widely used indicator in FGC. Both physiological indicators will be validated against behavioral observations.
Validation and efficacy of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites as indicators of animal welfare
Grantee: Miriam Zemanova
Institutions: University of Fribourg, Animalfree Research, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
Project summary
Fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGM) may be a suitable non-invasive alternative to blood analysis in animal welfare studies. While there have been several reviews of fecal glucocorticoids, no systematic review of their validity as an animal welfare indicator has been done. Through a systematic review process, this project seeks to provide an evidence base for the efficacy of non-invasive measurement of stress levels in wild animals using fecal glucocorticoids. Evidence will be compiled from studies that have assessed the correlation between fecal glucocorticoids and at least one other credible animal welfare indicator or factor that may be assumed to lead to impaired welfare. The project also aims to compare the performances of blood and fecal samples to assess stress levels.
Characterization of fecal oxytocin and immunoglobulin A in lions (Panthera leo): Exploring a multi-biomarker approach in animal welfare research
Grantee: Paula Serres Corral
Institution: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Project summary
This project will validate the measurement of oxytocin (OT) and secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA), markers of neuroendocrine and immune function, as biomarkers of wild animals’ welfare states. Both indicators have been measured in the saliva and urine of a limited set of wild mammalian species, but work on their analysis in fecal samples has been even more limited. This project will validate the measurement of OT and IgA in the feces of lions as a model for social carnivores, and evaluate their applicability as additional physiological indicators in wild animal welfare studies. The researchers will evaluate baseline levels for the species based on a small number of captive individuals and assess how these biomarkers are correlated with GCs and behavior.
Thermal imaging as a non-invasive welfare assessment tool for tracking the impact of environmental stressors across wild animal populations
Grantee: Ross MacLeod
Institution: Liverpool John Moores University
Project summary
This project aims to test and validate a standardized multi-species approach to monitoring physiological stress in wild birds by using thermal imaging cameras to measure the animals’ body surface temperature, which could enable tracking of chronic stress in wild populations facing environmental stressors. Building on pilot work, the project will focus on wild bird populations to develop a standardized thermal imaging methodology capable of monitoring surface temperature of a wide range of wild animals. The methodology will be validated using bird communities visiting 54 standardized feeding and drinking stations spread across the UK, to quantify how changes in surface temperature are linked to starvation risk, predation risk, and human disturbance.
Developing loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays for detecting pathogens in wild animal populations
Grantee: Cameron Semper
Institutions: University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge
Project summary
This project aims to develop Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays for rapid, in situ detection of representative viral and bacterial pathogens, as well as parasitic worm infections in wild animals. This project will develop two methods for detecting viral and bacterial infections, respectively. The viral test will focus on viruses that have caused epidemics in wild frigatebird and sooty tern populations, while the bacterial test will focus on tick-borne illnesses and parasitic worms which infect deer mice. After developing the LAMP assays, the researchers will validate their potential contribution to monitoring wild animal welfare in a non-invasive manner by using them to test for pathogenic load in fecal samples from deer mice.
Raman spectroscopy as a novel non-invasive technique to assess wildlife welfare
Grantee: Teresa Romero
Institutions: University of Lincoln, University of Portsmouth
Project summary
Analysis of hormones accumulated in the hair has emerged as a non-invasive tool for measuring chronic stress in wildlife, but hair analyses are currently limited by variation in cortisol concentrations. This project will test whether Raman spectroscopy, which is suitable for the field and does not require sample pre-treatment, is a better way to use hair samples to assess steroid hormones. The planned methodology will make use of samples of mammalian hair with a known cortisol content using a control technique — liquid chromatography mass spectrometry — for comparison. The samples will be subjected to analysis by Raman to validate the technique and establish a robust analytical methodology for the non-invasive analysis of welfare biomarkers in wildlife.
Novel epigenetic approaches to measure wild animal welfare and stress
Grantee: Dave Daversa
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles
Project summary
A challenge in wild animal welfare science is developing composite assays that consider the full breadth of factors collectively shaping subjective experiences. This project will demonstrate proof of concept for a DNA methylation (DNAm)-based model of wild animal welfare, characterizing DNAm in western toads. It will test the influence of infection with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) on DNAm and its covariance with demographic factors such as age, sex, and body condition. Captive-reared toads will be sampled to characterize DNAm under controlled conditions, providing a standardized profile of DNAm rates over toad life stages. The researchers will then sample toads from wild populations experiencing starkly different levels of Bd infection, with accelerated biological aging signaling elevated stress and impaired welfare.
A bird’s eye view to the five domains of welfare: a quantitative framework and proof-of-concept evaluation in a cetacean, Orcinus orca
Grantees: Saana Isojunno, Eve Jourdain
Institutions: University of St. Andrews, Norwegian Orca Survey
Project summary
This project will carry out body condition and welfare assessments for inshore-foraging killer whales in the northeast Atlantic. The researchers will use the Five Domains model to categorize likely factors influencing killer whale welfare and quantify some of those factors using aerial photography from drones. They will gather data on foraging time and feeding rates, group composition and surface behavior, body shape as a proxy for body condition and blubber reserves, and reproductive success. The researchers will then develop a proof-of-concept statistical model to infer latent motivational states beneath the observable data. The project will also utilize data from known cases of poor welfare to help define their welfare scale.
Welfare monitoring 2.0: steroid profiling in wildlife hair
Grantee: Lynn Vanhaecke
Institutions: Ghent University and Institute for Research and Innovation in Health
Project summary
Hair hormone measurement is becoming a widely-used tool to measure welfare in wild mammals because it can differentiate acute adaptive stress responses from chronic maladaptive ones (distress). This project aims to address knowledge gaps that remain about steroid incorporation into hair. Researchers will identify which steroid hormones increase in concentration in response to chronic stress, and explore how to address the potential for overestimated glucocorticoid levels.