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).
Field testing a remote, non-invasive method to monitor wild animal welfare through salivary biomarkers
Grantee: Maristela Martins de Camargo
Institutions: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas and FUSP
Project summary
Biological samples are necessary to establish baselines and benchmarks upon which welfare metrics can be developed, but collecting them is generally a stressful and invasive process. Our project aims to elevate the standard by which we collect wildlife samples by introducing a novel method of saliva collection that does not involve immobilizing — or even encountering — the animal being sampled. This project will isolate DNA/RNA from saliva samples of lowland tapirs to detect viruses, as well as health and welfare markers, exploring them within a comparison amongst two regions with varying levels of degradation and human-wildlife conflict and, we assume, associated variations in the welfare and health of wild animals.
Comparing the welfare of stocked triploid vs native diploid rainbow trout in California
Grantee: Andrew Sharo
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles
Project summary
Rainbow trout are commonly stocked for recreational fishing throughout the world, but because of their negative impacts on the environment, many state agencies now stock triploid rainbow trout, which are sterile. However, triploid rainbow trout are known to be more sensitive to water temperature and dissolved oxygen, which may impact their welfare in wild environments. This project will use a combination of physiological and behavioral indicators to compare the welfare of diploid and triploid rainbow trout. We will assess the welfare of rainbow trout in ponds across the Los Angeles metropolitan region using qualitative behavioral assessment, neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio, body condition, injury/disease presence, and the expression of stressor-related genes, either non-invasively or through sampling fish caught by recreational anglers.
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.
Are we making urban wildlife sick?
Grantee: Carl Soulsbury
Institution: University of Lincoln
Project summary
The goal of this project is to test whether differences in welfare among individual red foxes and individual European hedgehogs are explained by specific environmental stressors arising from urbanization (e.g., increased human population density, noise pollution, or reduced habitat heterogeneity). Notably, on a population level, foxes appear to have fared well alongside humans, while hedgehogs have struggled to cope with urbanization. The study will confirm whether this contrast is also seen at the level of individual welfare, and offers a unique opportunity to identify common environmental stressors that may be impacting the health and welfare of urban wildlife more generally. To assess welfare, the project will perform cognitive judgment bias and novel object tests and combine them with non-invasive indicators of physiological stress (fecal glucocorticoids and eye/ear temperature) and health (pathogen load).
Does diet mediate effects of sublethal parasitic infections on host welfare?
Grantee: Amanda Koltz
Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Project summary
This project will test how infection by parasitic worms (helminths) influences host welfare in white-footed deer mice by evaluating the relationship between parasite burden and host body condition, microbiome, and stress physiology, as well as behaviors associated with anxiety (negative welfare) and exploration (positive welfare). The researchers will experimentally manipulate parasite burden by intervening to apply anti-parasitic medication (Ivermectin) as a treatment for some mice who were already infected with helminths.
Developing an automated cognitive bias task for wild squirrels
Grantees: Vikki Neville, Lisa Leaver
Institutions: University of Bristol, University of Exeter
Project summary
The goal of this project is to develop a cognitive judgment bias test for use in wild gray squirrels that capitalizes on their innate behavior, avoiding the need for the extensive type of training that is usually part of cognitive judgment bias tests in captive settings. By making use of the widely available Raspberry Pi platform, the test should be relatively easy for other researchers to replicate and adapt for use in other species. To validate the test itself, the research team will also assess how measurement of cognitive judgment bias varies with factors assumed to affect the valence of animals participating in the test, such as distance from cover and levels of food provisioning in the environment, as well as how the test results correlate with other potential non-invasive behavioral and physiological indicators of welfare, such as the distance at which a squirrel flees from approaching humans, hair cortisol concentration, and real-time fluctuations in eye temperature in response to stimuli during the the test.
Measuring health and frailty in wild insects
Grantee: Jelle Boonekamp
Institutions: University of Glasgow
Project summary
The aim of this project is to develop a non-invasive frailty index that measures the health of individual insects in their natural habitat and can be applied across species. Using traits applicable to many different insect species, it will develop an insect frailty index, validating it against mortality and fitness data in an insect population by testing whether frail individuals have increased mortality risk and reduced fitness. The project will use data from a long-term field study of a natural population of crickets, which recorded adult crickets from their emergence to death using a network of 140 video cameras. Fitness was measured by genotyping and counting the number of surviving genetic descendants in the following year.
Integrating nonlethal field and lab assessments of wild fish welfare in the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Grantee: Isaac Schuman
Institution: Oregon State University
Project summary
This project will monitor the welfare of three species of fish in the Grand Canyon using a battery of metrics including body condition, gut microbiome, parasite load, and cortisol in skin mucus. The researchers will attempt to validate these as welfare indicators by testing whether they correlate with one another within individual fish, and whether they follow consistent patterns across the three focal species. Finally, they will use long-term population monitoring data to investigate potential correlations between these individual-based welfare indicators and environmental and demographic characteristics of individual study sites, such as food availability and age structure.
Are populations that are well-adapted to their environment less stressed than those that are not?
Grantee: Ryan S. Mohammed
Institution: Auburn University
Project summary
In this pilot study, wild-caught guppies will be exposed to an apparent threat of predation as researchers transfer water from a tank containing a common predator (pike cichlid) into their tank. The amount of water transferred from the predators’ tank will be varied to simulate a range of predator densities. Cortisol levels will then be measured in the guppies’ tissue and tank water. These tissue and water cortisol measurements will be compared to develop a protocol for inferring the cortisol levels of fish based on non-invasive water measurements. The researchers hypothesize that the strength of the guppies’ physiological stress response (cortisol) will vary with apparent predation risk.