Variation in individual elk behavioural syndromes, and management applications to problems of habituation and loss of migration.

当动物被吸引到人类居住的地区时，它们可能会对人类脱敏，并习惯人类的存在和基础设施。由于熊、大象和有蹄类动物等大型动物对当地生态产生了相当大的影响，野生动物的栖息地化日益成为全球关注的问题。习惯了的野生动物也会通过攻击或被它们吸引的捕食者对人类构成安全风险。有蹄类动物习惯化的一个潜在后果是迁徙行为的丧失，以及随后的局部过度食草和捕食者-猎物动态的紊乱。世界各地的野生动物管理者面临着越来越大的压力，他们必须在不使用传统致命技术的情况下解决野生动物习性问题。一种很有希望的替代方法是厌恶条件反射，训练动物避开人类。不幸的是，有些人对治疗没有反应，可能是由于行为综合征（个性）的变化，这通常被描述为一个大胆害羞的连续体。尽管有潜在的管理意义，个体行为变化尚未在任何野生有蹄类物种中进行研究。我将进行一系列广泛的行为分析，包括新物体探索、问题解决和偏侧化的措施，以分类麋鹿个体之间和个体内部的行为差异。然后，我将通过比较迁徙与非迁徙的野生麋鹿，以及野生与圈养麋鹿的行为类型来探讨行为变化的含义。使用已知血统和历史的圈养麋鹿，我将研究遗传，发展和经验的贡献。最后，我将以不同的条件反射强度确定针对大胆或害羞行为类型的厌恶条件反射的效果。这项工作将为北美麋鹿的管理提供切实可行的工具，可以推广到其他物种和地点，以改善人类和野生动物在日益拥挤的世界中的共存。

When animals are attracted to human-habitated areas they may desensitize to humans and become habituated to human presence and infrastructure. Wildlife habituation is a growing global concern, as megafauna such as bears, elephants, and ungulates, have proportionately large impacts on local ecology. Habituated wildlife can also pose safety risks to humans via attacks, or by the predators they attract. A potential consequence of habituation in ungulates is a loss of migratory behaviour, and subsequent local over-herbivory and perturbed predator-prey dynamics. Wildlife managers around the world are under increasing pressure to solve issues of habituated wildlife without using traditional lethal techniques. A promising alternative is aversive conditioning, which trains animals to avoid humans. Unfortunately, some individuals do not respond to treatment, potentially due to variation in behavioural syndromes (personality), which are frequently described along a bold-shy continuum. Despite the potential management implications, individual behavioural variation has not been studied in any wild ungulate species. I will conduct an extensive series of behavioural assays, including measures of novel object exploration, problem solving, and lateralization, to classify behavioural variation among vs. within individual elk. I will then explore the implications of behavioural variation by comparing behavioural types found in migratory vs. non-migratory wild elk, and in wild vs. captive elk. Using captive elk of known pedigrees and histories, I will examine the contributions of heredity, development, and experience. Finally, I will determine the efficacy of aversive conditioning that targets bold or shy behavioural types with different conditioning intensities. This work will provide tangible tools for the management of habituated elk in North America, that may be generalized to other species and locations to improve humans and wildlife coexistence in an increasingly crowded world.