Animal Behaviour 85 (2013) 305e312
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Animal Behaviour
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/anbehav
Essay
Eighteen reasons animal behaviourists avoid involvement in conservation
Tim Caro a, *, Paul W. Sherman b,1
a
b
Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA, U.S.A.
Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, U.S.A.
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 2 September 2012
Initial acceptance 5 October 2012
Final acceptance 6 November 2012
Available online 13 December 2012
MS. number: AE-12-00665
Keywords:
animal behaviour
behavioural ecology
conservation biology
management
We summarize 18 common misgivings that animal behaviourists raise about becoming involved in
conservation. We argue that many of the supposed institutional and interdisciplinary differences break
down under scrutiny; that the supposed basic-applied dichotomy is often imaginary or insufficient to
prevent interchange of ideas between behaviour and conservation; and that arguments about professional lifestyle, scientific inflexibility and despair are not adequate justifications for remaining on the
sidelines. We suggest that many studies of animal behaviour are relevant to solving conservation
problems, and we therefore encourage behaviourists to contribute more strongly to finding practical
solutions to the contemporary conservation crisis.
Ó 2012 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Despite almost two decades of discussions of the role that
animal behaviour might play in conservation biology (Clemmons &
Buchholz 1997; Caro 1998; Gosling & Sutherland 2000; FestaBianchet & Apollonio 2003), and recent syntheses of its potential
contributions to conservation solutions (Buchholz 2007; Blumstein
& Fernández-Juricic 2010; Candolin & Wong 2012), there is still
reticence about applying concepts and methods of animal behaviour to solving conservation problems. Although attempts to relate
the behaviour of animals to conservation are increasing in the
academic literature (e.g. Slabbekoorn & den Boer-Visser 2006;
Husby et al. 2009; Dolenec et al. 2011), and have reached the stage
of literature reviews (e.g. Brown 2012; Møller 2012; Rosenthal &
Stuart-Fox 2012), animal behaviour studies have generally failed
to penetrate conservation biology or wildlife management practice
and vice versa (Caro 2007; Angeloni et al. 2008). Lack of the
anticipated cross-fertilization between animal behaviour and
conservation biology surprises and concerns us.
Recently, we challenged behavioural ecologists to help stem
human-imposed losses of species and habitats (Caro & Sherman
2011a). We argued that such losses adversely affect not only
researchers’ own study organisms but also their academic discipline itself, obfuscating, for example, such fundamental approaches
as quantifying fitness, use of comparative methods and
* Correspondence: T. Caro, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology
and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, U.S.A.
E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Caro).
1
E-mail address: [email protected] (P. W. Sherman).
interpretation of adaptations. The field of animal behaviour will
also suffer if unique behaviours of populations of extant species
continue to disappear due to anthropogenic changes (Caro &
Sherman 2012).
Most animal behaviourists are aware of these developments,
some acutely, others only vaguely, but they are not sure how to
contribute to solving them. When challenged to help provide
conservation or management solutions, they often appear
perplexed about how to proceed, and they raise a number of
specific impediments that concern them. In this Essay, we will pose,
and address, the toughest of these concerns. We have personally
heard colleagues and students voice every one of them to justify
staying on the sidelines. We hope that honest evaluations of these
arguments will encourage readers of Animal Behaviour to become
more involved in conservation.
MAJOR IMPEDIMENTS
Academic Issues
(1) ‘My university does not reward applied biology’
This comment might have been valid two decades ago, but today
most academic institutions (especially land grant colleges) have
specific faculty positions in conservation biology or environmental
science, as well as in animal behaviour. Many institutions have
entire departments of applied biology centred on wildlife and
conservation (North America) and natural resources and population management (Europe), and there are a good number of
0003-3472/$38.00 Ó 2012 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.11.007
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T. Caro, P. W. Sherman / Animal Behaviour 85 (2013) 305e312
endowed chairs in conservation biology. Moreover, there is now
a list of faculty who are willing to mentor students in conservation
behaviour
(http://animalbehaviorsociety.org:8786/Committees/
ABSConservation/Mentor). Given the current conservation crisis
and society’s concern about it, we can expect to see more undergraduate and graduate courses and endowments for chairs in areas
such as conservation science, sustainability, climate change biology
and biodiversity. With donors’ willingness to contribute rising,
grant funds from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
government funding bodies increasing, and students’ interest in
classes and research opportunities soaring, university administrators will undoubtedly seize opportunities and put more of their
own resources into conservation science.
Conservationist Award that recognizes students pursuing conservation behaviour. Conservation biologists are regularly elected to
National Academies of Sciences and Royal Societies, and they win
prestigious international awards (e.g. the Crafoord Prize, Tyler Prize
for Environmental Achievement, World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal).
Society at large recognizes the crucial role of conservation in the
21st Century, as evidenced by media attention, monetary donations
and volunteer efforts. Note that no comparable private contributions of time, energy and money go to animal behaviour. The
prestige of conservation biology outside academe is bound to
influence outdated perceptions within ivory towers.
(2) ‘There is no targeted funding for studies in animal behaviour or
behavioural ecology that apply to conservation issues’
Unfortunately, this is partially true: it is difficult to secure largescale funding from government research councils to support
doctoral students or relieve faculty from teaching obligations.
However, there are many smaller grant sources (see http://
animalbehaviorsociety.org:8786/Committees/ABSConservation/ABS
ConservationFunding). Moreover, many of the species that animal
behaviourists commonly study provide conservation services, for
example, as pollinators (Greenleaf & Kremen 2006) or as indicators
of pollution or spread of fungal diseases (Fisher et al. 2012), and
animal behaviourists’ field sites are sometimes in threatened
habitats. Therefore, animal behaviourists who incorporate conservation into their research can actually expand their funding
horizons by seeking new sources (e.g. see http://www.
conservationleadershipprogramme.org/), different federal granting agencies (e.g. Departments of Defense and Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey), NGOs or
private donors.
(4) ‘Professional wildlife managers deal with practical problems;
they won’t listen to me’
There also is some truth to this assertion. Federal and state
biologists and managers, especially the older generation, often
distrust the advice of academic biologists. There are many reasons,
prominent among which are that academics have rarely stepped
forward to help them solve practical problems. Also, managers and
academics do not often get to know each other personally or
professionally: they rarely attend the same conferences and
meetings, and they read different technical literature (Blumstein &
Fernández-Juricic 2010).
But things are gradually changing. Nowadays managers of
captive breeding programmes recognize the importance of
behavioural training before releasing animals (e.g. how to forage
and avoid predators); managers of lands with endangered species
acknowledge that they need to know about all aspects of their
subjects’ biology, including physiological, behavioural and social
requirements; zoo keepers understand that behavioural enrichment can be key to breeding success; and reserve designers realize
that knowledge of variations in dispersal and migration can be used
to predict how close habitat patches must be in order to support
viable populations, as well as biogeographical range shifts under
climate change (Kokko & Lopez-Sepulcre 2006). Even hunters and
commercial fishermen understand that knowledge of social structure, breeding behaviour and population trajectories of wild game
is essential for ensuring long-term sustainability. And all the large
NGOs, which have a disproportionate say in conservation decision
making, have a group of biologists in charge of strategic planning
units. Yes, communication barriers remain, but they are eroding in
the most influential conservation decision-making arenas.
(3) ‘The academic establishment thinks conservation biology is less
prestigious than animal behaviour’
Snobbery rears its ugly head. For many academics, basic and
theoretical fields of inquiry do have higher status than applied and
empirical fields. Some older members of the academic community
may feel that animal behaviour is a more prestigious biological
subdiscipline than conservation biology. These elders (>55 years
old) were born when the world’s population was around 2 billion,
and for them overpopulation and anthropogenic change are relatively new phenomena. They also are the people who were looked
down upon early in their careers by, for example, physiologists,
geneticists and functional morphologists, who regarded the new
field of ethology as a ‘soft’ science, lacking in theory and experimental rigour. But younger colleagues see things differently. They
were born into a world containing 5 or more billion people, and
have spent their entire lives hearing about and dealing with global
changes caused by anthropogenic forces. They are unlikely to
accord greater prestige to a colleague working on game-theoretic
models of animal behaviour than to one studying, say, how
crowding affects disease transmission, climate change affects
mammalian community structure, or how herbicides affect
amphibian reproduction.
Perceptions of the importance of conservation biology are
changing too. Today there are numerous conservation-related
societies, and they have large memberships. For example, the
Society for Conservation Biology has approximately 4000 current
members; by contrast, the Animal Behavior Society has about 2000
members and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
has about 1100 members. That the Animal Behavior Society values
conservation-related research is evidenced by its online publication, The Conservation Behaviorist, and the E.O. Wilson
Conservation Issues
(5) ‘Conservation is mainly the province of state and federal
agencies and NGOs; university people like me are peripheral’
Management actions have traditionally been conducted by
government agencies and NGOs, but academic wildlife and fisheries biologists have always been involved in management decision
making (especially regarding game species and their habitats).
Contemporary management increasingly involves species of
conservation interest or invasive species and, as a result, university
personnel are becoming engaged at more levels. For example, they
have conducted targeted research and advised government decision makers on effects of badger, Meles meles, culling on the spread
of bovine tuberculosis in the U.K. (Donnelly et al. 2006) and on sizes
of lion, Panthera leo, and leopard, Panthera pardus, hunting quotas
in Tanzania (Packer et al. 2011). University personnel also conduct
research in concert with NGOs and governments at local, national
and global scales, as exemplified, respectively, by listing of the
California tiger salamander, Ambystoma californiense (Stokstad
2004), in the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Report on corridors
to the government of Tanzania (Jones et al. 2009), and in the Royal
Society Policy Centre Report (2012), the ‘People and the planet’,
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which coincided with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Rio 20þ) in June 2012.
Although it is unusual for university personnel to play a leading
role in conservation planning, they often provide crucial information at various stages; for example, academics in Australia and
South Africa have been powerful voices in regional conservation
planning (Pressey et al. 2007). Moreover, the barriers between
agencies and universities are falling. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Research Units are located on university campuses in many
states, and the senior research staff members (all government
employees) are typically accorded the responsibilities and privileges of faculty members. Furthermore, some prominent biologists
have moved back and forth seamlessly between university and
agency positions (e.g. Joel Berger, Sylvia Earle, John Emlen, John
Holdren, Peter Kareiva, Jane Lubcheno, Gary Meffe and Reed Noss).
Disciplinary Differences
(6) ‘I study variations in behaviour among individuals, but
conservation biologists are more concerned with saving populations,
communities and ecosystems’
There is a fundamental difference between animal behaviour,
which focuses on basic research questions, and conservation
biology, which is an applied discipline. Typically, conservation
biologists are not steeped in studying causal mechanisms or
evolutionary theory, and animal behaviourists rarely attempt to
explore how the behaviours that interest them affect population
trajectories. Conceptually, however, the links between individual
decision making and group- or population-level processes are
firmly in place (Sutherland 1996; Kokko & Lopez-Sepulcre 2007;
Safran et al. 2007; Berger-Tal et al. 2011; Rankin et al. 2007), and it
is well recognized that individuals’ behaviours can have important
demographic and population consequences for free-living (e.g.
Eadie et al. 1998; Whitman et al. 2004) and introduced (e.g. Shier
2006; Moseby et al. 2012) populations. Behaviour plays an essential role in determining an organism’s survival and reproductive
success because it modulates interactions between individuals and
their environment and, by extension, the growth and persistence of
natural populations (Charmantier et al. 2008; Schmitz et al. 2008).
Behavioural variation is increasingly recognized as important in
predicting invasion success and its consequences. For example,
invasive cane toads, Rhinella marina, increase their dispersal rates
along invasion fronts in Australia (Phillips et al. 2008), and death
adders, Acanthophis praelongus, show variable predatory responses
to cane toads when they are first encountered. This enables some
adders to survive their new prey’s toxicity, making invasive toads
less of a population problem for adders than was at first envisaged
(Hagman et al. 2009). Basic studies of animal behaviour thus
provide information that can potentially be useful in evaluating and
addressing conservation problems. Moreover, knowledge of the
physiological mechanisms underlying individuals’ behaviours can
alert conservation managers to the likelihood of population
declines in response to specific environmental changes, and can
suggest ways to stem the declines (Carey 2005). The supposed
chasm between animal behaviour and conservation biology often
boils down to a communication problem: how to get conservationists to articulate their problems directly to behaviourists and
how to encourage behaviourists to apply their expertise to thinking
about practical problems and recommending solutions.
(7) ‘I study the physiological mechanisms and fitness effects of
behaviours, but conservation biologists are not interested in these
things’
Natural selection does not act directly on group or population
characteristics, but on individual morphologies, physiological
307
responses and behavioural strategies; group and population
characteristics emerge as by-products of individuals adopting
their best strategies given their socio-ecological context (LopezSepulchre & Kokko 2012). An unseen and therefore largely
unappreciated aspect of behaviour is the decision-making rules
(Darwinian algorithms) that organisms rely on to process information from their environment (Schlaepfer et al. 2010). Decisionmaking rules that evolve and persist are those that yield the
greatest fitness benefits and the least fitness costs (Schlaepfer
et al. 2002). Understanding the evolutionary trade-offs that
have shaped these decision-making rules is not only interesting to
behavioural biologists, it is also important to conservation biologists for predicting whether the behaviours of organisms will be
adaptive, and thus whether their populations will persist, in
a rapidly changing world (Both & Visser 2001).
Consider a decision-making rule with an important contribution to individual fitness: right after hatching, young green sea
turtles, Chelonia mydas, must disperse towards the safety of the
ocean to avoid predation. How do hatchlings decide which direction to go? Natural selection favours reliance on environmental
cues that, over time, have correlated with positive fitness
outcomes. Thus, these turtles rely on the downward slope of the
beach and the star-lit horizon to orient (Mrosovsky & Carr 1967).
In environments that have experienced recent anthropogenic
changes, evolved decision-making rules do not necessarily result in
adaptive outcomes. On beaches with human housing developments electric lights can lure turtle hatchlings inland, where they
perish (Longcore & Rich 2004). This is an example of an evolutionary trap (Schlaepfer et al. 2002) because although the appropriate option remains available (going towards the ocean), the
young turtles’ formerly adaptive decision-making rule now orients
them inland, in other words, it causes them to behave maladaptively in the altered environment.
Evolutionary traps can threaten populations and species as
a result of widespread reductions in survival and reproduction
(Battin 2004; Robertson & Hutto 2006). The unprecedented rate
at which humans are altering the world’s habitats, climate,
nutrient cycles and plant and animal distributions (Vitousek et al.
1997; Palumbi 2001) has the potential to destroy the adaptive
value of organisms’ behavioural decision-making rules in many
contexts. Moreover, the type of anthropogenic change can alter
the consequences of evolutionary traps: traps arising from
degradation of existing habitats are more likely to facilitate
extinction than traps arising from the addition of a novel habitat
feature (Fletcher et al. 2012). Thus, by studying the circumstances in which evolutionary traps can arise, how organisms
respond to them, and how to mitigate their effects, animal
behaviourists can help address important conservation questions
(Sih et al. 2011).
FEIGNED IGNORANCE
Academic Issues
(8) ‘I earned my Ph.D. in animal behaviour; I don’t know anything
about conservation or wildlife biology’
Anyone who studies behaviours of free-living organisms has
valuable knowledge of the ecological and social pressures that act
on them. Therefore, behaviourists understand some fundamental
issues in wildlife biology. Consider a sexually selected trait shaped
by female choice. Its exaggeration may be limited by predation
pressure that itself may be affected by anthropogenic change. Or
consider territorial establishment, the timing of which may be
affected by global warming. Or a cryptic coloration pattern, the
efficacy of which may be affected by aerosol pollution on
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background leaves and lichens. It is a short step from investigating
a problem in animal behaviour to being sensitive to ecological
changes: behavioural biologists are in a strong position to
comprehend how changing ecological factors alter the systems on
which they work.
Indeed, field behaviourists may be the best positioned wildlife
biologists (see Clark et al. 2010; Coulon et al. 2010). Fifty years ago,
the academic biologists with intimate, comparative knowledge of
organisms and habitats often were museum-based systematists
(McCallum & McCallum 2006). The ascendance of molecular
biology has resulted in museums hiring molecular systematists to
fill positions formerly held by the taxonomists who were knowledgeable about particular phylogenetic groups, their distributions,
life cycles and behaviours. As a result, museum-based comparative
natural history studies have dwindled (Shaffer et al. 1998). Today,
field behaviourists are filling this lacuna. To produce competitive
research, they have to know their study organisms and habitats,
and those of related species (i.e. they must be good natural historians; Bury 2006). Indeed, many animal behaviourists offer field
courses and workshops on natural history. They also can provide
informed advice about the needs and threats to their study
organisms, and thus how to protect and preserve them (Sih et al.
2010a).
(9) ‘I am an evolutionary behaviourist, and I don’t see the relevance
of evolution to conservation’
Evolutionary biology plays an important role in conservation
(Ashley et al. 2003; Root & Hughes 2005; Mace & Purvis 2008). The
relative importance of dispersal, phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary (genetic) change in response to environmental variations
are topics of keen theoretical interest (Davis et al. 2005; Lande
2009; Chevin et al. 2010), and, empirically, scientists are documenting behavioural, phenological and morphological evolutionary responses to exploitation (Coltman et al. 2003),
urbanization (Møller 2008) and climate change (Møller 2011).
Although climate change will curtail or obfuscate certain types of
behavioural studies (Caro & Sherman 2011b), some researchers
now suggest that anthropogenic change provides new opportunities to derive and test theoretical predictions about adaptations and
constraints (Schroeder et al. 2011; Sih et al. 2011). Applying
Darwinian thinking to addressing issues of species conservation
and management represents a rapidly growing new subdiscipline
within animal behaviour (Linklater 2004; Candolin & Wong 2012).
Moreover, certain sexually selected traits (e.g. mate choice and
infanticide), reproductive strategies (e.g. intra- and interspecific
nest parasitism), aspects of sexual conflict (e.g. females delaying
reproduction), siblicide and habitat choices (see Westneat & Fox
2010) all have potential and sometimes realized population
consequences (Caro 1998).
Evolutionary systematists also can supply important information. Many in situ conservation strategies centre on identifying and then trying to protect areas of high species richness
(e.g. Bass et al. 2010 for a recent example), so there is a need to
identify species accurately and establish their evolutionary
relationships. Some conservation decisions are based on
evolutionary uniqueness of populations. Moreover, legal statutes, such as the Endangered Species Act, require knowing
whether a population is a distinct species, a subspecies or
another population of a well-protected species, so this information can be the central tenet of a recovery plan. Finally, ex
situ conservation programmes require knowledge of individual
pedigrees to select appropriate individuals for their captive
breeding programmes and for reintroduction (e.g. Johnson et al.
2010) decisions, which are founded on a basic understanding of
population genetics.
Conservation Issues
(10) ‘Conservation biologists are only interested in charismatic
megafauna, and the animals that I study do not qualify’
Conservation biology is concerned with an enormous diversity
of invertebrate, vertebrate and plant species because populations of
so many are declining. Although conservation biologists try to use
a subset of species as short cuts (e.g. in locating areas of species
richness, setting up reserves, and indicating ecosystem health; Caro
2010a), the chosen species are often noncharismatic. For example,
desmid (green algae) diversity is used to assess conservation value
of aquatic habitats (Coesel 2001), stoneflies are early indicators of
climatic warming in mountain ecosystems (Muhlfeld et al. 2011),
and dung beetle species diversities are sensitive to different forms
of land use (Aguilar-Amuchastegui & Henebry 2007). As an
academic discipline, conservation biology is no slave to charisma.
The impression of a megafaunal bias is created by the news
media, which focuses its attention on charismatic species. After all,
charisma is good for public relations, and it helps to bring in money.
This is why conservation flagship species typically are large, beautiful, endangered top predatory mammals and birds (Clucas et al.
2008), such as the World Wildlife Fund’s familiar giant panda
mascot. These species are used by NGOs, zoos and governments to
promote conservation awareness, set up reserves and raise funds,
and in self-promotion. Donor-driven conservation funding opportunities also are centred on charismatic species such as the National
Geographic Society’s Big Cat Initiative. However, there are also
conservation funding arenas that focus on habitats (e.g. Conservation International’s funding programme) and ecological interactions
(e.g. National Science Foundation, U.S.; Natural Environment
Research Council, U.K.), and a broader taxonomic array of flagship
species is increasingly being used to promote conservation,
including poikilothermic taxa (Barua et al. 2012). Furthermore, many
important conservation decisions that affect whole ecosystems
involve seemingly ‘insignificant’ species such as the delta smelt,
Hypomesus transpacificus, a small fish living in northern California
surrounded by high human population density (Bennett 2005).
Disciplinary Differences
(11) ‘Conservation biology is less intellectually stimulating than
animal behaviour’
Conservation biology and animal behaviour involve the integration of theory and empirical evidence to test hypotheses. The
intellectual excitement of finding answers to questions about biological phenomena is common to both fields. Understanding the
responses of populations to ecological and anthropogenic drivers is
as fascinating to a conservation biologist as understanding the
mechanisms underlying communication, sex allocation or mate
choice is to an animal behaviourist. And practitioners of both fields
derive satisfaction from thinking through difficult problems and
devising new approaches to solving them. A number of senior and
prominent animal behaviourists have turned their efforts to
conservation issues (e.g. Bateson & Bradshaw 1997; Mace & Purvis
2008; Goodall 2009; Sih et al. 2010b; Estes et al. 2011; Møller &
Mousseau 2011; Packer et al. 2011), casting doubt on the assertion that conservation biology lacks intellectual content or is based
solely on system-specific hypotheses.
Unlike animal behaviourists, however, conservation scientists
often work with many stakeholders to forge compromises. This can
be immensely challenging because it involves understanding the
pressures that individuals and corporations face in conducting
business and making land use decisions, in grasping the pressures
that politicians are under from their constituents and that NGOs
experience from their donors, as well as the challenges fauna and
T. Caro, P. W. Sherman / Animal Behaviour 85 (2013) 305e312
flora face from ecological and anthropogenic forces (Margules &
Pressey 2000). It is intellectually stimulating to steer a course
through these divergent interests, and many animal behaviourists
will be good at rising to this challenge.
(12) ‘Behavioural biology is rich in theory, but there is no theory in
conservation biology’
In a sense, this statement is true. Animal behaviourists use general
theory based on first principles (Darwinian fitness) that can potentially be applied to any species, whereas conservation biologists tend
to view general theory as too unspecific to be useful and instead rely
on system-specific models (which pure animal behaviourists may
find dissatisfying) However, conservation science actually employs
many different types of theory, including genetic theory as applied to
small populations (Frankham 2010) and economic theory that is used
in many areas of strategic decision making (e.g. reserve design:
Wilson et al. 2005; land use planning: Phalan et al. 2011). Conservation principally borrows its theory from other disciplines to solve
specific problems, whereas animal behaviour additionally generates
new general theory itself. For example, the initial theories of reserve
design were borrowed from island biogeography (Diamond 1975),
and population viability modelling is based on vital rates and
demographic parameters used in population biology (Beissinger &
McCullough 2002). Similarly, in animal behaviour, game theory
(Maynard Smith 1982) and social network theory (Wey et al. 2008)
were borrowed from mathematics, and optimal foraging theory
(MacArthur & Pianka 1966) was borrowed from economics but, in
addition, theoretical frameworks have been generated de novo (e.g.
sex allocation theory: Fisher 1958; kin selection theory: Hamilton
1964; parental investment theory: Trivers 1972).
Some theoreticians may not find conservation biology to be
intellectually stimulating (but see Emlen et al. 2006); however, most
animal behaviourists are not purely theoreticians. Instead, they
conduct science using the ‘strong inference’ approach (Platt 1964),
which involves developing alternative hypotheses to explain some
aspect of an organism’s behaviour (e.g. its mechanism, ontogeny or
effect on fitness), deriving critical predictions from each hypothesis,
and then gathering data with which to falsify each alternative.
Conservation biologists often proceed in the same way, as illustrated
in recent studies of whether ranging patterns affect use of corridors
(Kertson et al. 2011) and whether personality traits influence the
success of species introductions (Chapple et al. 2012).
One supposed difference between the disciplines relates to the
sample sizes routinely used to test hypotheses. Animal behaviourists can often collect large sample sizes and conduct replicated
experiments, whereas conservation biologists regularly work on
organisms in which sample sizes are severely constrained, by
numerical rarity, by difficulties in obtaining permission to work on
endangered populations, and by reluctance (both regulatory and
personal) to conduct invasive procedures. However, these generalizations do not always hold: sample sizes in many important
behavioural studies are not large, so sophisticated analytical techniques and statistics are required to tease out conclusions (Taborsky
2010), and major studies of pattern and process in conservation
science often consist of collating metadata where sample sizes are
very large and confounding variables can be controlled for (e.g.
marine: Christensen et al. 2003; terrestrial: Craigie et al. 2010).
PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Academic Issues
(13) ‘I’m too busy to devote precious time to conservation activities’
We are all desperately busy. Laypeople with knowledge of how
academic biologists work and live sometimes find it difficult to
309
comprehend what drives their dedication. But an academic biologist’s days are not spent entirely on research and teaching; there
are meetings to attend, students to advise, manuscripts to review
and grant applications to write. A portion of this time could be
redirected to a conservation activity, such as conducting research
on how to extricate one’s own study organism from the jaws of an
evolutionary trap, helping to set up a preserve around a favourite
study area, writing a report to influence listing of a study organism
as threatened or endangered, or developing a new course on
natural history or conservation behaviour (see Caro & Sherman
2011a for an expansive list). Certainly, life is a zero sum game,
making more time for one activity necessitates taking time away
from something else. But, getting involved in conservation and
redirecting one’s contributions to a new endeavour can be reinvigorating, and the results will undoubtedly affect a wider segment
of society.
(14) ‘I don’t want to spend all my time in meetings, especially
adversarial meetings’
Fair enough. But conservation is not just about meetings. Species
of concern are identified and hypotheses are tested through fieldwork, population responses are assessed through monitoring, and
human-imposed constraints are identified through research on
land ownership, distribution of unmanipulated habitats and
existing land management plans. Only when the essential biological information is available are meetings called to bring stakeholders together and make decisions.
Such meetings do not have to be lengthy or adversarial. People
with diplomatic skills can steer meetings to positive conclusions
with minimal conflict and rancour. And, do not forget that animal
behaviourists have to attend meetings too, including faculty
meetings, university committee meetings, society meetings and
granting committee meetings. As a result, many animal behaviourists have become skilled negotiators.
Conservation Issues
(15) ‘Conservation requires people skills; I’m better at watching
animals’
Conservation biologists like watching animals too. Indeed,
observing migrating herds, catching a glimpse of a rare individual
or identifying new life-list species in the field is as thrilling to
a conservation biologist as uncovering how individuals solve
physiological, cognitive, social or ecological problems is to an
animal behaviourist. Conservation biologists realize that, to
continue to do the things they love (i.e. to be inspired by the natural
world), they need to work with others to conserve nature. Being
a good conservation biologist requires a variety of skills: knowledge
of habitats and organisms, diplomacy, social skills, quiet tenacity
and understanding of economics, to name a few. Although this is
a broader array of talents than is required for being a good animal
behaviourist, some animal behaviourists already possess or can
readily develop these skills.
(16) ‘I have been studying animal behaviour all my life; it’s too late
for me to change’
This is a cop out. It is never too late to change. Embracing new
ideas and expanding one’s intellectual tools and capabilities is the
essence of productive science. Changes in theories, knowledge
bases and methodologies move science forward. Given the
fingertip-click availability of information today, motivated animal
behaviourists can rapidly get up to speed on issues in conservation
biology, both generally and on specific organisms and habitats.
Moreover, it can be highly productive to think about behaviour and
conservation simultaneously (Moore et al. 2008). If broadening
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your perspective makes you uncomfortable, it’s time to find a
new gig.
Despair
(17) ‘Biodiversity is going to hell in a handbasket; I won’t be able to
help’
Biodiversity is indeed in very serious trouble. The human
footprint is expanding, and species and habitats are being lost
rapidly (Sanderson et al. 2002; Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
2005). The forces behind these changes, stemming principally
from overpopulation and overexploitation, are so monumental
that everyone feels impotent at one time or another. But trying to
take an active role against such challenges is not useless. Witness
the contributions of great conservation philosophers like Henry
David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold and Edward O. Wilson, conservationists like John Muir and Paul Ehrlich, or media biologists like
Ansel Adams and David Attenborough. The rest of us can
contribute in small but nevertheless significant ways. Animal
behaviourists are in a better position than many other people to
inform society of the beauty and intricacies of nature in general
and the scientific and aesthetic values of behaviours in particular.
Contributing to conservation is a worthwhile endeavour and the
cause needs all of us.
(18) ‘I get more depressed than the average person because the
natural world that I love is dying; I feel paralysed’
The situation is indeed depressing and the accompanying
paralysis can affect anyone. But there is no reason why an animal
behaviourist should get more depressed about the loss of habitats
and organisms than an ecologist, systematisist, geneticist or population biologist; indeed, no more depressed than a poet, carpenter,
lawyer or mailperson. Animal Behaviour readers and authors are
accustomed to learning about behaviour and educating others in
interesting and engaging ways, so they ought to find it relatively
easy to convince themselves and others to take positive steps both
locally and globally to change the ‘business as usual’ attitude
towards the natural world (see Caro 2010b; He & Hubbell 2011).
And the good news is that conservation is not a litany of failures:
some populations have recovered (Lotze et al. 2011), many species
have been saved from extinction (Sodhi et al. 2011) and public
awareness has grown.
So stop wallowing in self-pity and get more involved! If every
animal behaviourist were to devote some time to studying how to
protect and preserve just their own beloved study organisms, the
benefits to conservation could be profound.
CONCLUSION
In this essay, we have raised and attempted to address 18
general concerns of animal behaviourists about becoming more
involved in conservation. We believe that many of these misgivings
are specious or are excuses for not tackling problems associated
with saving the natural world. We hope that by addressing these
issues head on we will motivate readers of Animal Behaviour to be
bolder about applying their intellect, love of nature and knowledge
to help address the current conservation crisis.
Acknowledgments
Conversations with Tom Seeley inadvertently provided the
impetus to write this essay. For comments on the manuscript we
thank him, Dan Blumstein, Janet Sherman, Andy Sih, Tim Wright
and an anonymous reviewer.
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