Imagine being chased down, drugged, trussed up and then having a device strapped around your neck. You would probably be pretty skittish and avoid the place where it happened, right?
The same is true with wild animals, it turns out. But there’s a caveat. Regular exposure to humans seems to enable animals to bounce back more quickly from the insults visited on them when they are caught and tagged in the name of science, according to a study just out in Nature Communications.
The results offer tantalizing evidence that animals living near humans might be able to acclimate to people in ways that would help them recover from close-up encounters. It also offers clues that could help scientists make sure their tracking data is revealing regular behavior, and not the aftereffects of getting captured.
In detailed examination of the movements of more than 1500 animals from 42 species of land mammals after they were tagged with GPS units, scientists looked at how their behavior within the first 10 day of being captured differed from the following 10 days, when they had more time to recover. They looked at how much the animals moved around, and how much they changed their overall location within the surrounding area.
Among the variables the scientists considered was the amount of human infrastructure surrounding the animal’s habitat. That, it turned out, made a big difference in what happened after the animals were set loose. “It was particularly noteworthy that animals whose habitat is more strongly influenced by humans were the first to return to normal behavior,” said Jonas Stiegler, an ecologist at the University of Potsdam in Germany, and the lead author of the paper.
The paper doesn’t explain why the human-exposed animals recovered faster. But the authors point to other research showing that some species of animals can develop a tolerance for living close to people. Some wild animals, such as coyotes and raccoons, have proven particularly resourceful at navigating human landscapes.
The results of this new research might have interesting lessons for other studies looking at how even a modest human presence can alter animal behavior. I’ve written in the past about how even the sounds of a few talkative hikers can send wild animals into a panic. But the scientists behind that research wondered if perhaps animals would calm down over time with regular exposure to these sounds.
The new research suggests that, at least for some species, it might even help them cope with being manhandled.
Stiegler, et. al. “Mammals show faster recovery from capture and tagging in human-disturbed landscapes.” Nature Communications. Sept. 15, 2024.
Photo by Carolin Scholz/University of Potsdam
