Raymond Coppinger

Wolf-pack (Canis lupus) hunting strategies emerge from simple rules in computational simulations

We have produced computational simulations of multi-agent systems in which wolf agents chase prey agents. We show that two simple decentralized rules controlling the movement of each wolf are enough to reproduce the main features of the wolf-pack hunting behavior: tracking the prey, carrying out the pursuit, and encircling the prey until it stops moving. The rules are (1) move towards the prey until a minimum safe distance to the prey is reached, and (2) when close enough to the prey, move away from the other wolves that are close to the safe distance to the prey. The hunting agents are autonomous, interchangeable and indistinguishable; the only information each agent needs is the position of the other agents. Our results suggest that wolf-pack hunting is an emergent collective behavior which does not necessarily rely on the presence of effective communication between the individuals participating in the hunt, and that no hierarchy is needed in the group to achieve the task properly.

Welfare considerations in therapy and assistance animals

Publisher Summary This chapter demonstrates how the use of therapy and assistance animals significantly enhances human health and well-being. It addresses whether this end morally justifies the means of achieving it. The goal is to re-examine the animal/human partnership from the animals viewpoint to see what the benefits might be for the animal, or to see if the raising, training, and use of therapy and assistance animals is causing significant degradation in their welfare. Further welfare challenges arise when therapy and assistance animals begin to age. There are many potential sources of chronic stress in the lives of therapy and assistance animals. Trainers, practitioners, and end-users of these animals should be educated to recognize the warning signs and act accordingly. Recent advances in avian medicine, nutrition, and behavior reveal that most of these birds have highly specialized needs relating to air quality, nutrition, lighting, housing, sleep, and both environmental and social enrichment. The lifecycle of the typical assistance animal generally involves a series of relatively abrupt changes in its social and physical environment. Assistance animals are expected to obey complex commands and perform relatively challenging physical activities that also create a potential for welfare problems.

The Domestication of Evolution

A coming ‘Age of Interdependent Forms’ seems destined to mark the success of what could be called ‘despecialized/interspecific fitness’ among neotenic strains (perpetuating juvenile traits) of species such as humans and domestic animals. Humans as well as the first domesticants underwent a neotenic evolution in the wild during the repeated interglacial periods which, acting on a number of mammalian forms, selected against adult species-specific ancestral adaptations to a stable environment. Neotenic species continue to look and behave more like ancestral youths than adults—even after sexual maturity and throughout their life-history. As they retain lifelong youthful dependency motivations, they can easily, under suitable conditions, become interdependent forms. By the time of melting of the last Pleistocene glacier, all the domestic partners had already become more dependency-prone than formerly, and were behaviourally despecialized enough to form the alliance that is now changing the order of Nature.

Causes and Economic Effects of Mortality in Livestock Guarding Dogs

We assessed causes of pre-senile mortality among working guarding dogs, and its effects on their manrgement and cost. A population of 449 livestock guarding dogs in 31 states showed no differences in mortality due to breed or sex, but dogs working on open rangelands died more frequently (p<.OOl) than those working on farms or fenced ranches. Half of the farm dogs died before they reached 38 months of age, by which time nearly three-quarters of the open rangelands dogs had succumbed. Accidents accounted for over half the deaths, culling for inappropriate behavior accounted for one-third, and diseases for 9%. High accident and culling rates in young dogs substantially increased the cost of this predator control technique. However, we found 2 main areas where corrective measures can be applied: (1) increasing the awareness among producers that accidents are a main cause of deaths especially during the dogs’ first 30 months of age; and (2) reducing the number of culls by improving the genetics of the dogs and by training producers to manage them. Eurasian livestock guarding dogs (Canis familiaris) can reduce or eliminate predation on sheep (Ovis aries) and goats (Capra hireus) on farms and ranches in the United States (Coppinger et al. 1983a,b; Green and Woodruff 1983a). Such reduction depends on dogs being attentive and trustworthy. Dogs deficient in either of those attributes are unsuccessful. Methods of predator control must be economical to be useful. Although guarding dogs are proving to be of reasonable cost, producers need to be aware of factors that can rapidly change the economic picture. Green et al. (1984) estimated dollar costs of guarding dogs and suggested that ability to deter predators and longevity are additional factors that influence costs relative to benefit. We examined the effect of ability and longevity on working guarding dogs. Specifically, we looked at: (1) the duration of guarding behavior, which is partially dependent upon the life span of the dog, and (2) the percentage of dogs that show appropriate guarding behavior. The longer a dog lives, the more cost-effective it will become, because the costs of purchase and training can be amortized over a longer period. Moreover, a longer life span makes the generally ineffective juvenile months a smaller percentage of the total. We assessed causes of pre-senile mortality among working guarding dogs, and its effects on their management and cost. In addition, we developed actuarial statistics that will assist producers, researchers, veterinarians, and breeders in keeping track of the age structure of a population of working guardians, and in planning for replacement animals.

Group size, individual role differentiation and effectiveness of cooperation in a homogeneous group of hunters

The emergence of cooperation in wolf-pack hunting is studied using a simple, homogeneous, particle-based computational model. Wolves and prey are modelled as particles that interact through attractive and repulsive forces. Realistic patterns of wolf aggregation readily emerge in numerical simulations, even though the model includes no explicit wolf–wolf attractive forces, showing that the form of cooperation needed for wolf-pack hunting can take place even among strangers. Simulations are used to obtain the stationary states and equilibria of the wolves and prey system and to characterize their stability. Different geometric configurations for different pack sizes arise. In small packs, the stable configuration is a regular polygon centred on the prey, while in large packs, individual behavioural differentiation occurs and induces the emergence of complex behavioural patterns between privileged positions. Stable configurations of large wolf-packs include travelling and rotating formations, periodic oscillatory behaviours and chaotic group behaviours. These findings suggest a possible mechanism by which larger pack sizes can trigger collective behaviours that lead to the reduction and loss of group hunting effectiveness, thus explaining the observed tendency of hunting success to peak at small pack sizes. They also explain how seemingly complex collective behaviours can emerge from simple rules, among agents that need not have significant cognitive skills or social organization.

Differences in the Behavior of Landraces and Breeds of Dogs

The domestic dog has many phenotypic and behavioral forms. In this chapter we describe five different kinds of dogs and how each has been derived. We trace the background village dog adapting to the age of agriculture, with the coincident transformation of human behavior to permanent settlement. Over centuries, this village dog has changed, adapting to its different geographies and to local agricultural activities. In tandem, people began sorting through the village populations for dogs with appropriate behaviors, and these eventually became the founding stock for breeding programs. In recent centuries, samples of these working and hunting breeds have been collected by kennel clubs, and sexually isolated, becoming at best historic representations of the working or hunting breeds. More commonly they are used as pets, or household dogs, sometimes with sport competitions in the show or agility ringl

The effect of breakfast on social behavior and brain amine metabolism in vervet monkeys

Two groups of vervet monkeys were fed, on alternate days, either before or after a morning observation period. This enabled us to determine changes in behavior when the animals were fed a nutritionally balanced breakfast of monkey chow. Feeding did not alter the proportion of behaviors that were social or non-social, but had a marked effect on individual behaviors. Feeding increased active behaviors among the adult animals except for the vervets who were lowest in the social hierarchy in each cage. For some of the individual behaviors that were altered by feeding, the changes were most marked early on in the observation period, when the animals were still feeding. Other behavioral changes were seen only later in the observation period, a time course consistent with a food-mediated change in brain biochemistry. A parallel biochemical experiment showed that feeding decreased the levels of tryptophan and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in the CSF. Our data indicate that feeding can influence both brain biochemistry and behavior. The behavioral changes may be influenced by social and psychological factors as well as changes in brain biochemistry.