Absdigest digest, Vol 10 #50
James Ha
jcha at u.washington.edu
Fri Nov 12 10:57:40 EST 2004
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+ A B S n e t - Electronic Newsletter +
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| Maintained in association with the Animal Behavior Society |
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| Editors: * James C. Ha Internet: jcha at u.washington.edu |
| ** Shan D. Duncan Internet: sdduncan at abs.animalbehavior.org |
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Today's Topics:
1. Dormice Breeding Colony Available
2. Tortoises: A Plea for Scientific Advice
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Message: 1
Subject: Dormice Breeding Colony Available
From: Sylvia.I.Taylor at aphis.usda.gov
Millermeade Farms is an exotic small animal breeding facility located in
northwest OH. We have been breeding dormice since 1998 and have had very
much success with our colony. In June of last year the CDC and FDA put
out a joint embargo on prairie dogs and six species of African rodents
including dormice. We have maintained our breeding colony in hopes that
the embargo will sometime be lifted. However, it does not look like the
embargo will be lifted anytime in the near future and it is no longer
practical for us to maintain our colony. Our only options are to
euthanize the animals or transfer them to a research facility or possibly
a University. We would much rather the animals benefit someone rather
than have them simply destroyed.
There are six individual colonies with 2-4 adults plus at least 4 of the
colonies have weanling babies. The animals are in excellent health and
have been in good breeding condition. The animals are easy to breed and
maintain. They are very agile and more difficult to handle than a
domestic mouse.
This is probably one of the few remaining dormice colonies in the private
sector.
If anyone is willing to cross post this information to other lists, your
help is greatly appreciated.
Please email me privately for more information.
Sincerely,
Gail Dick
Millermeade Farms
gaildick at critterconnection.cc
www.critterconnection.cc
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Message: 2
From: Barbara Livoreil <BLivoreil at aol.com>
Subject: Tortoises: A Plea for Scientific Advice
[Editor's note: this is long but seems to be exactly what ABSnet is about
so I am running it uncut... JCH]
Can you imagine someone with a background in animal behavior, concerned
about the future of the planet so as to accept a job in a NGO doing
conservation at a local scale, and trying to put some ethology into
conservation programs, focusing on studies in the field on wild, mimic and
slow non cooperative (laughs) animals... Can you imagine this very same
person, lost, almost alone, in the middle of nowhere, seeking for
scientist colleagues interested in the challenge of creating a research
group to develop behavioral studies in applied conservation biology?... to
favor brainstorming, exchange experiences, decide-review-assess
programs... Well, if you are still interested, just keep on reading.
My name is Barbara Livoreil and I am working as a scientific officer in a
NGO dealing with conservation of tortoises (France, Senegal,
Madagascar...). My background is a PhD in ethology (squirrels, social and
foraging behavior) and 4 great years as a post-doc fellow in behavioral
ecology (optimal foraging). Most of my work since I arrived in the NGO in
1998 (the position was just created) was to set up scientific programs and
organise many things, so we (with students) focused mostly on conservation
program in situ (census, mapping, education...), with our flagship species
Testudo hermanni, in southern France. We have been working on conservation
basic programs and management since 2001, and our biggest programs
(genetics, inventory) should finish in 2005. Time to go further.
This year we got important funding for one of our programs (restoration
after fire) and this should last 2 more years at least. Thus I took the
opportunity to buy equipment for field work (radiotracking, GPS,
camcorders...), and we are slowly getting ready for big field studies,
having in mind a very simple goal:
To be able to design efficient conservation programs, one usually spends a
lot of time and energy trying to know whether the population is increasing
or declining (population dynamic, PVA, MVP.... all sorts of models). This
is very difficult with many tortoises as they have a long lifespan and lay
only a few eggs each year (3 /y for Hermann), with babies very difficult
to observe in the wild before they reach about 10 years old... so each
time we want to assess the efficiency of a management action, it takes
years and nobody really likes it. Managers need and request guidelines
right now (I dare say). So, although we must keep collecting data over
years for population dynamic studies, I thought that animal behavior study
could provide us with short term answers... how does a tortoise react to
such and such changes in its environment? what are its need in term of
food, patchiness, habitat structure? Why not ask the tortoise directly?
... why are tortoises so abundant here and not there? what makes this
habitat "able" to shelter so many tortoises? what about dispersion, choice
of a sedentary home range when reaching sexual maturity, mate choice? What
about diet, use of habitat when looking for food, change of behavior
related to food availability ? Is home range size affected by food
availability or mostly by temperature conditions (well, tortoises are
soooo different from squirrels.. and yet both hibernate!)
So, many questions to be asked, very little is known about these tortoises
right now, and most conservation decisions are based on beliefs rather
than scientific experiment and observation.
Now that I know I can provide some equipment and logistics and that we may
be able to find money to help students in the field, is to collaborate
with behaviorists of various backgrounds in order to help us:
- assess our needs and how ethology and behavioral ecology could answer
some questions
- give priority
- review research proposals
- review advancement of work at different steps of the implementation of
the program
What would be possible for 2005 (tortoises emerge from hibernation in
April) is:
- mate choice (encounters in captivity)
- foraging behavior (wild animals in captivity or in the field)
- comparative study of home range, micro-habitat use, time budgets between
a/. a very rich area of scrubland, b/. rich area in a pine woodland, c/.
similar to b but burnt in summer 2003.
If you are interested, or if you could give me a few advice with regards
as how to get in touch with people or improve the ideas developed above, I
would really be grateful.
Many thanks in advance for any answer.
All the best
Barbara Livoreil
Scientific officer
SOPTOM-CRCC
BP 24
83590 Gonfaron
France
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+========================================================================+
| Contact Addresses: |
| |
| James Ha |
| Department of Psychology & Regional Primate Research Center |
| University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 |
| |
| Shan D. Duncan |
| Animal Behavior Soceity Central Office at Indiana University |
| 2611 East 10th Street #170, Bloomington, IN 47405 |
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