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Full-Text Articles in Zoology

Instability Of Glucocorticoid Metabolites In Coyote Scats: Implications For Field Sampling, Erika T. Stevenson, Eric M. Gese, Lorin A. Neuman-Lee, Susannah S. French Oct 2020

Instability Of Glucocorticoid Metabolites In Coyote Scats: Implications For Field Sampling, Erika T. Stevenson, Eric M. Gese, Lorin A. Neuman-Lee, Susannah S. French

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Studying physiologic stress responses can assist in understanding the welfare of animals. One method of measuring the physiologic stress response is evaluating concentrations of glucocorticoid metabolites in feces. Previously, using an adrenocorticotropic hormone challenge, we found fecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels were a reliable indicator of physiologic stress response in coyotes (Canis latrans). We determine whether glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations remain stable when collecting feces over a 2-week period, a timeframe commonly used in scat surveys for wild canids. We collected feces from 6 captive coyotes maintained at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Predator …


Implementing Welfare Science: Case Studies In Evidence-Based Zoo Management, Marisa Suzanne Spain Jan 2020

Implementing Welfare Science: Case Studies In Evidence-Based Zoo Management, Marisa Suzanne Spain

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Animal welfare science is a field that focuses on how we can improve the lives and well-being of animals in human care. Modern welfare science has moved away from simply preventing suffering and on to promoting positive welfare states, a concept that has been coined animal “wellness”. A process called evidence-based zoo management has been implemented in many zoos as a way to promote and ensure wellness. This is the idea that husbandry and housing standards should be evaluated and tested for their efficacy using data rather than relying on traditional best practices. In this manuscript we discuss an informal …


Spatiotemporal Partitioning Of Mammalian Mesopredators In Response To Drought And Urbanization In California's Central Valley, Chad W. Moura Jan 2020

Spatiotemporal Partitioning Of Mammalian Mesopredators In Response To Drought And Urbanization In California's Central Valley, Chad W. Moura

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mammalian mesopredators commonly associated with human dominated landscapes often exhibit generalist diets, behavioral plasticity, and relatively high reproductive rates. Because of this wide range of adaptive traits, ecologists have been speculative of what conditions may drive species to change their activity and behavior to avoid or mitigate against resource competition, intraguild predation, and human disturbance. I investigated a community of common mesopredators within the Sacramento Metropolitan Area of California’s Central Valley to address whether species are spatially and/or temporally partitioning due to a defacto apex predator, coyotes (Canis latrans), and humans alongside large landscape altering disturbances: urbanization and drought. I …