
“Predator boot camps” in Australia teach once-abundant mammals to fear predators - extarial
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/watching-a-friend-get-eaten-could-help-animals-learn-to-stay-alive/
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gruez
shouldn't it be "prey boot camps"? they're training preys, not predators.

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andygcook
I’m curious if this is nurtured behavior or behavior devolped through an
evolutionary process, or both. This reminds me of the fox domestication
experiment in Siberia in the 40’s. Researchers bred foxes, kept all the ones
that didn’t show as many signs of being afraid of humans, then subsequently
bred those ones again (the rest were turned into furs to fund the research.)
This process is kind of like that, but in reverse. Will say that these don’t
seem to be truly domesticated bettongs, so not quite the same, but still
interested.

(edit - spelling)

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cimmanom
It looks like it was a short-term experiment (way shorter than the lifespan of
a single individual). The actual paper indicates the "bootcamp" lasted 18
months. And they had a control with two pens, only one exposed to the
predators.

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meanonme
Hey even animals need... training... that means. Oh bollocks.

Is it one weekend where they cram too much material into 20 hours of class
time or spread out over a week?

Do they get practical certifications or just course credit?

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ggm
If it works don't knock it! Teaching young pups not to eat cane toads is
pretty cool

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John_KZ
We need this for humans too.

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scotty79
> You want a bettong to watch its mate get eaten by a cat and think, ‘Oh,
> geez, cats are scary,’

Couldn't help but read the last part in Morty voice.

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bayesian_horse
This almost sounds like one of those pranks Australians like to play on
tourists.

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idbehold
Watch out for those drop bears. [https://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-
bear](https://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear)

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taneq
Australian native animals are mostly pretty terrible at being animals. Possums
and kangaroos are the only ones that are fairly effective.

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qubax
Seems like pointless temporary exercise not even based in science. Even if you
"teach" the current batch of rodents to be afraid of cats, how will their
offspring be afraid of cats if they aren't naturally inclined to be fearful of
predators?

The way prey behavior is developed in nature is through evolution. In a batch
of animals, there are mutations that cause a small portion of them to be
naturally antsy, cautious and afraid. You could see this in litter of puppies.
There are some who are very friendly, some that are neutral and some who stand
back and are cautious. Same with rats and other rodents. When predators get
introduced, the "friendly" ones get killed and the more cautious rodents get
to breed, producing more and more cautious rodents over time. It's basic
evolution. Of course with the introduction of human supported "super-
predators" like cats doesn't give species time to "evolve".

Isn't the simple and obvious solution here is to remove feral cats and other
non-native predators? Or are feel-good but ineffective "predator boot camps"
where preservation is at right now?

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cf141q5325
>Subsequent generations of the test group are also avoiding cats, which
indicates parents are passing the relevant behaviors along to their offspring.

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erikig
Anyone know how these behaviors are passed on from parent to child?

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moate
A genetic predisposition towards being afraid of predators. The assumption is
that if you have 100 mice, and 50 of them show signs of being afraid of cats,
then you breed those mice to produce another 100, noting the pairs that
produced them. You can then see how many of the offspring are afraid of cats,
and select that group to produce the next generation.

Some of the fear of cats will be learned behavior, some of it will be
instinct. It could also be that the ability to learn the behavior has genetic
links (think naturally smart mice). If you keep this cycle going, eventually
you have a group that should be higher than your initial 50% fear rate. It's
possible that you can't selectively breed for this, but it's also possible
that you can. This is in some ways the inverse of how humans domesticated many
different species.

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cimmanom
This experiment seems to have been too short-term to have influenced genetics
significantly.

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moate
You're correct, this was only done with a couple generations of animals.
Unlikely to have been enough for cultivated development of the behavior
genetically. This seems to be more of a "let's just traumatize the animals and
hope they change their behavior as a result".

