The Effects of Aversive Conditioning on Elk (Cervus canadensis) in GSMNP
Walrod J. 2013. The Effects of Aversive Conditioning on Elk (Cervus canadensis) in GSMNP. National Park Service. Warren-Wilson College, North Carolina
Elk were reintroduced to Great Smokey Mountain National Park in 2001. Since then, the herd has become habituated to the large quantity of tourists frequenting the park. Habituation is unhealthy for the animals and potentially dangerous to the tourists, so the National Park Service has implemented the use of aversive conditioning, a form of behavior modification, which teaches an individual to associate an uncomfortable stimulus with an undesirable behavior. In this case, the undesirable behavior is tolerance of human presence—elk have been observed accepting food and tolerating physical contact from humans. In order to discourage this, the Park Service applies a variety of treatments when an elk displays such undesirable behavior. The Park Service wanted to know if the treatments were affecting the behavior of the elk as hoped, and to determine this, I sampled the distance between an individual elk and the closest human and compared those distances with which treatments the elk had received. There was no significant difference in distances between treated and untreated animals, or between treatment types.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Walrod, Jacey
- Date of Issue
- 2013-04-15
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- adverse conditioning, begging, Behavior, Cataloochee, Cervus canadensis, Elk, GRSM-01125, nusence animals
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals