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Disturbances by dog barking increase vigilance in coots Fulica atra

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Abstract

Animals frequently interrupt their activity to look up and to scan their surrounding environment for potential predators (vigilance). As vigilance and other activities are often mutually exclusive, such behaviours are at the expense of feeding, sleeping or preening. Authors of many wildlife disturbance studies found that people with free-running dogs provoked the most pronounced disturbances (e.g. greater flushing distances and more birds affected). However, dogs on leash may also negatively affect wild animals, and barking dogs may lead to an increase in vigilance. In this study, I tested this hypothesis in coots (Fulica atra) using three different playback procedures: (1) dog barks, (2) conspecific coot alarm calls and (3) chaffinch song. The trials were conducted in spring and autumn 2005 at three study sites in southwestern Germany. During the dog playbacks, vigilance increased significantly from 17 to 28%. This increase in vigilance is comparable to the presence of a natural predator. As expected, vigilance also increased significantly during conspecific coot alarm calls but not during playbacks of the chaffinch song control. Two main findings result from the study: (1) coots respond to acoustic traits of dogs and may be able to acoustically recognise this predator and (2) this increase in vigilance might have implications for conservation, especially when considering buffer zones around sensitive areas.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank especially Richard Ranft from the British Sound Library for supplying audio material. This study was partly funded by grant #1430 5771 of the University of Education Ludwigsburg and by a grant from the Federal Ministery for Education und Research Germany (JP CR). The experiments comply with the current law in Germany. I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments which added to the clarity of the manuscript.

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  1. Institute of Biology I, University of Leipzig, Johannisallee 46, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Christoph Randler

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Randler, C. Disturbances by dog barking increase vigilance in coots Fulica atra . Eur J Wildl Res 52, 265–270 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-006-0049-z

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