Dear MARMAN community, My co-author and I are pleased to announce the publication of our latest paper in Tourism in the Marine Environment:
Senigaglia V. & Bejder L. 2020. Pregnancy cravings: visitation at a food-provisioning site is driven by the reproductive status of the Bottlenose dolphins. Tourism in Marine Environment. https://doi.org/10.3727/154427320X15943283422072 Abstract Marine wildlife tourism attractions often use food rewards to ensure close-up encounters with free-ranging animals. In Bunbury, Western Australia, the Dolphin Discovery Centre (DDC) conducts a food-provision program where bottlenose dolphins (N= 22; between 2000-2018) are offered food rewards to encourage their visitation at a beach in front of the DDC. We used historical records on individual beach visits by adult female dolphins collected by the DDC from 2000 to 2018 to develop generalized mixed effects models (GLMM) to test whether the frequency of beach visitation was influenced by their reproductive status (pregnant, lactating, non-reproductive) or climatic events (El Niño-Southern Oscillation phases) that could affect prey availability. We also quantified the behavioural budget of dolphins during food-provisioning sessions and documented intra and interspecific aggressive behaviours using individual focal follows collected in 2017-2018. Provisioned females spend most of the time resting within the interaction area (66.3%) and aggressive interactions arise as a consequence of dominance behaviour over food access. Visitation rates were most influenced by reproductive status with pregnant and lactating females visiting more frequently the provisioning area (z = 2.085; p = 0.037 and z = 2.437; p = 0.014, respectively). Females that frequently visit the provisioning area expose their dependent calves to regular human interactions at an early age when they are more susceptible to behavioural conditioning. Such experiences could cause the loss of awareness towards humans and promote maladaptive behaviours such as begging, that increase risk of entanglement in fishing gear, boat strikes and propeller injuries. The publication can be found at this link: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/tme/pre-prints/content-time_1078866?fbclid=IwAR00jzxs8w3s4tPvO2U5Uk1guoIapDJUtkOi36PWGu5Fz_qxPStXwPCw2Jg PDF requests can be sent to v <[email protected]>[email protected] Stay safe! All the best, Valeria Senigaglia -- *Valeria Senigaglia* *PhD Candidate* Aquatic Megafauna Research Unit <https://amru.org.au/> School of Veterinary and Life Sciences Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia Mobile: +61474837914 E-mail: [email protected]
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