Abstract: Stress generated by humans on wildlife by continuous development of outdoor recreational activities is of increasing concern for biodiversity conservation. Human disturbance often adds to other negative impact factors affecting the dynamics of vulnerable populations. It is not known to which extent the rapidly spreading free-riding snow sports actually elicit detrimental stress (allostatic overload) upon wildlife, nor what the potential associated fitness and survival costs are. Using a non-invasive technique, we evaluated the physiological stress response induced by free-riding snow sports on a declining bird species of Alpine ecosystems. The results of a field experiment in which radiomonitored black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) were actively flushed from their snow burrows once a day during four consecutive days showed an increase in the concentration of faecal stress hormone (corticosterone) metabolites after disturbance. A large-scale comparative analysis across the southwestern Swiss Alps indicated that birds had higher levels of these metabolites in human-disturbed versus undisturbed habitats. Disturbance by snow sport free-riders appears to elevate stress, which potentially represents a new serious threat for wildlife. The fitness and survival costs of allostatic adjustments have yet to be estimated.

Abstract: Research on nonhuman primates has produced compelling evidence for reconciliation and consolation, that is, postconflict contacts that serve to respectively repair social relationships and reassure distressed individuals, such as victims of attack. This has led to a view of conflict and conflict resolution as an integrated part of social relationships, hence determined by social factors and modifiable by the social environment. Implications of this new model of social conflict are discussed along with evidence for behavioral flexibility, the value of cooperation, and the possibility that distress alleviation rests on empathy, a capacity that may be present in chimpanzees and humans but not in most other animals.

Abstract: After Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872, we had to wait 60 years before the theme of animal expressions was picked up by another astute observer. In 1935, Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts published a detailed comparison of the expressive behavior of a juvenile chimpanzee and of her own child. After Kohts, we had to wait until the 1960s for modern ethological analyses of primate facial and gestural communication. Again, the focus was on the chimpanzee, but ethograms on other primates appeared as well. Our understanding of the range of expressions in other primates is at present far more advanced than that in Darwin's time. A strong social component has been added: instead of focusing on the expressions per se, they are now often classified according to the social situations in which they typically occur. Initially, quantitative analyses were sequential (i.e., concerned with temporal associations between behavior patterns), and they avoided the language of emotions. I will discuss some of this early work, including my own on the communicative repertoire of the bonobo, a close relative of the chimpanzee (and ourselves). I will provide concrete examples to make the point that there is a much richer matrix of contexts possible than the common behavioral categories of aggression, sex, fear, play, and so on. Primate signaling is a form of negotiation, and previous classifications have ignored the specifics of what animals try to achieve with their exchanges. There is also increasing evidence for signal conventionalization in primates, especially the apes, in both captivity and the field. This process results in group-specific or “cultural” communication patterns.

Abstract: During the decade surrounding the Second World War, an extensive literature on the biological and psychological basis of aggression surfaced in America, a literature that in general emphasized the significance of learning and environment in the origins of aggressive behavior. Focusing on the animal behavior research of Warder Clyde Allee and John Paul Scott, this paper examines the complex interplay among conceptual, institutional, and societal forces that created and shaped a discourse on the subjects of aggression, dominance, and leadership within the context of World War II. The distinctions made between sexual and social dominance during this period, distinctions accentuated by the threat of totalitarianism abroad, and the varying ways that interpretations of behavior could be negotiated attests to the multiplicity of interactions that influence the development of scientific research.

Abstract: To describe and then fulfill agricultural animals' needs, we must learn more about their fundamental psychological and behavioral processes. How does this animal feel? Is that animal suffering? Will we ever be able to know these things? Scientists specializing in animal cognition say that there are numerous problems but that they can be overcome. Recognition by scientists of the notion of animal awareness has been increasing in recent years, because of the work of Griffin and others. Feeling, thinking, remembering, and imagining are cognitive processes that are factors in the economic and humane production of agricultural animals. It has been observed that the animal welfare debate depends on two controversial questions: Do animals have subjective feelings? If they do, can we find indicators that reveal them? Here, indirect behavioral analysis approaches must be taken. Moreover, the linear additivity of several stressor effects on a variety of animal traits suggests that some single phenomenon is acting as a “clearinghouse” for many or all of the stresses acting on an animal at any given time, and this phenomenon might be psychological stress. Specific situations animals may encounter in agricultural production settings are discussed with respect to the animals' subjective feelings.