TEACHING AN ENDANGERED MAMMAL TO RECOGNIZE PREDATORS

The possibility of conditioning captive-reared animals to fear predato rs prior to release into the wild is often discussed, but rarely attem pted. Here we show that captive-reared rufous hare-wallabies Lagorches tes hirsutus, a species of marsupial that became extinct in the Austra lian mainland in 1991, become more cautious after conditioning to fear predators that they will encounter after release. The predators, cats and foxes, are not historical enemies of hare-wallabies, but captive- reared predator-naive rufous hare-wallabies reacted cautiously to them in captivity, suggesting either some genetic recognition abilities fo r a generalised mammalian predator, or perhaps that hare-wallabies are simply generally cautious in the presence of an unknown animal. Rufou s hare-wallabies became even more cautious after two conditioning tech niques were used to teach them to associate a fright with a fox or cat . We suggest that conditioning about predators may be a valuable adjun ct to many management programmes involving release of predator-naive e ndangered animals.