Translocations and Reintroductions
Some management actions involve human-aided displacements of animals, either from captivity (reintroductions) or from other wild populations (translocations). Tracking the animals released in such manipulations can provide unique opportunities to understand how the animals adapt to their new environments (Heet al. 2019). For example, recurring short displacements (such as when animals are repeatedly taken to the same sampling station for physiological samples), can be used to assess how quickly the animal learns the return route to its home range (Biro et al . 2007).
Translocations of animals into existing populations can aid understanding of learning when movement behaviors of individuals new to the environment can be compared to those of already-resident individuals. For example, quantifying the rate of convergence of movement metrics between new arrivals and residents could help estimate learning rates. In addition, if translocated animals are sourced from areas that differ in predation risk (or other factors) but released in a common space, comparison of the survival and movement patterns could be useful to understanding how previous experience shapes learning (Frairet al. 2007). Translocations of social animals may also create opportunities for newly arrived individuals to learn from resident conspecifics (Dolevet al. 2002).
Overall, tracking the movements of animals in novel environments over years or even generations in comparison to historical populations can reveal the importance of learning and cultural transmission and identify the rate at which animals gain knowledge of their environment. For example, Jesmer et al . (2018) found that it took multiple decades for translocated bighorn sheep and moose to regain the capacity to identify and follow the optimal forage gradients that existed in their landscapes as they migrated. Likewise, tracking the movement of prey species before and after the introduction of predators into a landscape affords unique opportunities for investigating how animals learn to avoid predators (Fordet al . 2015).