Predator discrimination and 'personality' in captive Vancouver Island marmots (Marmota vancouverensis)

A major impediment to recovering declining populations successfully is the mortality of reintroduced or translocated animals. We generally assume that captive-born animals may lose their antipredator behaviour abilities in captivity, but studies rarely compare predator recognition abilities of captive-born and wild-captured animals to test this. To identify whether predator discrimination abilities of the critically endangered Vancouver Island marmots Marmota vancouverensis were lost in captivity, we presented wild-captured and captive-born marmots with taxidermic mounts of predators (a cougar Felis concolor and wolf Canis lupus) together with control stimuli (marmot, domestic goat Capra aegagrus, the cart on which all stimuli were presented and a 'blank' no-stimulus control). Regardless of specific predator discrimination abilities, for some species overall 'personality' may be associated with response to predators and subsequent survival. Thus, to quantify overall reactivity in the presence of a predator, we also conducted a mirror-image stimulus (MIS) presentation experiment where marmots were video-recorded with or without the presence of a wolf. Marmots discriminated among these stimuli, responding the most to the wolf and cougar. The MIS results suggest that marmots varied along a continuum of reactivity. The amount of reactivity was unaffected by the presence of a wolf, and was correlated with our highest level of responsiveness (vigilance at the burrow and time within the burrow) to the wolf. Taken together, we conclude that marmots differentiate predators from non-predators and that this ability has not been lost under the conditions in which they have been reared.