Dr. Stuart is an ethologist
Dr. Stuart is an ethologist. He is interested in studying
antipredator behavior. Although there are numerous studies performed
in the laboratory testing monkeys and other animals using rubber
snakes, Dr. Stuart argues that these data are fundamentally flawed for
several reasons. First, a toy snake will be missing cues that may
trigger a response. For example, smell and movement might be strong
cues that trigger a fight or flight response when an animal detects a
predator. In addition, most animals tested in the laboratory have
never lived in the wild. Also, laboratory conditions are very
different from the natural habitat of these animals. Therefore it is
difficult to determine whether a laboratory animal’s antipredator
response is normal, or a product of the laboratory conditions.
Dr. Stuart plans to address these problems by doing a field experiment
in which mice are confronted with a live snake. He would like to test
approximately 30 common field mice in a colony that he has been
observing in a nearby grassy woodland area. Dr. Stuart will use common
garter snakes as they live as predators. He will release the garter
snake near a field mouse and observe the mouse’s response. He will
also videotape the encounter for later analysis. He will try to remove
the garter snake prior to any actual attack on the field mouse. In his
proposal, Dr. Stuart notes that the experimental results cannot be
directly applied to human behavior. He argues, however, that the
experiment will address the shortcomings in previous research on
antipredator behavior.
