Doctoral Student Profile

Amy Jones

Supervisors: Mary Foster, Bill Temple

Laboratory assessment of potential field lures
I am interested in Animal Behaviour. For my PhD research I am attempting to find a method for measuring animals preferences for sounds. In our country we have a big problem with pest species such as ferrets and possums and in order to be able to eradicate the problem it may be useful to add sounds to bait stations in the field, in order to attract more animals. In order to find a method for assessing animals’ sound preferences I am working with hens at the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research Centre. Firstly, I am assessing two different operant procedures and will compare the results with open field assessments of the hens sound preferences. Because of difficulties in finding sounds that hens prefer, I am also attempting to create a preferred sound by pairing a tone with food in the hope that the sound will be preferred when preference assessments are carried out. It is hoped that we can find an effective measure that may one day be used with pest species in order to find their sound preferences.