Impact of wildlife culling on the behaviour of a highly social herbivore
Data files
Jun 17, 2025 version files 270.18 KB
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Campbell_etal_data_behaviour.xlsx
263.76 KB
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README.md
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Abstract
Wildlife culling is used to control overabundant populations of animals, particularly herbivores, and can be an effective yet controversial management tool. While the ecological outcome of culling has been extensively studied, little research has been done on the behavioural impacts of culling on the animals remaining in the population. We intensively studied multiple populations of eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus) in the weeks immediately before and after an annual cull to examine how culling affects the behaviour of remaining animals. While the cull reduced overall population numbers by 30-60%, there was little impact on group sizes of individual kangaroos within populations, a first pass indicator of sociality. The proportion of kangaroos observed being vigilant increased by 70% in the weeks following the month-long culling event, but there was no discernible change in any other behaviour (foraging, resting or reproductive behaviour). In particular, there was no increase in stress behaviour after culling. Taken together, the practice of culling as a management tool of this iconic, highly social herbivore did not impose lasting behavioural changes on surviving kangaroos. Without comprehensive behavioural assessments like this being made of wildlife management strategies, it is difficult to obtain a clear picture of the impacts of such practices on animals remaining in the population. This is especially problematic for social species like macropods and other large herbivores where changes in population composition could have lasting flow-on effects on stress and wellbeing.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wvm
Description of the data and file structure
This paper reports one of the first studies evaluating the behavioural impacts of a conservation cull on wild populations of large herbivore, the eastern grey kangaroo.
Description of the data and file structure
The file is a csv file that can be opened using any text, spreadsheet or statistical program.
Sheet 1: Population
This sheet contains data visually observed during in-person observation sessions.
Column Headings
Cull/control
- Whether the site in question was a cull site (i.e. a site where culling was conducted in 2023) or a control site (i.e. a site where culling was not conducted in 2023).
Pre/post
- Whether the observation in question was taken before or after the 2023 cull.
Location
- The location (site) at which the observation was taken.
Date
- The date the observation was taken.
Session
- Whether the observation was taken in the morning or evening.
Max pop
- The largest population size recorded during a particular observation session.
Sheet 2: Mobs
This sheet contains data visually observed during in-person observation sessions.
Column Headings
Cull/control
- Whether the site in question was a cull site (i.e. a site where culling was conducted in 2023) or a control site (i.e. a site where culling was not conducted in 2023).
Pre/post
- Whether the observation in question was taken before or after the 2023 cull.
Location
- The location (site) at which the observation was taken.
Date
- The date the observation was taken.
Session
- Whether the observation was taken in the morning or evening.
Max pop
- The largest population size recorded during a particular observation session.
Ave mob
- The average mob size recorded during a particular observation session.
Mob
- A letter representing the mob being counted at a particular time (i.e. mob a, mob b etc.)
Males
- The number of males in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Females-young
- The number of females with joeys in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Females-noyoung
- The number of females without joeys in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Sub-adults
- The number of sub-adults in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Young-at-foot
- The number of young-at-foot (joeys) in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Unknown
- The number of unknown kangaroos in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Total
- The total number of kangaroos in a specific mob (e.g. Mob a) counted at a particular time.
Sheet 3: Scan Sampling
This sheet contains data visually observed during in-person observation sessions.
Column Headings
Pre/post
- Whether the observation in question was taken before or after the 2023 cull.
Cull/control
- Whether the site in question was a cull site (i.e. a site where culling was conducted in 2023) or a control site (i.e. a site where culling was not conducted in 2023).
Location
- The location (site) at which the observation was taken.
Date
- The date the observation was taken.
Time
- The time at which the observation was taken.
Sex
- The sex of the kangaroos being recorded at a given time (Females- young, Females- noyoung, Males, Sub-adults, Young-at-foot, Unknown).
Resting
- The number of kangaroos engaging in resting behaviour at a specific time.
Relaxed eating
- The number of kangaroos engaging in relaxed eating (i.e. non-vigilante eating) behaviour at a specific time.
Vigilance
- The number of kangaroos engaging in vigilance behaviour at a specific time.
Relaxed other
- The number of kangaroos engaging in other relaxed (i.e. relaxed, non-eating) behaviour at a specific time.
Locomotion
- The number of kangaroos engaging in locomotive behaviour at a specific time.
Mating
- The number of kangaroos engaging in mating behaviour at a specific time.
Aggression
- The number of kangaroos engaging in aggressive behaviour at a specific time.
Sheet 4: Focal Sampling
This sheet contains data from videos filmed during in-person observation sessions.
Column Headings
cd.res file
- Digital file name.
Sex
- The sex of the focal kangaroo being recorded.
Date
- The date the video was recorded.
Time
- The time the video started.
Location
- The location the video was filmed at.
Others present
- Whether or not there were other kangaroos present in the video.
Cull/control
- Whether the video was filmed at a cull site (i.e. a site where culling was conducted in 2023) or a control site (i.e. a site where culling was not conducted in 2023).
Pre/post
- Whether the video in question was taken before or after the 2023 cull.
Vigilance
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in vigilance behaviour.
Courting
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in mating behaviour.
Relaxed other
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in relaxed, non-eating behaviour.
Resting
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in resting behaviour.
Locomotion
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in locomotive behaviour.
Aggression
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in aggressive behaviour.
Stress
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in stress behaviour.
Relaxed eating
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in relaxed eating (i.e. non-vigilant eating) behaviour.
Other
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the focal kangaroo spent engaging in other behaviors.
Total time in sight
- The total amount of time (in milliseconds) that the kangaroo was in sight while being filmed.
Code/software
The file is a csv file that can be opened using any text, spreadsheet or statistical program.
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:
- NA
Data was derived from the following sources:
- All data was collected by Nora E. Campbell