The grey wolf ( Canis lupus ) is one of the most challenging species to conserve in our modern and crowded world. Due to various factors, most European wolf populations are currently growing. In Hungary, numbers have increased since the 2000s. Although spontaneous recolonisation from Slovakia is considered to be the most likely mechanism by the majority of experts, some stakeholders claim that hand-reared individuals have been released. To determine the origin of wolves in northern Hungary, we analysed samples of free-ranging wolves collected in Slovakia and Hungary as well as samples from wolves in private enclosures in the region. We also included reference samples from domestic dogs. All samples were genotyped at 14 canine autosomal tetranucleotide microsatellite loci (STR) and analysed using multivariate, Bayesian methods. Hungarian wolf samples were also analysed using kinship methods. In the free-ranging wolf samples, all loci were polymorphic with 3–12 alleles. The overall observed ( H o ) and unbiased expected (u H E ) heterozygosities were 0.60–0.66 and 0.69–0.71, respectively. Parental and sibling relationships were also found among Hungarian individuals: three generations of a pack in the Bükk Mountains were identified. Samples from free-ranging wolves clustered separately from those of captive wolves and dogs. However, genetic similarities were found between Slovakian and Hungarian wolf samples. Our analyses indicate a Slovakian origin of the sampled Hungarian wolves, and we found no evidence that individuals originating in captivity have played any role in the recolonisation process. Kinship relationships and moderate genetic diversity suggest that there is ongoing gene flow across the Slovakian–Hungarian border.

Sleep research greatly benefits from comparative studies to understand the underlying physiological and environmental factors affecting the different features of sleep, also informing us about the possible evolutionary changes shaping them. Recently, the domestic dog became an exceedingly valuable model species in sleep studies, as the use of non-invasive polysomnography methodologies enables direct comparison with human sleep data. In this study, we applied the same polysomnography protocol to record the sleep of dog’s closest wild relative, the wolf. We measured the sleep of seven captive (six young and one senior), extensively socialized wolves using a fully non-invasive sleep EEG methodology, originally developed for family dogs. We provide the first descriptive analysis of the sleep macrostructure and NREM spectral power density of wolves using a completely non-invasive methodology. For (non-statistical) comparison, we included the same sleep data of similarly aged dogs. Although our sample size was inadequate to perform statistical analyses, we suggest that it may form the basis of an international, multi-site collection of similar samples using our methodology, allowing for generalizable, unbiased conclusions. As we managed to register both macrostructural and spectral sleep data, our procedure appears to be suitable for collecting valid data in other species too, increasing the comparability of non-invasive sleep studies.

Automated monitoring of the movements and behaviour of animals is a valuable research tool. Recently, machine learning tools were applied to many species to classify units of behaviour. For the monitoring of wild species, collecting enough data for training models might be problematic, thus we examine how machine learning models trained on one species can be applied to another closely related species with similar behavioural conformation. We contrast two ways to calculate accuracies, termed here as overall and threshold accuracy, because the field has yet to define solid standards for reporting and measuring classification performances. We measure 21 dogs and 7 wolves, and find that overall accuracies are between 51 and 60% for classifying 8 behaviours (lay, sit, stand, walk, trot, run, eat, drink) when training and testing data are from the same species and between 41 and 51% when training and testing is cross-species. We show that using data from dogs to predict the behaviour of wolves is feasible. We also show that optimising the model for overall accuracy leads to similar overall and threshold accuracies, while optimizing for threshold accuracy leads to threshold accuracies well above 80%, but yielding very low overall accuracies, often below the chance level. Moreover, we show that the most common method for dividing the data between training and testing data (random selection of test data) overestimates the accuracy of models when applied to data of new specimens. Consequently, we argue that for the most common goals of animal behaviour recognition overall accuracy should be the preferred metric. Considering, that often the goal is to collect movement data without other methods of observation, we argue that training data and testing data should be divided by individual and not randomly.

In the food supply chain, quality control has a very important role in maintaining customer confidence. In the EU, food safety aspects are strictly regulated; however, composition requirements and standard control methods are generally undefined. The rapidly increasing wild boar population has a growing market share in venison or game meat production. Several methods have been described for species identification and control of composition in food products, but only some of these are suitable for routine measurements. The aim of our research was to design a rapid, reliable and simple PCR insertion/deletion (InDel)-based genetic tool suitable for species identification in food quality control laboratories. In total, 59 different swine (Sus scrofa) whole genomes were tested with bioinformatic tools to identify wild boar-specific insertions or deletions. Three independent InDels were suitable for marker development, multiplex PCR amplification and separation in agarose gel. Altogether, 209 samples of wild boar and ten other domestic pig breeds were taken for DNA extraction and validation of the three multiplexed InDel markers. Statistical analysis showed a very high combined predictive value (0.996), indicating the capability of the newly developed markers to detect wild boars with a probability over 99%. Breed assignment tests confirm that the InDel markers developed are suitable for rapid, sensitive and reliable identification of the wild boar meat content of food products. The use of the reported method in food quality control can mean a simple and cost-effective way to maintain consumer confidence and to support the competitiveness of fair producers.

When facing an unsolvable problem, dogs exhibit spontaneous human-oriented behaviours (e.g. looking at the human partner, gaze alternations between the human and the target) sooner and for longer than domestic cats and hand-raised wolves. These behaviours have been interpreted as interspecific communicative acts aimed to initiate interaction. Here, we compare the emergence of human-oriented behaviours (e.g. orientation towards humans, orientation alternations, vocalizations) in similarly raised family dogs and miniature pigs utilising an unsolvable task paradigm which consists of Baseline (no task), Solvable and Unsolvable phases. Relative to the Baseline phase in which both species showed human-oriented behaviours to a similar extent, during the Unsolvable phase dogs showed more and pigs showed less such behaviours. Species-predispositions in communicative behaviour may explain why dogs have a higher inclination than pigs to initiate interspecific interactions with humans in problem-solving contexts.

Dogs' attachment towards humans might be the core of their social skillset, yet the origins of their ability to build such a bond are still unclear. Here we show that adult, hand-reared wolves, similarly to dogs, form individualized relationship with their handler. During separation from their handler, wolves, much like family dogs, showed signs of higher-level stress and contact seeking behaviour, compared to when an unfamiliar person left them. They also used their handler as a secure base, suggesting that the ability to form interspecific social bonds could have been present already in the common ancestor of dogs and wolves. We propose that their capacity to form at least some features of attachment with humans may stem from the ability to form social bond with pack members. This might have been then re-directed to humans during early domestication, providing the basis for the evolution of other socio-cognitive abilities in dogs.

Previous research proves dogs' outstanding success in socio-communicative interactions with humans; however, little is known about other domestic species' interspecific skills when kept as companion animals. Our aim was to assess highly socialized young miniature pigs' spontaneous reactions in interactions with humans in direct comparison with that of young family dogs. All subjects experienced similar amount of socialization in human families. In Study 1, we investigated the appearance of human-oriented behaviours without the presence of food (Control condition) when a previously provided food reward was withheld (Food condition). In Study 2, we measured responsiveness to two types of the distal pointing gesture (dynamic sustained and momentary) in a two-way object choice test. In the Control condition of Study 1, the duration of pigs' and dogs' orientation towards and their frequency of touching the human's body was similar. In the Food condition, these behaviours and orienting to the human's face were intensified in both species. However, pigs exhibited face-orientation to an overall lesser extent and almost exclusively in the Food condition. In Study 2, only dogs relied spontaneously on the distal dynamic-sustained pointing gesture, while all pigs developed side bias. The results suggest that individual familiarization to a human environment enables the spontaneous appearance of similar socio-communicative behaviours in dogs and pigs, however, species predispositions might cause differences in the display of specific signals as well as in the success of spontaneously responding to certain types of the human pointing gestures.

The animal welfare is maybe the main factor in livestock breeding, including keeping wild animals. In order not have any problems (health, economic), animals behaviour analyses with cameras can be an appropriate and relatively cheap solution. The present study aims to show the difference between the camera traps and hand-held cameras: which can be used better to determine and examine the behaviour of individuals (living in groups), to show those slight, but relevant differences what in terms of results can cause wrong conclusions. Our examined species was the wild boar (Sus scrofa). We used a hand-held camera for behaviour observations, and then these 5 min videos were cutting-out short periods (20, 10 and 5 s) to simulate the camera traps videos. We defined the dominant and submissive elements' frequency, and the proportion of feeding and social interactions. The results showed that the videos' length can modify those important differences from which we can get a fair view of the social porblems: the social interactions were underrepresented in the shorter videos.

Many dog breeds are bred specifically for increased performance in scent-based tasks. Whether dogs bred for this purpose have higher olfactory capacities than other dogs, or even wolves with whom they share a common ancestor, has not yet been studied. Indeed, there is no standard test for assessing canine olfactory ability. This study aimed to create a simple procedure that requires no pre-training and to use it to measure differences in olfactory capacity across four groups of canines: (1) dog breeds that have been selected for their scenting ability; (2) dog breeds that have been bred for other purposes; (3) dog breeds with exaggerated short-nosed features; and (4) hand-reared grey wolves. The procedure involved baiting a container with raw turkey meat and placing it under one of four identical ceramic pots. Subjects were led along the row of pots and were tasked with determining by olfaction alone which of them contained the bait. There were five levels of increasing difficulty determined by the number of holes on the container’s lid. A subsample of both dogs and wolves was retested to assess reliability. The results showed that breeds selected for scent work were better than both short-nosed and non-scent breeds. In the most difficult level, wolves and scenting breeds performed better than chance, while non-scenting and short-nosed breeds did not. In the retested samples wolves improved their success; however, dogs showed no change in their performances indicating that a single test may be reliable enough to assess their capacity. Overall, we revealed measurable differences between dog breeds in their olfactory abilities and suggest that the Natural Detection Task is a good foundation for developing an efficient way of quantifying them.

A vaddiszno a vadgazd alkodas szamara jelen t ő s bevet elt j elen t, szabad terul eten a llo- manya fol yam atosan n ő ; a vaddisznos kerti vadaszat iran ti ig enyeket megis eg yre nehezebb teljesite- ni, habar a kertb en lev ő allomany ok nag y resze befogasbol szar mazik . Ahhoz, ho gy a par napos v ada- szat s oran a k ertet uz em elte t ő k b iztosit ani tud jak a vendeg ek a ltal „elv art” n agy teritek ű vadaszatok at, nag y letszamban kell tar taniuk a vaddisznoka t. Ez pedig sokszor nag y alloman ys ű r ű seggel is p arosul, aminek oka a kis, altalaban 200 es 500 hek tar ko zotti kiterjedes ű terul et. Zart tar tasban, leg yen az va- daszati celu ker t, vag y hus term elest szolga lo far m, a s peci alis eletkorulm enyek miatt a z eg yedek vi- selkedese meg f og valto zni a szabadteru leti tarsaikhoz kep est. A v izsgalat soran szabadteruleti es k erti alloman yok, kon dak viselked esbeli kulonbseg eit vizsga ltuk eg y taplalek-kompeti cios hely zetb en, ra- vilagitva ig y azo kra a lehetseges okokra, amely ek miatt a kertek t obbsege nem on fenntar to, az ottani szaporulat jelen t ő s resze elhullik . Az er edmen yeink alap jan elm ondhato, hog y a vaddisznoskertben me gn ő tt az eg yedek szocialis interakci okkal to ltott ideje, mig a tapl alkozasra for ditott id ejuk ped ig jelent ő sen kev esebb volt. A kerti kocakat tek intv e, jelen t ő sen megn ő tt agr essziot fig yelh ettunk m eg. Osszessegeben elmondhato, hog y a nag yobb alloman ys ű r ű seg okozta stressz a malacokra volt jelen- t ő s hatassal, mely negativ h atas ok azonban eddigi vizsgalataink ered men yei es javaslataink alapjan csokkenthet ő ek lennenek .

Interest in wild boar hunting has been growing, so the importance of wild boar preserves has also increased. Different opinions exist regarding the optimal size of these preserves, notably regarding the optimal number of artificial feeding sites and the distance between them because those strongly affect the behavior of the animals. In this study, wild boars' feeding habits were examined in a preserve of 300 ha. We wondered how the animals would use 4 feeders. More specifically, we assessed whether wild boars would share or divide the feeders among themselves and how the distances between the feeders would influence their feeding habits. We marked the forage (corn) of each feeder with glitter of 4 different colors. After a first observation, we repeated this intervention 4 days later, again with 4 different colors. The glitter was evaluated to ascertain the optimal characteristics of the material: digestibility, ease of identification in the feces, and color fading or change. Feces were collected from selected routes, localized using global positioning system, and the colors were identified. In total, 210 samples were collected and glitter was found in 165 of them. Our results show that wild boars' movements can be estimated through the use of glitter. We could show that 1 animal used several feeders, and the feeders have a remarkable effect on habitat use. The development of this method could significantly help game managers in establishing an optimal feeder configuration. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the wolf Canis lupus was extinct in Hungary and in recent decades has returned to the northern highland area of the country. The diet of wolves living in groups in Aggteleki National Park was investigated using scat analysis ( n = 81 scats) and prey remains ( n = 31 carcasses). Throughout the year wolves (average, minimum two wolves per year) consumed mostly wild-living ungulates (mean percent of biomass consumed, B% 97.2%; relative frequency of occurrence, %O 74.0%). The wild boar Sus scrofa was the most common prey item found in wolf scat (%B 35.6%) and is also the most commonly occurring ungulate in the study areas. The second most commonly occurring prey item in wolf scat was red deer Cervus elaphus (B% 32.8%). Conversely, prey remain analyses revealed wild boar as the second most commonly utilised prey species (%O 16.1%) after red deer (%O 67.7%). The roe deer Capreolus capreolus that occurs at lower population densities was the third most commonly utilised prey species. The importance of low population density mouflon Ovis aries , livestock and other food types was low. The results are similar to those found in the northern part of the Carpathian Mountains.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of area reduction on the hierarchy-dependent behaviors of wild boars and crossbred sows (wild boar X Vietnamese pot-bellied pig) living in captivity, with regard to a food competition situation. We first defined the hierarchy system among 7 individuals, living together for more than a year, with a mathematical model based on wins and defeats. We then tested the possibility of a correspondence between the rank position and the age and/or weight. In a first experiment, we defined the frequency of dominant and submissive behavioral elements depending on the rank and on the group level in a food competition situation. We analyzed individually the time spent feeding. In a second experiment, we reduced the size of their living area and observed the potential modifications of the dominant and submissive elements' frequency as well as the time spent feeding.We found a linear hierarchy among the sows. We did not find any relationship between the rank and the age or the rank and the weight of the animals. However, after excluding the youngest and the lightest leader from the analysis, significant correspondence was found among the aforementioned variables. In such cases, the older and heavier sows occupied the higher ranks in the hierarchy. We also observed that the sow with the higher rank position spent more time feeding and presenting aggressive behaviors compared with the other individuals, whereas the sow with the lowest rank position spent the most time displaying submissive behavior. Moreover, the frequency of dominant and submissive behavioral elements increased when reducing the size of the living area.Based on our results, we found that the area reduction and, therefore, the higher density increased the frequency of aggressive and submissive behavioral elements of the sows. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A vaddiszno negativ hatasat kulonboző veszelyeztetett noveny- es allatfajok populacioira szamos vizsgalat igazolta, ugyanakkor egyes kutatasok jelzik lehetseges pozitiv okologiai szerepet is. A DALERD Zrt kőrosladanyi vaddisznoskertjeben 2007-2010. kozott vizsgaltuk ket vedett novenyfaj allomanyanak alakulasat. Random modon elhelyezett 35 db nyilt es 10 db elkeritett 10 m2-es kvadratban becsultuk a tőszamokat es a bolygatast a vadaszkertben, a nevelőkertben es a kerten kivul. A vaddiszno populaciosűrűsege a nevelőkertben a legmagasabb, mig a kerten kivul szinte nincsen vaddiszno. A ket faj, a sziki kocsord (Peucedanum officinale) es a pettyegetett őszirozsa (Aster sedifolius) eseteben nem talaltunk jelentős karositast a vizsgalati időszak alatt. Nehany helyen megturtak az allatok a talajt a novenyek korul, de a legtobb kvadratban inkabb tőszamnovekedest lehetett kimutatni mindket novenyfaj eseteben. A elkeritett es a nyilt kvadratok tőszama kozott sem talaltunk szignifikans elterest a negy ev soran. Ezek alapjan latszik, hogy erdemes a hatas valos merteket felmerni minden esetben, hogy megtalaljuk a legjobb technologiat es a megfelelő populacio sűrűseget, amellyel a legkisebb mertekre csokkenthetjuk a karokozast es a konfliktusokat.

Game damage to agriculture represents one of the most important and most frequent human–wildlife conflicts worldwide. In Hungary and in the other European countries, damage caused by wild boar (Sus scrofa) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) is the most significant. The volume of damage is correlated with the population density of the game species, however, not exclusively. Since the growing expansion of wild ungulates is a general tendency in Europe, increasing conflicts can be envisaged. The objective of our study was to assess the possible relationships between the amount of agricultural game damage and big game population density considering some other factors (e.g. habitat structure, sown area of cultivated plants) by analysing wildlife management and land-use statistics for the 19 counties of Hungary from 1997 to 2008. According to the results, crop damage positively correlated with the population density of red deer and wild boar, with the length of forest edge, and the proportion of the sown area of maize. According to the regression model, these factors could be accountable for 74.2 % of the total agricultural game damage.