Big Cats Brainstorm
- Start with environment – laser lights, pressure sensors, all
re-programmable. Create a stalking zone. System
can collect data to show audience – relating to speed of
attack, frequency etc.
- Rustling plants and shadows, use acoustics and lights to
generate sense that prey is in area.
- Stalking – have to keep low to avoid breaking light
beam. Animal detects where to go, if behaviour ok,
triggers the hunt. System may require training to enable
animal to play with it
- Release scent unexpectedly – via dispensers or tokens to
carry to feeders
- Multiple scents in different areas for complexity
- Lure – move slowly then fast, track predator behaviour
Discussion point - Can sensor detect slow and fast?
Looking at shape of animal. PIR needs rapid motion to
trigger response.
“modal action patterns”.
Monitor biological changes – “optimal response”
Scene domain cues v reliable signals
Discussion point – is training enriching?
Contrast consistency with dynamic patterns
- Ninja Stalk Creep - Undergrowth sensors – don’t make a
noise, have to be stealthy
- Pressure plates on ground, in a grid, changeable targets
(think Indiana Jones) – soft paw doesn’t trigger but raises
acoustic alarm, full weight does
- Ambush – waiting is required. Catapult food into bin, where
it’s unobtainable – has to catch in mid-air
- Get attention away from keepers, using RC sounds to attract
around enclosure.
Discussion point - Carnivores – gorging until satiated.
More than bite-sized treats.
Carcas to share for social hierarchy.
Big Cats Brief
LARGE FELIDS (Mark Kingston-Jones)
In many countries it is illegal to provide live prey to
stimulate hunting behaviour in captive carnivores, and without a
chance to escape and the potential for suffering of the prey
species it would be unethical to do so. Yet hunting behaviour
plays a crucial component in natural behaviour and it is
therefore vital to find ways to simulate either various aspects,
or the full repertoire of hunting behaviour for large cats in
captivity.
Lindburg (1988) summarised the four components of hunting
behaviour of large felids as firstly locating food, through
travelling and detecting, secondly the capture, entailing either
stalking, scavenger hunting, coursing or ambushing, thirdly
killing through disabling and dispatching, and finally the
processing. Lindburg (1988) states that 'each component entails
a considerable expenditure of effort, and brings into use the
appropriate foraging and feeding equipment, i.e., the sensory
modalities, the limbs, claws, teeth and jaws' all of which is
important to the carnivores physical and psychological health.
With this in mind, Mark would like to set the goal of
simulating the first two components of hunting behaviour through
the specific expression of locating, detecting, stalking,
chasing and ambushing for species like lions, tigers, leopards
and jaguars.
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