Date of Award:

5-1984

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Wildland Resources

Department name when degree awarded

Fisheries and Wildlife

Committee Chair(s)

David F. Balph

Committee

David F. Balph

Committee

Frederick F. Knowlton

Committee

Carl Cheney

Abstract

This study investigated the acquisition of food by hand-reared coyotes, Canis latrans, of different social rank in a familiar area with and without novel objects (safe and potentially unsafe conditions). The first objective was to test the hypothesis that dominant animals are more hesitant than subordinates in approaching food in the presence of a novel stimulus. The results were that dominant pups usually were the first to feed in the absence of novel stimulus, and subordinate pups were the first to feed when novel objects were present. The second objective was to see if the behavior of subordinates in the above test was caused by the presence of a

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3ee11380bc8927590acec1daf441dacc

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