Physiological and behavioral reactions elicited by simulated and real-life visual and acoustic helicopter stimuli in dairy goats

BMC Veterinary Research

Research Article

Teun Schuurman¹  Jan van der Meulen¹  Franz Josef van der Staay²  Martin Joosse³  Henk van Dijk³ 

[1] BioMedical Research, Wageningen University and Research Center, Lelystad, The Netherlands;BioMedical Research, Wageningen University and Research Center, Lelystad, The Netherlands;Program Emotion Cognition, Department of Farm Animal Health, Veterinary Faculty, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands;National Aerospace Laboratory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;

关键词: Visual Stimulus;    Cortisol Level;    Stimulus Presentation;    Salivary Cortisol;    Acoustic Stimulus;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1746-6148-7-16

 received in 2010-10-29, accepted in 2011-04-15,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAnecdotal reports and a few scientific publications suggest that flyovers of helicopters at low altitude may elicit fear- or anxiety-related behavioral reactions in grazing feral and farm animals. We investigated the behavioral and physiological stress reactions of five individually housed dairy goats to different acoustic and visual stimuli from helicopters and to combinations of these stimuli under controlled environmental (indoor) conditions. The visual stimuli were helicopter animations projected on a large screen in front of the enclosures of the goats. Acoustic and visual stimuli of a tractor were also presented. On the final day of the study the goats were exposed to two flyovers (altitude 50 m and 75 m) of a Chinook helicopter while grazing in a pasture. Salivary cortisol, behavior, and heart rate of the goats were registered before, during and after stimulus presentations.ResultsThe goats reacted alert to the visual and/or acoustic stimuli that were presented in their room. They raised their heads and turned their ears forward in the direction of the stimuli. There was no statistically reliable rise of the average velocity of moving of the goats in their enclosure and no increase of the duration of moving during presentation of the stimuli. Also there was no increase in heart rate or salivary cortisol concentration during the indoor test sessions. Surprisingly, no physiological and behavioral stress responses were observed during the flyover of a Chinook at 50 m, which produced a peak noise of 110 dB.ConclusionsWe conclude that the behavior and physiology of goats are unaffected by brief episodes of intense, adverse visual and acoustic stimulation such as the sight and noise of overflying helicopters. The absence of a physiological stress response and of elevated emotional reactivity of goats subjected to helicopter stimuli is discussed in relation to the design and testing schedule of this study.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© van der Staay et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.