Wolf Science Center

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Wolf Science Center
founding 2008
place Ernstbrunn
management Kurt Kotrschal , Friederike Range , Zsófia Virányi
Website http://www.wolfscience.at/

The Wolf Science Center or Wolf Science Center ( WSC ) is a research center in Ernstbrunn , Lower Austria , where scientists the cognitive abilities of wolves and dogs to explore. The center is located in the publicly accessible Ernstbrunn Wildlife Park .

Emergence

The Wolf Science Center was originally set up in June 2008 in the Cumberland Wildlife Park in Grünau im Almtal . In 2008 four timber wolves from the Herberstein zoo were raised by hand. In June 2009 the research team and the four wolves moved to the Ernstbrunn Wildlife Park near Ernstbrunn Palace in Lower Austria. In 2009 four more puppies from the USA and two more from Basel Zoo were added. In 2010 two wolves from Canada came to the center.

The three directors of the center are Friederike Range ( University of Vienna ), Zsófia Virányi (University of Vienna, formerly Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognitive Research ) and Kurt Kotrschal (University of Vienna, Konrad Lorenz Research Center ). The official opening of the research institute took place on October 21, 2010.

In 2012, six wolf pups from the United States and Canada also came to the center, so that at that time there are a total of four wolf packs in the WSC.

Infrastructure

The wolves have 16,000 m² in the large enclosures, and the dogs a further 4,000 m² for comparative research. A work building and a test enclosure are available for research.

In October 2010 the new building of the center was opened. The new test building gives visitors to the wildlife park a glimpse into the work of the behavioral researchers using a one-way mirror .

research

Working with timber wolves

The main objective of the center is to collect comparable data on the intelligence performance and ability to cooperate in wolves and dogs. The wolves are raised by hand for this purpose ( hand rearing ). In addition, wolves and dogs are raised, kept and tested under largely identical conditions. This should enable the studies to be compared.

The scientific interest revolves around the cognitive and cooperative abilities of wolves and dogs, especially in connection with their social relationships with conspecifics and human partners. With humans as well as dogs and wolves, cooperation is the basis of the social system. Wolves and dogs are therefore well suited to investigating cooperation with conspecifics and with humans.

The aim of the research is to create a model that includes dogs, wolves and humans and, on this basis, to gain an insight into the evolutionary, emotional and cognitive processes of cooperation and its development on various levels. In collaboration with the Department of Ethology at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest, a publication on the subject of the difference between wolf and dog was created on this basis, which was presented in Science Magazine together with the Wolf Science Center. In 2010 the Wolf Science Center co-organized the Canine Science Forum . In February 2011, a study of the Wolf Science Center in is PLoS ONE published describing that wolves eyes can follow a visual barrier around, this was far in apes and crows found.

In addition to behavioral research , teaching is also carried out at the Wolf Science Center.

public relation

The Wolf Science Center operates a blog . At the weekends there are guided tours in the center.

In 2008, a three-part series was filmed in the ORF's science magazine Newton about the Wolf Science Center and broadcast in 2009. The center became more widely known in the spring of 2010 when the wolf pups from Canada arrived late due to the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland . In December 2010, ORF broadcast three episodes of its television series Universums via the Wolf Science Center.

Publications

  • Márta Gácsi, Borbála Győri, Zsófia Virányi, Enikö Kubinyi, Friederike Range and others: Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills . In: PLoS One . tape 4 , no. 8 , 2009, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0006584 .
  • Friederike Range, Zsófia Virányi: Development of Gaze Following Abilities in Wolves (Canis Lupus) . In: PLoS One . tape 6 , no. 2 , 2011, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0016888 .
  • Francesco Mazzini, Simon W. Townsend, Zsófia Virányi, Friederike Range: Wolf Howling Is Mediated by Relationship Quality Rather Than Underlying Emotional Stress . In: Current Biology . 2013, doi : 10.1016 / j.cub.2013.06.066 .
  • Friederike Range, Zsófia Virányi: Wolves Are Better Imitators of Conspecifics than Dogs . In: PLoS One . 2014, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0086559 .

Web links

Wildlife park plans:

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Offspring landed for Wolf Science Center , ORF (queried on April 21, 2010)
  2. ↑ a b c d Research Center for Wolves and Dogs. Online newspaper of the University of Vienna, October 14, 2010 (accessed October 30, 2010).
  3. ↑ You cannot say no to wolf pups. In: Die Presse online, June 12, 2012 (accessed October 9, 2012).
  4. ↑ Window to the World of Wolves . In: DerStandard. Print edition October 22, 2010.
  5. ↑ Wolf-Dog-Man. ( Memento from April 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) WSC's own presentation, wolfscience.at, accessed in October 2010.
  6. ↑ The dog - a special case of evolution? WDR television, onA
  7. ↑ Márta Gácsi, Borbála Gyoöri u. a .: Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills. In: PLoS ONE. 4, 2009, p. E6584, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0006584 .
  8. ^ V. Morell: Going to the Dogs In: Science 2009, 325 (5944): 1062-5. doi : 10.1126 / science.325_1062
  9. ↑ Description of the study on the Wolf Science Center website ( memento from October 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on March 23, 2010)
  10. ↑ University of Vienna, Canine Science Forum (queried on September 2, 2010 in English)
  11. ↑ Got the dog . University of Vienna: The University Online. dieuniversitaet-online.at, requested on July 28, 2010.
  12. ↑ Wolves also know: one look often says a lot! medienportal.univie.ac.at.
  13. ↑ Friederike Range, Zsófia Virányi, Doug Wylie: Development of Gaze Following Abilities in Wolves (Canis lupus). In: PLoS ONE. 6, 2011, p. E16888, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0016888 .
  14. ↑ Homepage Wolf Science Center. Wolf Science Center, accessed November 17, 2009 .
  15. ^ Diary. ( Memento of August 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Website of the Wolf Science Center (accessed on August 31, 2015).
  16. ↑ ORF description of the Newton broadcast ( memento from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (requested on November 17, 2009)
  17. ↑ Offspring for Wolf Science Center come later. In: Kronen Zeitung online, April 18, 2010 (accessed October 30, 2010).
  18. ↑ "Universe" is "in cahoots with wolves" ( memento from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), ORF program from December 14, 2010.

Coordinates: 48 ° 32 ′ 38 "  N , 16 ° 20 ′ 58"  E