Recent research analyzing the behavior of sharks captures the animal's remarkable ability to realize whether the smell of prey would lead to feeding opportunities or not. Apparently, the sharks are observed to lose natural response to prey if they are not rewarded frequently.
Port Jackson Sharks Seen Realizing if Prey Leads to Food
Recent research studying the behavior of Port Jackson sharks observed the animal's ability to realize when the smell of their prey will lead to feeding opportunities or not.
The study led by ecologists from Flinders University and Macquarie University showed how sharks responded to the smell of food. It showed how the animals declined their prey if not sufficiently rewarded by the promise of a meal, suggesting they learn to avoid wasting energy and time on inaccessible food sources.
The results of the research published in the journal Animal Behavior, titled "Shark habituation to a food-related olfactory cue," is a catalyst for a deeper understanding of the evolutionary ability of sharks to learn and their response to tourism that uses smell or food to attract sharks to the proximity of visitors.
The team used three groups of captive Port Jackson sharks to observe the animal's response to smell across various reward frequencies. The first group of sharks was rewarded with food each time they reached a set target; the second group only received rewards every other day, while the third group was never awarded.
The sharks that received rewards regularly learned the task quickly and became faster and better at reaching their target. However, the opposite can be said for the un-rewarded sharks; researchers observed a significant reduction of the sharks' natural response to stimulus and smell of potential food, with sharks no longer leaving their starting stations.
Dennis Heinrich, the lead author of the study, explains that the team's study shows that while shark behavior changes when rewarded frequently with food, the learned response diminishes when the frequency of the reward decrease and even disappears when no reward is given to EurekAlert.
He adds that the observed decline in the sharks' response to repeated stimuli or habituation could be a driver for optimal foraging strategies, which enabled sharks to quickly abandon low-yielding patches in search of far more productive sites.
Professor Charlie Huveneers at Flinders University explains that there's still far more we don't know about sharks.
Shark Behavior and Wildlife Tourism
Huveneeers adds that one of the frequent questions he is asked is whether sharks can learn and how it relates to wildlife tourism that uses smell and food to attract sharks. He explains that from the perspective of wildlife tourism, the recent study results show that learned behavior can be reduced by decreasing the frequency of feeding; however, using olfactory cues only may not always be enough to stimulate the sharks, reports DailyMail.
The information gained from the study helps researchers with the learned behavior and habituation of sharks when managing wildlife tourism in the future. A balance needs to be found between minimizing behavioral response and attracting sharks for tourism.
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