Exposure to humans and task difficulty levels affect wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) learning.

ABSTRACT: Cognition helps wildlife exploit novel resources and environments. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) have successfully adapted to human presence, in part due to their cognitive abilities. However, interactions between humans and wildlife can create conflict. A better understanding of the raccoon's behavioral flexibility and learning ability could mitigate some conflicts. Our objective was to evaluate wild raccoons learning in contexts varying in terms of exposure to humans (recreational and preservation zoning within protected areas) and task difficulty. Learning can be evaluated over multiple exposures to a cognitive task. Across three years of experiment, we employed 2 food extraction tasks to gauge the change in problem-solving performance over trials. This assessment considered the succe

SUBMITTER: Lazure L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11190377 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature