Abstract：
In Australia, wild dogs are one of the leading causes of sheep losses. A major problem with managing wild dogs in Australia\'s rangeland environments is that sheep producers are often unaware of their presence until injuries or deaths are observed. One option for earlier detection of wild dogs is on-animal sensors, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking collars, to detect changes in the behaviour of sheep due to the presence of wild dogs. The current study used spatio-temporal data, derived from GPS tracking collars, deployed on sheep from a single rangeland property to determine if there were differences in the behaviour of sheep when in the presence, or absence, of a wild dog. Results indicated that the presence of a wild dog influenced the daily behaviours of sheep by increasing the daily distance travelled. Differences in sheep diurnal activity were also observed during periods where a wild dog was present or absent on the property. These results highlight the potential for on-animal sensors to be used as a monitoring tool for sheep flocks directly impacted by wild dogs, although further work is needed to determine the applicability of these results to other sheep production regions of Australia.
摘要：
在澳大利亚,野狗是羊损失的主要原因之一。在澳大利亚牧场环境中管理野狗的一个主要问题是，在观察到受伤或死亡之前，绵羊生产者通常不知道它们的存在。早期检测野狗的一个选择是动物传感器，如全球定位系统(GPS)跟踪项圈，检测由于野狗的存在而引起的绵羊行为的变化。当前的研究使用了时空数据，来自GPS跟踪项圈，部署在来自单一牧场财产的绵羊上，以确定在存在时绵羊的行为是否存在差异，或缺席，一只野狗。结果表明，野狗的存在通过增加每天的行进距离来影响绵羊的日常行为。在该物业上存在或不存在野狗的时期，还观察到绵羊昼夜活动的差异。这些结果突出了动物传感器作为直接受野狗影响的羊群的监测工具的潜力，尽管需要进一步的工作来确定这些结果在澳大利亚其他绵羊生产地区的适用性。
