Increasing conservation translocation success by building social functionality in released populations

Abstract

The importance of animal behavior to successful wildlife translocations has been acknowledged in recent decades, and it has been increasingly considered and more frequently incorporated into translocation management and research. However, explicit consideration of social behavior is often overlooked in this context. Social relationships take a variety of forms (e.g., cooperative partners, members of a dominance hierarchy, territorial neighbors) and play important roles in survival, reproduction, and resource exploitation. We review the ways in which concepts from studies of social behavior in wild populations may be leveraged to increase translocation success. Social structure and cohesion, social roles, social learning, and social competency may all be important to consider in building populations that are resilient and likely to persist. We argue that relevant data collected at all stages of translocation, including candidate selection, and during pre-release, release, and post-release monitoring, may inform the establishment of functional social structure post-release in species dependent on social processes. Integrating knowledge of social behavior into management decisions may be particularly useful when comparing the success of alternative release protocols or release candidate behavioral traits. Complementary datasets on a range of fitness-related metrics post-release will further leverage our understanding of social establishment in translocated populations. We illustrate the potential of these ideas using Asian and African elephants as a model. Both species are particularly challenging to manage but are translocated frequently; thus, evidence-based protocols for conservation translocations of elephants are urgently needed.