Jogging wolves and dogs …the worlds biggest treadmill at the WSC

News, 27.08.2011, Kurt Kotrschal

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Megacool !!!, as local kids would put it. Since the 26th of August the worlds biggest treadmill became functional at the WSC, built by  Physio-Tech Kiel, with an area of 2.5mx10.5m, running between 0 and 40km/hour.

Now training of wolves and dogs can start. On their own or in packs our 4-pawned partners can now run for their prey/food. Thereby we will be able to simulate many facetts of social hunting. Initially, we will measure heart rates at different velocities as a proxy tot he energetics of hunting in wolves. Later we will combine different wolves to investigate various aspects of cooperation during hunting.

Very exciting! We will start by habituating our animals tot he treadmill, our trainers will certainly get even more work now. Already the habituation and training sessions wit individual wolves/dogs will be used for data collection. New PhD Maja Stojcev will concentrate on this project.

Hence, the WSC not only now has the appropriate animals to do routine experimental canid research, but increasingly, unique gadgets for innovative science. At the same time the treadmill will improve the quality of life of our wolves and dogs even further. Guess no other group of captive wolves worldwide hast he opportunity to engage in simulated hunts (except, of course Wolfpark, Indiana, where regular confrontations between wolves and Bison are staged). From Spring 2012 Game Park Ernstbrunn visitors will be able to watch wolves and dogs running.

In fact, a good measure of cracyness was required in three groups of people, to make this dream come true: in the WSC-team, which persued this idea for quite a while, in the Physio-Tech company Kiel, who had the courage to construct a totally new prototype from scratch (after all, the treadmisll has about 6 tons (6000kg). And finally, we are proud that the Faculty of Life Science oft he University of Vienna was sufficiently corageous and trusting to provide the main funding oft he treadmill. We will try hard to turn this investment into plenty of innovative science.