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1. OBJECTIVES

Early decades of the development of ethology often involved hand raising animals which enabled scientists to make intimate observations on tame individuals. Lorenz and Tinbergen would have been unable to study the egg rolling of geese without raising goslings imprinted to humans and showing no avoidance during the later observations and experiments. Nevertheless, hand raising may also result in distorted behaviour if species specific forms of social responses cannot be learnt from conspecific partners. During this practical, we will study how handling, exposing the animals to several stimuli of human origin, affects the later responses of the handled animals to humans. We will thus compare the behaviour of both handled and non-handled individuals. We expect that handling will be most effective if applied in the sensitive period of conspecific recognition development of the rabbit. Data on the fear reactions will be recorded and groups of handled and non-handled individuals compared.