preview

Essay on Aversive Conditioning

Good Essays

Aversive conditioning is a manufactured negative response to certain things, much like the operant conditioning developed by
Skinner. The contingent behavior is behavior that, when performed, results in the delivery of specific consequences or reinforcers. This article described the measures taken to make coyotes stop wanting to kill lambs for food. The authors’ contention is that it may be possible to reconcile the desires of both ranchers and conservationists. The latter group wishes to enable the coyote and, perhaps other predators, to survive in the open range, as they have for millions of years. Species that kill farm animals include others: mountain lions, bears, bobcats, and red wolves as well as coyotes. This paper on aversive …show more content…

They tested their food one bite at a time, waiting between bites to see if they got sick.

In fact, during an earlier experiment with hamburger tainted with lithium the coyotes all became ill. After the coyotes associated the hamburger with emesis, they didn’t even taste hamburger offered to them. Instead, the coyotes urinated on the meat, turned over their meat dish, or actually buried it. The experiment with lithium-laced lamb was a temporarily successful one in that the coyotes were weaned off of lamb meat.

Despite this apparent success, other problems could arise which this experiment did not address. For example, coyotes might not have any other source of food other than lamb. There may or may not be enough other edible things available to enable coyotes to survive. Lamb is a staple food for coyotes in Montana, and other food sources might not replenish that lost by having lamb removed from the coyotes’ diet. It is noted that coyotes feed on mice, squirrels, rabbits, and even grasshoppers. Yet it is by no means certain that these small animals alone would enable coyotes to survive in the wild. Neither author claimed that coyotes kill sheep to drive ranchers out of business, they kill sheep to survive.

Furthermore, wrapping lamb meat in sheep skin, which is how the authors attracted the coyotes, to bait the lithium capsules may not exactly mimic the taste of lamb

Get Access