Hook Avoidance Induced by Private and Social Learning in Common Carp

Abstract

It is essential for fish to respond appropriately when faced with a threatening situation. Accordingly, fish are able to reduce predation risk through learning. In addition to privately learned experiences, fish can acquire social information about a threat by observing the response of conspecifics and use such public information to adapt future behavior through learning. It is unclear if social learning can also influence the behavioral response of fish when faced with human-induced threats in the form of angling. Using an experimental approach in the laboratory, we examined the influence of private (i.e., direct experience of hooking) and social information on angling vulnerability in Common Carp Cyprinus carpio-a species regularly exposed to catch-and-release angling. Compared with control groups, individuals with direct or social experience of catch-and-release angling expressed significantly elevated hook avoidance behavior during a short-term vulnerability assessment hours after a catch-and-release experience. In the medium-term vulnerability assessment, conducted within days after the threat event, fish with direct hooking experience continued to exhibit decreased angling vulnerability, whereas the social experience of catch and release did not consistently reduce angling vulnerability compared with controls. Yet, in a subsequent trial within days after the threat exposure, we found that fish with direct hooking experience and fish with only social hooking experience were both more cautious towards bait (corn) in the presence of a sham rig (i.e., a hookless rig with bait) than when only exposed to bait without a rig. Collectively, these results indicated that the combined influence of direct and social experience of catchand-release angling induced a hook avoidance behavior in Common Carp. The extent to which the phenomenon of social hook avoidance learning exists in other recreationally targeted fish species and in the wild deserves further attention because of the potential to affect catch rates and population-level catchability.

Capture Is Predicted by Behavior and Size, Not Metabolism, in Muskellunge

“…2018; Lovén Wallerius et al. 2020). Therefore, the low overall capture rate may have occurred due to learning as Muskellunge developed a negative association with lures or the presence of anglers at the ponds.…”

Relationships of scale cortisol content suggests stress resilience in freshwater fish vulnerable to catch-and-release angling in recreational fisheries

“…Although knowledge of how multiple captures affect individual fish behaviour and physiology is more limited, evidence suggests that fishes which are captured can often then demonstrate ‘hook avoidance’ behaviours that reduces their subsequent capture vulnerability. For example, Raat (1985) demonstrated that after carp were hooked once, their vulnerability to subsequent capture was decreased, with experiments by Lovén Wallerius et al (2020) indicating that in addition to direct experience of angling capture leading to hook avoidance, carp can also develop these behaviours through social learning alone. Although domesticated strains of carp are bolder and more vulnerable to angling capture than wild strains, the development of hook avoidance behaviours are similar across both strains (Kleforth et al, 2013).…”

Smart sharks: a review of chondrichthyan cognition

“…Interestingly, sharks learned to avoid being recaptured during this study. Learned hook avoidance is quite common in fishes (Lovén Wallerius et al 2020 ).…”