Jennifer Crawley
 


jennifer.a.crawley@utu.fi




ORCID identifierhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5509-652X

my website




Areas of expertise
Human-animal coexistance, Evolutionary biology, Conservation Biology

Research

My general interests lie in human-animal interactions, how they influence animal welfare, and how we can measure these impacts.

Specifically, my PhD is studying elephants working in the timber industry in Myanmar, the largest semi-captive population of Asian elephants in the world, focusing on how the close relationship that they have with the men that they work with (their mahouts) impacts their well-being. Our findings have highlighted changes to the mahout profession in recent decades, with current mahouts being younger and less experienced than in the past, changing elephants more frequently. I specifically focus on how these changing relationships may be impacting the health, behaviour and general well-being of the elephants. 


I am also interested in certain times of conflict within this relationship, looking at the impacts of the taming procedure that elephant calves go through in this population, a time of increased mortality with the aim to improve both population viability and individual welfare.




Teaching

I have been lucky during my PhD to co-supervise multiple Masters students spanning different fields, from veterinary science through to behaviour and cognition. These projects included using behavioural assessments of Asian elephants both to inform animal welfare and as indicators to the quality of relationships between mahouts and elephants, and assessing elephant calf health during and following the taming procedure.



Publications


Last updated on 2023-16-11 at 01:16