While others study pictures at an exhibition, Wanja Rast, Leon M.F. Barthel, and Anne Berger study hedgehogs at a music festival.
They wrote this report about it: “Music festival makes hedgehogs move: How individuals cope behaviorally in response to human-induced stressors,” Wanja Rast, Leon M.F. Barthel, and Anne Berger, Animals, IX/7 [2019] pp. 2–19. (Thanks to Jim Cowdery for bringing this to our attention.)
The authors at Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and the Berlin Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Germany, report:
“We remotely observed eight hedgehogs in a Berlin city park before and during a music festival using measuring devices attached to their bodies. While the actual festival only lasted two days (with about 70,000 visitors each day), setting the area up and removing the stages and stalls took 17 days in total. Construction work continued around the clock, causing an increase in light, noise and human presence throughout the night. In response, the hedgehogs showed clear changes in their behavior in comparison to the 19-day period just before the festival. We found, however, that different individuals responded differently to these changes in their environment. This individuality and behavioral flexibility could be one reason why hedgehogs are able to live in big cities.”