Factors influencing the acquisition of an attraction response to human provisioning by bottlenose dolphins in Cockburn Sound

The contribution of four factors to the acquisition of attraction responses to human provisioning by dolphins in Cockburn Sound: 1) individual patterns in the use of high boat density areas; 2) age-class; 3) sex; and 4) close associations with 'experienced' individuals (i.e. individuals that had previously become conditioned to human provisioning) were considered using unpublished data from Rebecca Donaldson (1993-1997) and original data collected for the thesis (2000-2003) from Cockburn Sound. The overall objectives were: (a) to identify and characterise predictor variables for the acquisition of an attraction response; (b) to examine interactions between these variables; and (c) to address the potential influence of social learning.